Category: sexism
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Who couldn’t vote in 1891?
The Illinois state constitution stated: “Idiots, lunatics, paupers, felons and women shall not be entitled to vote.” That law, we think, provides an indication of the status of women in the United States—and of the need for women’s suffrage.
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Suffragette or suffragist?
The term suffragette was most often used to refer to British women. American women generally preferred to be called suffragists—because they wanted to distance themselves from the more militant suffragettes in Great Britain. When the term suffragette was used in the United States, it was usually a term of derision or disrespect. The distinction between…
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Who can vote?
In 1891, the Illinois constitution declared: “Idiots, lunatics, paupers, felons and women shall not be entitled to vote.”
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Trust in God
During the struggle for women’s suffrage, some men—and even some women—seemed to think that the Bible says that women shouldn’t vote. “Trust in God,” Emmeline Pankhurst said. “She will provide.”
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We, the people
“It was we, the people,” declared Susan B. Anthony. “Not we, the white male citizens. Nor yet, we, the male citizens, but we, the whole people, who formed the Union….Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”
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Want equality?
“If women want any rights more than they’s got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it,” said Sojourner Truth.
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The vote is power
The suffragettes battled more than seven decades to win the right to vote, writes Elaine Weiss in her book The Woman’s Hour. Finally, in 1920, after the Nineteenth Amendment had passed, Carrie Catt, one of the leading suffragettes, wrote to the women voters of the nation: “Women have suffered agony of soul which you never…
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Why shouldn’t women vote?
During the summer of 1920, the anti-suffragettes offered plenty of reasons. “I would rather see my daughter in a coffin than at the polls,” one father exclaimed during floor debate in Little Rock. And, the liquor industry feared the “dry” ladies who want to enforce Prohibition, Elaine Weiss reports in her book The Woman’s Hour.…
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Almost 500 petitions
On the first Tuesday of November 1872, more than 150 women around the country, including Susan Anthony, tried to vote. Susan Anthony was arrested, but she didn’t give up. “Failure is impossible,” she told her followers. Finally, in August 1920, Tennessee voted for ratification of the 19th Amendment and women were given the right to…
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Complete equality
“There will never be complete equality until women themselves help to make the laws and elect lawmakers,” Susan B. Anthony once said. I found this quote recently when I visited the “With Liberty and Justice for All” exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Detroit. –Joy