Women's Suffrage

      

This image is found on wikipedia.org. 

         The fight for women's suffrage was a long and hard battle that lasted almost one hundred years (history.com). There were arguments for women's suffrage that played on the strength's of women and their ability to meaningfully contribute to society. And there were many arguments against women's suffrage that were rooted in stereotypes and people's desire for men to stay in power and control. But despite this on August 26, 1920 women were finally given the right to vote as the 19th amendment was ratified.

      In the 1890s the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the organization for women's suffrage, created a new argument to fight for women's suffrage by stating that women should vote because they were different from men. Meaning that they would bring a new viewpoint to the table "They could make their domesticity into a political virtue, using the franchise to create a purer, more moral 'maternal commonwealth."(history.com) This endeared women to the Temperance Movement because that movement now believed that women would help them in the vote for temperance.

      The organization against women's suffrage was the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Its arguments were that most women didn't actually care about the vote, women would be competing not cooperating with men, that most women are married so it would either add to their husband's vote or cancel it out, and that in some states there were more women than men so that would "...place the Government under petticoat rule"(theatlantic.com). So, in short, it is clear that all of these arguments against women's suffrage are invalid and irrational, purely based on the desire for men to have power over women.