Unbelievable Yet True Justifications Men Used To Keep Women From Voting

That’s right. Some people believed that if women won the right to vote, the entire human species would die out. This argument was often cited by anti-suffrage leaders who believed that “if women become involved in politics, they will stop marrying, having children, and the human race will die out.” Astonishingly, nearly a century has passed since women got the right to vote and humanity is still here.

Ah, the old favorite “women are too emotional to (insert task you don't want women to perform here).” Unfortunately, this is a belief that persists to this day. While there are many accounts of why women are too emotional to vote, one man’s declaration at a town meeting states:

"A woman's brain involves emotion rather than intellect; and whilst this feature fits her admirably as a creature burdened with the preservation and happiness of the human species, it painfully disqualifies her for the sterner duties to be performed by the intellectual faculties. Never mind the fact that history is riddled with brilliant female strategists who navigated their nations into some of their most glorious ages."

In a pamphlet arguing for women’s right to vote, minister and activist Thomas Wentworth Higginson outlines some of the common justifications against women’s suffrage. One unsurprising reason some men did not want women to get the vote was because they did not want to hear women talk about politics. The pamphlet cites the following as a common complaint about women’s suffrage: “I should not wish to hear my wife in town meeting.” The "now go make me a sandwich" is implied.

Opponents of the suffrage movement believed that a woman’s role was to birth and raise sons who would then grow up and engage in politics - always voting in their mother’s interest, of course. Texas Democratic Congressman Martin Dies said:

“I still adhere to the old-fashioned belief that the hand that rocks the cradle wields a better and a stronger influence upon the Nation than the hand that writes the ballot. A nation that has good mothers to mold the boys will never want for good men to make the ballots."

As one member of the British Parliament put it, “The fundamental error in all of this reasoning is that women constitute a class apart... for all practical purposes women are already represented by their husbands, sons, and brothers.”

Surprisingly, it wasn't only men who were against women voting. Many anti-suffrage groups were run by women. Anti-suffragist Grace Saxon Mills, who was a member of the Woman’s National Anti-Suffrage League in England, shared a similar sentiment, writing, “Past legislation in Parliament shows that the interests of women are perfectly safe in the hands of men.” Interestingly enough, while the League believed women shouldn’t be given the national vote, they supported women voting in local elections. 

Congressman William Mulkey believed that women had no reason to want to vote, not when America gave every woman everything they wanted and more. After all, men were always casting their votes with women’s needs in mind. During a congressional debate, Mulkey said the following:

“The great cry is that woman should be allowed to vote in order to protect themselves. Against what? Do men oppress them? Do we act toward them as though they were not American citizens or entitled to the protection of our laws? On the contrary, we show them every consideration, provide for their safety, and protect their interest always and everywhere.”