This Vintage Feminist Pamphlet Is Everything

Sunday was the anniversary of women securing the right to vote. Yay! Happy 94th birthday civic democracy! It's almost as if women are fully functional human beings! In light of that, I'd like to pour one out for the ladies who got us here with this vintage "Why We Oppose Votes For Men" pamphlet, because it is perfect and lovely.

Though this pamphlet is satirical, there were groups like the unfortunate National Association Opposed to Women’s Suffrage, headed by Josephine Dodge, printed in 1894 with horrifying logic such as:

Because it is our fathers, brothers, husbands and sons who represent us at the ballot-box. Our father and our brothers love us; our husbands are our choice, and one with us; our sons are what WE MAKE THEM. We are content that they represent US in the corn-field, on the battle-field, and at the ballot-box, and we THEM in the school-room, at the fireside, and at the cradle, believing our representation even at the ballot-box to be thus more full and impartial than it would be were the view of the few who wish suffrage adopted, contrary to the judgment of many.

...and they were 100 percent dead serious. SO. There's that. A woman's place is out of the cornfield and by the cradle. Not voting. Hope you raised your sons right! They'll inevitably be the only representation that you have in the world!

In a snarky response, suffragist, poet, and author Alice Duer Miller printed the "Why We Oppose Votes For Men" nearly 20 years later in 1915, proving that today's feminists had some very sassy predecessors.

Text:

1. Because man’s place is in the army.

2. Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.

3. Because if men should adopt peacable methods women will no longer look up to them.

4. Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums.

5. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them particularly unfit for the task of government.

And five years later, women had secured the right to vote! Thank you, oh mothers of the country! Be sure to do your feminist ancestors proud and go to the voting booth on Tuesday. You owe them.

Images: Julie Jordan Scott/Flickr; Sociological Images