Marie Jenny Howe
Woman suffrage advocate Marie Jenny Howe punches holes in the contradictory arguments put forth by anti-suffragists in this amusing essay, written in 1913. Excerpted from Marie Jenny Howe, An Anti-Suffrage Monologue (New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1913).
Hint for students: this is satire.
Please do not think of
me as old-fashioned. I pride myself on
being a modern up-to-date woman. I
believe in all kinds of broad-mindedness, only I do not believe in woman
suffrage because to do that would be to deny my sex.
Woman suffrage is the reform against
nature. Look at these ladies sitting on the platform. Observe their physical inability, their mental disability, their
spiritual instability and general debility!
Could they walk up to the ballot box, mark a ballot and drop it in? Obviously not. Let us grant for the sake of argument that they could mark a
ballot. But could they drop it in? Ah, no.
All nature is against it. The
laws of man cry out against it. The
voice of God cries out against it – and so do I.
Enfranchisement is what makes man
man. Disfranchisement is what makes
woman woman. If women were enfranchised
every man would be just like every woman and every woman would be just like
every man. There would be no difference
between them. And don’t you think this
would rob life of just a little of its poetry and romance?
Man must remain man. Woman must remain woman. If woman goes over and tries to be like man,
it will become so very confusing and so difficult to explain to our
children. Let us take a practical
example. If a woman puts on a man’s
coat and trousers, takes a man’s cane and hat and cigar and goes out on the
street, what will happen to her? She will be arrested and thrown into
jail. Then why not stay at home?
I know you begin to see how strongly I feel on this subject, but I have some
reasons as well. These reasons are
based on logic. Of course I am not
logical. I am a creature of impulse,
instinct, and intuition – and I glory in it.
But I know that these reasons are based on logic because I have culled
them from the men whom it is my privilege to know.
My first argument against suffrage is
that the women would not use it if they had it. You couldn’t drive them to the polls. My second argument is, if the women were enfranchised they would
neglect their home, desert their families and spend all their time at the
polls. You may tell me that the polls are only open once a year. But I know women. They are creatures of habit.
If you let them go to the polls once a year, they will hang round the
polls all the rest of the time.
I have arranged these arguments in
couplets. They go together in such a
way that if you don’t like one you can take the other. This is my second anti-suffrage
couplet. If the women were enfranchised
they would vote exactly as their husbands do and only double the existing vote. Do you like that argument? If not, take this one. If the women were enfranchised they would
vote against their own husbands, thus creating dissension, family quarrels, and
divorce.
My third anti-suffrage couplet is –
women are angels. Many men call me an
angel and I have a strong instinct which tells me it is true; that is why I am
an anti, because “I want to be an angel and with the angels stand.” And if you
don’t like that argument take this one.
Women are depraved. They would
introduce into politics a vicious element which would ruin our national life.
Fourth anti-suffrage couplet:
women cannot understand politics.
Therefore there would be no use in giving women political power, because
they would not know what to do with it.
On the other hand, if the women were enfranchised, they would mount
rapidly into power, take all the office from all the men, and soon we would
have women governors of all our states and dozens of women acting as President
of the United States.
Fifth anti-suffrage couplet: women
cannot band together. They are
incapable of organization. No two women
can even be friends. Women are
cats. On the other hand, if women were
enfranchised, we would have all the women banded together on the other side,
and there would follow a sex war which might end in bloody revolution.
Just one more of my little couplets:
the ballot is greatly over-estimated.
It has never done anything for anybody.
Lots of men tell me this. And
the corresponding argument is – the ballot is what makes man man. It is what gives him all his dignity and all
of his superiority to women. Therefore
if we allow women to share this privilege, how could a woman look up to her own
husband? Why, there would be nothing to look up to.
I have talked to many woman suffragists
and I find them very unreasonable. I
say to them: “Here I am, convince me.”
I ask for proof. Then they
proceed to tell me of Australia and Colorado and other places where women have
passed excellent laws to improve the condition of working women and
children. But I say, “What of it?”
These are facts. I don’t care about
facts. I ask for proof.
Then they quote the eight million women
of the United States who are now supporting themselves, and the twenty-five
thousand married women in the City of New York who are self-supporting. But I say again, what of it? These are statistics. I don’t believe in statistics. Facts and statistics are things which no
truly womanly woman would ever use.
I wish to prove anti-suffrage in a
womanly way – that is, by personal example.
This is my method of persuasion.
Once I saw a woman driving a horse, and the horse ran away with
her. Isn’t that just like a woman? Once I read in the newspapers about a woman
whose house caught on fire, and she threw the children out the window and
carried the pillows downstairs. Does
that show political acumen, or does it not?
Besides, look at the hats that women wear! And have you ever known a
successful woman governor of a state? Or have you ever know a really truly
successful woman president of the United States? Well, if they haven’t doesn’t that show they couldn’t? As for the militant suffragettes, they are
all hyenas in petticoats. Now do you
want to be a hyena and wear petticoats?
Now, I think I have proved
anti-suffrage; and I have done it in a womanly way – that is, without stooping
to the use of a single fact or argument or a single statistic.
