Why More Women Fought Against Their Right to Vote Than For It

In this intriguing episode, we explore the often overlooked history of female anti-suffrage movements. Surprisingly, many of the organizations opposing women's voting rights were primarily led by women. Join us as we delve into why these women resisted suffrage, their arguments, and whether their predictions about women's suffrage were accurate. Featuring key historical insights, thought-provoking discussions, and a look at modern perspectives, this episode uncovers a complex chapter in the history of women's rights.

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Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be talking to you today. Today we are going to be doing a deep dive on an interesting phenomenon that is often forgotten in history, which is that female suffrage when women first started fighting to vote, the organization that opposed female suffrage and most of the.

Organizations and movements that opposed female suffrage were majority female. They were not majority male. So we're going to do an investigation into these movements, the arguments they used and why women of the past didn't want women of today to vote, and what they predicted would happen to civilization if we allowed women to vote.

Oh, were they, right? Mm.

Simone Collins: Were they, I don't know. You know, it's 'cause I really, I've, I've even recently watched some historical videos on suffrage. They don't really talk about the counter movement especially, which was led by many women. They more talk about the atrocities [00:01:00] committed against some of the women who were jailed and force fed and, and whatnot, which was, you know, very unpleasant.

They, they sort of talk about all the really showy stuff, but not really about the. The concerns, the intellectual argument. I'm excited we doing this. Well, these

Malcolm Collins: women who were fighting for suffrage were pretty vile people, which is something we'll also go into. The, yeah, I mean, that

Simone Collins: doesn't justify.

Shoving a tube. Like at one point they shoved a tube down this one woman's throat. Well, they thought they did, except they shoved it into her lung instead. Like it wasn't great, you know? But was

Malcolm Collins: she, was she on a hunger strike? Yeah. That's not, that's, that's trying to help her get food. I know, I know. It still sucks.

I, I know it still sucks, but she was being a B Okay, Simone.

Simone Collins: Sorry. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. Please mansplain it to me. Tell me I'll man to you. Put me in my[00:02:00]

Malcolm Collins: all, all. So historical records indicate that the female anti suffrage movement was substantial, particularly in the US until 1916, was more women joining anti suffrage groups than suffrage associations. So the female suffrage movement was majority male. The female anti suffrage movement was majority female.

Simone Collins: Let's, let's get out of the vote.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Wow. For instance, women's suffrage in the United States notes that more American women organize against their own right to vote than in favor of it until this period. Suggesting a larger female presence in Nebraska. The Nebraska Association opposed to women's suffrage was overwhelmingly female, was men playing a marginal role in Great Britain.

The Women's National Anti Suffrage League had about 337,000 signatures on a petition in 1914, indicating significant female involvement. Though exact comparisons was male participation is less clear in the uk. [00:03:00] Mm-hmm. More women joined anti suffrage groups than suffrage associations until 1916. , Jo c Miller.

, never a fight of woman against man. What textbooks don't say about women's suffrage and this is a, a book that they did. Okay. , so this is from a jstor. So this is like academic article here and it's titled Women Against Women's Suffrage, Miller Notes that Suffragettes Frequently opposed Referendums in which women would have the opportunity to vote on an issue tacitly acknowledging that their cause would be unlikely to prevail, for example, in 1871.

So note here. What they're pointing out here is that female suffragettes, like the ones who wanted women to vote

Simone Collins: mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Fought against women being able to vote on women voting because they thought that would decrease the probability that it would work. So. This, we're gonna go straight to Susan B.

Anthony here. But yes, like Susan B. Anthony was against women voting at this time period. But she knew women would vote against women being able to

Simone Collins: vote, right? All the turnout would be [00:04:00] the ones who care. Just how, like with some issues, you don't want to bring it to a vote because you know, only like retired people are gonna vote for it and kill your thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, no,

Malcolm Collins: so it's like, it's like the progressives when they're like, we really love black people, except when they're voting on LGBT issues. Let's do not have the vote. Can you, can you not? Let's not count the votes there.

Simone Collins: Let's just not, yeah. Okay. So before you get to Susan B. Anthony, I, I wanna try to guess why women we're so against this.

Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna guess that there was this fear, like, okay, well first voting, but then obviously if we get to vote, then we'll also get drafted. We're probably also going to be expected to go to work. And this is, you know what, like in the 1920s, so like go to work in dangerous factories at higher rates.

And they don't want that. They don't want the draft, they don't wanna fight in the military. They don't want to be expected or have it be normalized that they leave the household because. They see what men are doing and what their sons and husbands are doing, and they're like, [00:05:00] so opt out. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's interesting that you say that.

That is definitely one of the things that they end up complaining about, and we'll get to it in a, in a bit, but I think the real reason, and it's not something you're gonna capture in their individual answers, but I think it's very clear, is that when women first won the right to vote, they were actually much more conservative than the mail voting demographic.

Simone Collins: And that would be Oh, so they, they as a, as a voting block. Brought things away from progressive.

Malcolm Collins: This is why most women of the time were against voting because women are more affected by the dominant culture than men are. Women are more, and the dominant

Simone Collins: culture was conservative at that time. I mean, this is dominant culture was, isn't this, the twenties?

Isn't this when you know you get flapper dresses. Women start wearing. Corsets. These

Malcolm Collins: were women who were in the counterculture movement. The mainstream cultural movement in these eras was very Christian. And women leaned into that more than men. Men were much more likely to challenge that because women, I'm gonna get, you know, quoted outta context here to look terribly.

But you know, women don't really think for themselves in the [00:06:00] same way men do. They just swallow whatever the dominant man in their life or whatever is the dominant cultural force in the society that they are adjacent to. And I'm talking statistically Uhhuh. Yeah, that's gonna look great. Malcolm.

Sorry Simone. I would say that you, I mean, come on. Do any of our followers really think, you think for yourself? Like, I mean, surely not. Surely, surely not, surely you're ju