“Why is woman restless?”
By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
The other night I enjoyed reading historical newspaper articles from the early 1900s, particularly regarding women’s suffrage and First Wave feminism. While supporting women’s voting rights, I critique the underlying philosophy of feminism, saying it promotes a negative view of traditional gender roles. Editorials from that era reveal mixed sentiments on women’s societal roles from opposition prior to WWI to acceptance afterward. The Right to Vote for women passed in 1919.
Our local paper has been going since 1882. This week I was captured by reading the old, old digitized historical articles going back to the early 1900s. The writing used to be so good, even in ads. The social news cracked me up, like, so-and-so is visiting so-and-so, who is sick, who has recovered. But there were serious articles too, many about farming, especially cotton, since 100 years ago that was a major crop. And as the Women’s Suffrage debate heated up nationally, it heated up locally too.
Women’s suffrage was passed by Congress in 1919, giving women the vote. First Wave feminism historically began in 1848 at the Seneca Falls convention, and outlined the platform in a white paper called the Declaration of Sentiments, which was to secure legal rights for women.
The right to vote, own property, have a bank account, seen as independent of the husband etc., were contended issues. These are good things, of course, but look at the attitude and position behind these items of these first wave feminists that propelled their cause. In their 1848 “Declaration of Sentiments” they contended that men have perpetuated-
a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them [women] under absolute despotism,
and
“the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her“
and that men have fomented
“their social and religious degradation over her“. (Source).
Viewing God’s design for men and women as a ‘degradation’ began early, I see. The notion that men have in all cases engendered a widespread ‘absolute tyranny’ and ‘absolute despotism’ over women is hyperbole. And it cannot be a ‘usurpation’ if that is the way God had designed roles for the genders, in other words, if that is how things are supposed to be.
I am for women voting. I believe if I’m represented in government, I should have a say. I also believe that women should participate in civic spheres, which includes philanthropy, volunteering, good works, hospitality, church work, and so on.
Editorials appeared in many newspapers across the country written by The President of the Texas Farmer’s Union, WD Lewis. He wasn’t wrong when he said “It is, as a rule, the city woman promoted to idleness by prosperity, who is leading the suffragette movement.” Indeed, it was many upper middle class white women from prominent families with access who were the original founders.
I also agreed with some of the sentiments expressed by men who opposed the Suffrage concept, too. Like this paragraph:
“It is her hand that plants thoughts in the intellectual vineyard; It is through her heart that hope, love and sympathy overflow and bless mankind. Christ—the liberator of womankind—was satisfied to teach the lessons of life and He was a man. He chose to rule over human hearts and refused worldly power and men followed after Him, women washed His feet, little children climbed upon His knees and the Ruler of the universe said that In Him He was well pleased. Can woman find a higher calling?” from Ordway New Era, (Ordway, Colo.) 1902-1927.
Does he sound like an oppressive, tyrannical, despot?
The First Wave Feminists asserted that the genders were equal, as they began their Declaration with the same words as our founding document, the Declaration of Independence did:
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal…
Yes, we are equal. But we each have different roles, according to God. But for them, ‘equal’ meant ‘interchangeable’. It was a subtlety not lost on the TX Farmer’s Union President, who wrote,
“From many standpoints, perhaps a woman has as much right to vote as a man. So has she as much right to plow as a man; she has has much right to work in a factory as a man; she has as much right to shoulder a musket as a man, but we would rather she would not do so from choice and we regret that necessity ofttimes compels her to earn a living by engaging in gainful occupations.”
Of the articles I’ve read this week, I noticed the same arguments were promoted by Phyllis Schlafly in the 1970s when she organized to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment- which was originally introduced to Congress as a bill in 1923. Suffrage came to women in the US in 1920. The ERA came close to succeeding but thanks to Schlafly, with only 3 sates needed to ratify, she almost singlehandedly organized and stopped the political momentum. ERA finally failed in 1982, never recovering the momentum to regain the 3 states needed to ratify.
“Schlafly’s conservative values led her to staunchly oppose feminism in all of its forms, Faulkner says, and the ERA was certainly part of the feminist agenda. “She feared that greater sex equality would lead to a moral decline in society by changing the roles that women had traditionally held,” she says.” (History.com)
Phyllis was right. She was exactly right. So were the men in the 1913 and 1915 newspapers who said the same in opposing original suffrage.
Now, to be sure, not all the rhetoric opposing women’s suffrage was politically or even morally appropriate. When you go to the historical newspapers web page, there is a disclaimer that says some of the material contains “harmful content”. I disagree with the terminology of ‘harmful’ but it’s true that the prejudicial attitudes toward women, Chinese, and black people in 1913 were more accepted and widespread than they are today. Nonetheless, it bears reading to see how the citizens of the nation felt about women getting the vote, and their tactics both sides employed along the way.