I am the prophet of a new idea. No one has ever thought of it or heard of it
before. I well remember when this great
idea first came to me. It waked me up
in the middle of the night with a shock that gave me a headache. This is it: woman’s place is in the
home. Is it not beautiful as it is new,
new as it is true? Take this idea away
with you. You will find it very helpful
in your daily lives. You may not grasp
it just at first, but you will gradually grow into understanding of it.
I know the suffragists reply that all our
activities have been taken out of the home.
The baking, the washing, the weaving, the spinning are all long since
taken out of the home. But I say, all the
more reason that something should stay in the home. Let it be woman. Besides,
think of the great modern invention, the telephone. That has been put into the home.
Let woman stay at home and answer the telephone.
We antis have so much imagination! Sometimes it seems to us that we can hear the
little babies in the slums crying to us.
We can see the children in factories and mines reaching out their little
hands to us, and the working women in the sweated industries, the underpaid,
underfed women, reaching out their arms to us – all, all crying as with one
voice, “Save us, save us, from Woman Suffrage.” Well may they make this appeal to us, for who knows what woman
suffrage might not do for such as these.
It might even alter the conditions under which they live.
We antis do not believe that any
conditions should be altered. We want
everything to remain just as it is. All
is for the best. Whatever it is, is
right. If misery is in the world, God
has put it there; let it remain. If
this misery presses harder on some women than others, it is because they need
discipline. Now, I have always been
comfortable and well cared for. But
then I never needed discipline. Of
course I am only a weak, ignorant woman.
But there is one thing I do understand from the ground up, and that is
the divine intention toward woman. I know that the divine intention toward
woman is, let her remain at home.
The great trouble with the suffragists
is this; they interfere too much. They
are always interfering. Let me take a
practical example.
There is in the City of New York a
Nurses’ Settlement, where sixty trained nurses go forth to care for sick babies
and give them pure milk. Last summer
only two or three babies died in this slum district around the Nurses’ Settlement,
whereas formerly hundreds of babies have died there every summer. Now what are these women doing? They seek notoriety. They want to be noticed. They are trying to show off. And if sixty women who merely believe in
suffrage behave in this way, what may we expect when all women are
enfranchised?
What ought these women to do with their
lives? Each one ought to be devoting
herself to the comfort of some man.
You may say, they are not
married. But I answer, let them try a
little harder and they might find some kind of a man to devote themselves
to. What does the Bible say on this
subject? It says, “Seek and ye shall
find.” Besides, when I look around me
at the men, I feel that God never meant us women to be too particular.
Let me speak one word to my sister women who are here today. Women, we don’t need to vote in order to get our own way. Don’t misunderstand me. Of course I want you to get your own way. That’s what we’re here for. But do it indirectly. If you want a thing, tease. If that doesn’t work, nag. If that doesn’t do, cry – crying always brings them around. Get what you want. Pound pillows. Make a scene. Make home a hell on earth, but do it in a womanly way. That is so much more dignified and refined than walking up to a ballot box and dropping in a piece of paper. Can’t you see that?
Let us consider for a moment the effect
of woman’s enfranchisement on man. I
think some one ought to consider the men.,
What makes husbands faithful and loving? The ballot, and the monopoly of that privilege. If women vote, what will become of men? They
will all slink off drunk and disorderly.
We antis understand men. If
women were enfranchised, men would revert to their natural instincts such as
regicide, matricide, patricide, and race-suicide. Do you believe in race-suicide or do you not? Then, isn’t it our duty to refrain from a
thing that would lure men to destruction?
It comes down to us. Some one must wash the dishes. Now, would you expect man, man made in the
image of God, to roll up his sleeves and wash the dishes? Why, it would be blasphemy. I know that I am but a rib and so I wash the
dishes. Or I hire another rib to do it for
me, which amounts to the same thing.
Let us consider the argument from the
standpoint of religion. The Bible says,
“Let the women keep silent in the churches.” Paul says, “Let them keep their
hats on for fear of the angels.” My
minister says, “Wives, obey your husbands.”
And my husband says that women suffrage would rob the rose of its
fragrance and the peace of its bloom. I
think that is so sweet.
Besides did George Washington ever say,
“Votes for women?” No. Did the Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm ever say, “Votes for
women?” No. Did Elijah, Elisha, Micah, Hezekiah, Obadiah and Jeremiah ever say,
“Votes for women?” No. Then that
settles it.
I don’t want to be misunderstood in my
reference to woman’s inability to vote.
Of course she could get herself to the polls and lift a piece of
paper. I don’t doubt that. What I refer to is the pressure on the
brain, the effect of this mental strain on woman’s delicate nervous
organization and on her highly wrought sensitive nature. Have you ever pictured to yourself Election
Day with women voting? Can you imagine
how women, having undergone this terrible ordeal, with their delicate systems
all upset, will come out of the voting booths and be led away by policemen, and
put into ambulances, while they are fainting and weeping, half laughing, half
crying, and having fits upon the public highway? Don’t you think that if a woman is going to have a fit, it is far
better for her to have it in the privacy of her own home?
And how shall I picture to you the
terrors of the day after election?
Divorce and death will race unchecked, crime and contagious disease will
stalk unbridled through the land. Oh,
friends, on this subject I feel – I feel, so strongly that I can – not think!