Why Women Must Vote

By Gershon Bai- Lama
Managing Director

Women in the United States must vote in every election, be it local or national.  They Must cease the moment because their are millions of women worlf wine who have been disenfranchised by their legislators.  Lets go down memory lane and trace women's struggle to acquired their electoral rights.

American women were granted the right to vote in 1920 through the superb organizing abilities and political skills of Carrie Chapman Catt, with commitment to broad social reforms.  She would not have accomplished her goal without the help of other women activists and committed male feminist who supported the women suffrage morally and financially.  The women saw education as the only vehicle to bridge the gap with men in all spheres of life, and took advantage of it in their bid to secure political suffrage.  Below is an analysis of Catt’s “winning plan” and contributions made by Wilson College’s women in the struggle for women suffrage:

There are several women that contributed in the struggle to earn women suffrage including Susan B Anthony, but the most influential of them all was Carrie Chapman Catt.  There was no united political force amongst women when Catt joined the suffrage movement.  The Fourteenth[1] and Fifteenth Amendments[2] have done nothing in granting women the right to vote.  Catt started her suffrage career in 1887 when she joined the Iowa branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, becoming head of its suffrage section. 

As that local group began breaking apart, she began organizing women and creating suffrage clubs.  In 1889, she was elected secretary of the Iowa Woman Suffrage Association and, the next year, was a delegate and minor speaker at the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in Washington, D.C.  From 1869 until 1890, the women’s suffrage movement had been divided between two organizations, one headed by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, and the other by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton – which had differing methods of achieving their goal; they reconciled differences into NAWSA (Baker, 2002).

The strategies applied by women to get the vote consists of proceedings from the meetings of women’s organizations, books, pamphlets, parading, women run newspapers and also contributions from male sympathizers.  The most remarkable turning point in the suffrage movement is the “Winning Plan” of Catt which she designed to campaign simultaneously for suffrage on both the state and federal levels, and to compromise for partial suffrage in the states resisting change.  Under Catt's dynamic leadership, NAWSA won the backing of the House and Senate.  She raised a lot of funds to help propagate the cause of women’s vote which facilitated publicity nationwide.

Catt’s winning plan adopted a nonpartisan lobbying at federal level after unsuccessful lobbying at state level.  Catt’s winning plan to convince men and the federal government to support women suffrage was based on the following steps, namely: a specific concept of leadership which she has already exhibit by increasing the organization’s membership including progressive men to secure financial support.  Secondly, she instilled discipline in a hierarchical military style fashion amongst regional organization leaders all over the United States.  They organized parades and peaceful demonstrations.  To make sure everyone was aware of their cause, she established a school to train volunteers in organization, public speaking, parliamentary practice and suffrage history, and made sure workers were assigned to every voting precinct in the states (Burnett, 1953).

Thirdly, Catt designs a publicity machine to sway public opinion in favor of women’s suffrage.  This is done by the publication of newspapers and pamphlets in support of World War I, as well as opposition to the voting rights of illiterate immigrants, and freed men in the north.  Her charismatic public oratory earned the organization respect amongst men of all works of life.  The suffrage movement persuaded progressive men to believe that women were morally superior to men.  Most of the women married to progressive men who allowed them to do their activists work in their Newspapers.  In Colorado, the “Rocky Mountain” newspaper was run and managed by Alice Meredith, who wrote letters to Susan B. Anthony for financial support, which resulted to the visit of Catt in Colorado and secured the women vote for them (Burnett, 1953).

They also persuaded men with claims that, with women suffrage, their will be better conditions of living for working men and politics would become less corrupt.  They also suggested that, war and miseries of men would become a thing of the past if given the right to vote.  Most American men were opposed to war and needs better living condition for their families and equal pay for equal work would ease their destitute state.  The men were finally persuaded and they start joining parades and helped distributing pamphlets in favor of women suffrage.  This support for the war however compromise the organization’s pacifist nature, but however overlooked by many sympathizers for the sake of securing the vote.

