17 of the Craziest Reasons for Denying Women’s Suffrage Throughout History

17 of the Craziest Reasons for Denying Women’s Suffrage Throughout History

Trista - October 5, 2018

17 of the Craziest Reasons for Denying Women’s Suffrage Throughout History
Pin advocating women’s suffrage. Cincinnati Museum Center

1. Women Would Merely Double Their Husbands’ Votes

This argument, which was published in anti-suffrage propaganda, relied on the underlying logic of mathematics. After all, if something proves to be as simple as basic arithmetic, then how could it not be true? Well, if the underlying assumptions that you are making are incorrect, then the “basic arithmetic” won’t ever add up.

One of those incorrect assumptions is that women will vote in the same way as their husbands. After all, as we have previously seen, men always voted in ways that would befit their wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters! If the men would so lovingly vote in such a fashion, then it only stands to reason that the women would vote in the same way. As a result, these men would functionally be given two votes. Not too many men agreed with this reasoning on a practical level. After all, if they did, they would be quite keen to push for women’s suffrage, as this would double (or triple or quadruple, depending on how many women were in their families) their voting power!

As modern politicians know, they must court the women’s vote, as it often does differ from the men’s vote. Issues that relate to gender equality, like equal pay for equal work and policies that protect women from sexual harassment, tend to be of more concern for women than they are for men. It is not automatically given just because the men in their lives feel a certain way about different issues.

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