The writers of the historical articles in the paper were also adept at sly (or wry) insults. Here, is an article I do not believe is real, since the Women’s March never planned to march IN the inaugural parade. Their march the day before the Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson was the largest Washington DC had ever seen. However, the subtle dig at women’s aims to not be satisfied with just getting the vote, but to actually supplant men is clearly seen, and the writer made a sly joke about it:
Women Won’t March. Chicago.— “There will be no band of Suffragists marching behind President Wilson and Mr. Taft in Washington, March 4 (1913). The plan has been dropped, it was announced here, by officials of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association. Instead the Suffragists will march through the streets of the national capital March 3, headed by Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Miss Jane Addams and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw. The officials said that It was poor policy to play second fiddle to anybody.”
TX Farmer’s Union president WD Lewis opposed suffrage. I saw his editorials in newspapers far flung from Texas, and they were all different in content, not repeated as a syndicated column. He asks good questions and comes at the concept the same way that Phyllis Schlafly did almost 60 years later when the Equal Rights Amendment (proposed by suffragette Alice Paul in 1923 as part of the feminists’ “Great Demand”) was eventually derailed. It was written in 1915, so as per the culture at that time, it was a little florid, but still, many good points. Here’s Lewis:
WHY IS WOMAN RESTLESS?
DESTINY OF NATIONS DEPENDS UPON CONTENTED HOMES.
By W. D Lewis, President Texas- Farmers’ Union, May 1915.
Why is woman dissatisfied? Why does she grow restless under the crown of womanhood? Why is she weary of the God-given jewel of motherhood? Is it not a sufficient political achievement for woman that future rulers nurse at her breast, laugh in her arms and kneel at her feet? Can ambition leap to more glorious heights than to sing lullabies to the world’s greatest geniuses, chant melodies to master minds and rock the cradle of human destiny? God pity our country when the hand shake of the politician is more gratifying to woman’s heart than the patter of children’s feet.
Woman Is Ruler Over All.
Why does woman chafe under restraint of sex? Why revile the hand of nature? Why discard the skirts that civilization has clung to since the beginning of time? Why lay aside this hallowed garment that has wiped the tears of sorrow from the face of childhood? In its sacred embrace every generation has hidden its face in shame; clinging to its motherly folds, tottering children have learned to play hide and seek and from it, youth learned to reverence and respect womanhood. Can man think of his mother without this consecrated garment? Why this inordinate thirst for power? Is not woman all powerful?
Man cannot enter this world without her consent, he cannot remain in peace; without her blessing and unless she sheds tears of regret over his departure, he has lived in vain. Why this longing for civic power when God has made her ruler over all? Man has given woman his heart, his name and his money. What more does she want? Can man find it in his heart to look with pride upon the statement that his honorable mother-in-law was one of the most powerful political bosses in the country, that his distinguished grandmother was one of the ablest filibusters in the Senate or that his mother was a noted warrior and her name a terror to the enemy? Whither are we drifting and where will we land?
God Save Us From a Hen-Pecked Nation.
I follow the plow for a living and my views may have in them the smell of the soil; my hair is turning white under the frost of many winters and perhaps I am a little old-fashioned, but I believe there is more moral influence in the dress of woman than in all the statute books of the land. As an agency for morality, I wouldn’t give my good old mother’s homemade gowns for all the suffragette’s constitutions and by-laws in the world.
As a power for purifying society. I wouldn’t give one prayer of my saintly mother for all the women’s votes in Christendom. As an agency for good government, I wouldn’t give the plea of a mother’s heart for righteousness for all the oaths of office in the land. There is more power in the smile of woman than in an act of congress. There are greater possibilities for good government in her family of laughing children than in the cabinet of the President of the United States.
The destiny of this nation lies in the home and not in the legislative halls The hearthstone and the family Bible will ever remain the source of our inspiration and the Acts of the Apostles will ever shine brighter than the acts of Congress.
This country is law-mad. Why add to a statute book, already groaning under its own weight, the hysterical cry of woman? If we never had a chance to vote again in a lifetime and did not pass another law in twenty five years, we could survive the ordeal, but without home, civilization would wither and die. God save these United States from becoming a hen-pecked nation; help us keep sissies out of Congress and forbid that women become step fathers to government, is the prayer of the farmers of this country.
A DIVINE COVENANT.
God Almighty gave Eve to Adam with the pledge that she would be his helpmeet and with this order of companionship, civilization has towered to its greatest heights. In this relationship, God has blessed woman and man, has honored her and after four thousand years of progress, she now proposes to provoke God to decoy man by asking for suffrage, thereby ending an agreement to which she is not a party. Woman, remember that the Israelite Scorn’d a divine covenant, and as a result wandered forty years in the wilderness without God. Likewise man should remember that it is a dangerous thing to debase woman by law. –end of Lewis editorial
So these are a few thoughts on the passage of the votes for women. As I said, I do believe women should have the vote, should be able to own property, to have her own bank account, and to be able to work if she needs to. However, as one editorial from an anonymous person said in the historic newspaper, “militant feminists put the rage in suffrage”. The underlying philosophy of feminism, though topped with the cream of the above civic concepts, is rotten down to the bottom. Indeed, it is right to say 100 years later, ‘God save us from a hen-pecked nation’.