As for progressive men, they were convinced that women needed the vote to advocate for self protection legislations against incest, rape and unsafe working conditions (Nash, p.566).  These above persuasions won the support of both aristocratic women and men for the suffrage movement.  During parades, women from both houses of Aristocrats and Senators took part to convince the White House to sign the suffrage bill into law.  At the time of unveiling her “winning plan” in Atlantic City, NJ, Catt used her favorite phrase that inspired both women and men of the suffrage base of that era:

"Do not stand in the way of the next step in human progress.  No one living who reads the signs of the times but realizes that woman suffrage must come.  We are working for the ballot as a matter of justice and as a step for human betterment."

Amongst the women base for the suffrage movement were alumnae of “Wilson College” in Pennsylvania.  Mrs. O’Sullivan was a member of the PA Women Suffrage Association and wrote an article title, “Why the Working Woman Needs the Vote” and was published by the National Women Suffrage Publishing Company, INC.  In this article, she lamented about the poor conditions of work for families in both the Urban and Rural area.  She mentioned about the low paying jobs for women due to cheap labor as a result of competition for labor between them and children.  She cautions men that, this competition will not only reduce wages for women but those of men as well.  To quote her words, she said:

“Every union man knows how dangerous and harmful the competition of child labor is; it is dangerous because it is cheap, and cuts down the man’s wages.”

She believe that by women securing the right to vote, their will be “Equal pay for Equal Work” and their will be equilibrium in the work place.  This article was addressing both women and working middle class men, with specific inferences about the dangers of child labor and what it would meant for both husband and wife to earn equal pay for the same amount of work.  Life, she assumes will be easy because capitalism will never exploited their families again if women were granted the right to vote, as they will steer the political ship and help elect Congressmen, Senators and Presidents that will favor social reforms.

On a similar tone, another Wilson Woman wrote an article titled, “What Can We Do for the Feeble- Minded Women of Pennsylvania?” with a sub title “Help to Solve To Solve This Problem!” 

The dictionary meaning for feeble minded is someone that lacks intelligence, and in the 19^th century it was used to classified people with mental retardation.  The article is concerned with the care of this retarded women and their children by the state.  The writer of this article was very displeased with the way Pennsylvania State is handling the welfare of these women, about 2000 of them were unaccounted for. This article believes it’s due to state negligence on women issue by allocating funds from the budget else where instead of women issues.  This lack of funds to take care of these “feeble women” has caused the increasing birth rate amongst these feeble women who cannot take care of themselves, not to even speak about their illegitimate children.

The writer of this article further stated facts that are crucial to proof the PA State government is negligent of women issues in the way they allocated their budget.

“In 1913, $100,000 was set aside for investigating the Chestnut Tree Blight Disease.  $25,000 was given to erect a PA Building at the Anglo – American Exposition in London.”  Then $50.000 to establish a village for feeble minded people, but later reduced to $40,000 by the governor.”

This article targeted women’s attention to unite and fight for their right to vote for their welfare in a patriarchic society.  It also targeted male politicians in PA due to the fact that, the article exposed their lack of moral social reforms.

Finally, the women suffrage would not have been a practical reality if the women had neglected education.  Armed with the only weapon they had, which was education, they were able to organized and triumph without spilling blood.  Indeed, the “pen is mightier than a sword.”

Bibliographies:

Baker, Jean H., editor. Votes for Women: The Struggle for Suffrage Revisited. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Burnett, Constance (Buel). Five for Freedom: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt. New York: Abelard Press, 1953

Nash.  The American People:  Creating A Nation and A Society, 5^th edition.  Pearson Longman, New York, 2005

National Women Suffrage Publishing Company, INC, New York City

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[1] Protects rights against state infringements, defines citizenship, prohibits states from interfering with privileges and immunities, requires due process and equal protection, punishes states for denying vote, and disqualifies Confederate officials and debts

[2] The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.