Gaslighting the Suffragettes
Because suffrage would create feminized men and remorseful women!
How did the pro-male establishment gaslight the suffrage movement?
A main argument was that it would disrupt the natural (and complementary) differences between men and women. According to this view, men were suited for the public sphere of politics, business, and war, while women were suited for the private sphere of home, family, and religion.
Giving women the vote would upset this balance and cause confusion and conflict in both spheres. Plus, it would undermine the authority of men as the heads of households.
The cartoon (above) typifies the traditionalist view that education threatened the ideal of womanhood by leading women away from their domestic duties.
As the young female scholar sleeps, a nightmarish army of domestic chores demands her attention.
Another argument against women's suffrage was that it would endanger the welfare and happiness of women.
Women were better off focusing on their domestic duties and moral influence on their husbands and children!
Voting would distract them from their true purpose and fulfillment as wives and mothers.
These arguments are captured in the 1912 cartoon, “Looking Backward.”
As fame is within her grasp, a sorrowful woman looks back at the joy she has surrendered in her quest for a career, success and the vote.
The discarded children and blooming flowers of domesticity, give way to withered branches as the regretful woman climbs “beyond her intended sphere.”
The last cartoon features another woman on an upward path.
"The Sky Is Now Her Limit," was published October 1920 - only two months after passage of the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote.
A woman gazes up from under a yoke toward the heights to which "Equal Suffrage" will lead her. The rungs feature ever increasingly responsible jobs, leading to political office. At the pinnacle is the presidency? Spoiler: we’re still working on that one.
Do you think the cartoonist was mocking her or cheering her on?
Looking for pro-suffragette cartoons?
"Why Not Go the Limit?" (1908)
This cartoon by illustrator Harry Grant Dart appeared in the centerfold of a 1908 issue of the political satire magazine Puck. It suggests that there is a fine line between women smoking cigarettes in public, and the panoply of delights in a man's saloon -- heavy drinking, gambling, and ignoring the pleas of children to return home.
The Awakening: Women Fight for the Vote (1915)
The most striking of the "suffrage maps," which played a major role in the successful fight for women's suffrage in the U.S. Illustration shows a torch-bearing female labeled "Votes for Women", symbolizing the awakening of the nation's women to the desire for suffrage, striding across the western states, where women already had the …
I can’t believe that last cartoon is real! I’d say that is definitely mocking - it’s suggesting with all that she is carrying (the buckets on her shoulders) she won’t make it very far so might as well stay at the bottom.
There is so much irony in how so many of those rungs still aren’t true to this day 🫠 I’m sure whoever drew it would be thrilled! Thanks for another interesting post!
Those cartoons are infuriating. Isn’t it nice to have someone to do your chores until death do you part.
It depends on where the original cartoon appeared. I want to believe that it was encouraging and not mocking.
Thanks for these windows into the past (and present) I really enjoy them.