Playing the Indian Card

Saturday, December 11, 2004

And More on Votes for Women

Women did not have the vote until the turn of last century. But then, men did not have the vote centuries ago either. In fact, for what it’s worth, female suffrage in most places really followed universal male suffrage in only a few decades. In the US, for example, you did not really have universal male suffrage until after the Civil War: officially, 1870. (And there were property and education requirements long after that in places). And you got universal female suffrage in 1919. Moreover, the vote was not officially _taken away_ from women until 1868: until then it was apparently only tradition or common law that women did not vote. And some did.

Given that the barrier to their participation was so low, the question is, why did women not agitate for the vote sooner? I think this is actually evidence that they felt themselves that they already held real power, or did not seek it. That it was by their own passive consent.

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