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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anti-suffragism | 3/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-suffragism | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:56:22.846092+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Reasons for suffrage opposition === Irish opposition to the women's vote was both religious and cultural. Both Catholic and Protestant churches in Ireland wanted women's influence to remain domestic in nature. Women were closely associated with their husbands for legal and political purposes and it was argued that husband's votes were sufficient to allow a woman's political expression. Irish nationalism also played a role in anti-suffrage movements. Because of the nationalistic movements going on in Ireland, both men and women nationalists opposed giving women the vote because they were prioritizing Irish Home Rule. A nationalist paper, Bean na hÉireann, which was published by the Inghinidhe na hÉirann (Daughters of Ireland), took a very anti-suffrage stance.
== United States ==
The American Revolution established universal ideas of equality and natural rights as the hallmark of American policy. This juxtaposed women's customary and now legal exclusion with the public sanctions they had been granted to act politically in the role of the Republican wife or mother and the competency displayed by female politicians. An expanding franchise for white men, moved political action indoors and women to the periphery. By expanding the franchise to include all white men, Americans "devised a social order in which supposed biological differences, as defined by gender and race, determined relative status." While men were involved in the anti-suffrage movement in the United States, most anti-suffrage groups were led and supported by women. In fact, more women joined Anti-suffrage groups than suffrage associations, until 1916. While these groups openly stated that they wanted politics to be left to men, it was more often women addressing political bodies with anti-suffrage arguments. The first women-led anti-suffrage group in the United States was the Anti-Sixteenth Amendment Society. The group was started by Madeleine Vinton Dahlgren in 1869. During the fight to pass the nineteenth amendment, women increasingly took on a leading role in the anti-suffrage movement. Helen Kendrick Johnson's Woman and the Republic (1897) was a lauded anti-suffrage book that described the reasons for opposing women's right to vote. Other books, such as Molly Elliot Seawell's The Ladies' Battle (1911), Ida Tarbell's The Business of Being a Woman (1912), Grace Duffield Goodwin's Anti-Suffrage: Ten Good Reasons (1915) and Annie Riley Hale's The Eden Sphinx (1916) were similarly well received by the media and used as a "coherent rationale for opposing women's enfranchisement." Anti-suffrage dramas were also published between the mid-1800s and up to the 1920s. The first playwright to create anti-suffrage plays was William Bentley Fowle, who wrote the one-act play for amateurs, Women's Rights, published in 1856. Later plays were adapted for the professional stage, such as The Rights of Man (1857) by Oliver S. Leland and Election Day (1880) by Frank Dumont. Nellie Locke published an anti-suffrage drama in 1896, called A Victim of Women's Rights. Many anti-suffrage dramas were overtly political and incorporated the use of farce to paint suffragists as "self-absorbed" and "mannish in dress and manner." They also criticized the idea of the New Woman in general and advocated for women and men to occupy separate spheres of influence.
The Remonstrance, a journal published by the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women (MAOFESW) between 1890 and 1920 was used to promote anti-suffrage ideas and also to react to and refute the claims of suffragists.
=== Early backing for the anti-suffrage movement === The anti-suffrage movement began in the United States after the Massachusetts State legislature introduced a proposal to promote female voting rights. Two hundred women opposed this initiative as they did not want women to gain full citizenship. Though nothing became of this proposal, its introduction mobilized the suffrage movement on both sides. In 1871, a petition to the United States Congress was published by nineteen women in Godey's Lady's Book and Magazine in opposition to votes for women, the first instance of the mobilization from anti-suffrage women. Women turned out at the New York State Constitutional Convention in 1894 to protest women's suffrage.
=== Emergence of anti-suffrage organizations === In 1895, the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women (MAOFESW) was created and is noted to be the first effort of the anti-suffragists to institutionalize their cause. In Des Moines, Iowa, 35 women formed the Iowa Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage in 1898. California, Illinois, New York, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington all formed groups by 1900. Ohio formed an anti suffrage group, the Ohio Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage in 1902. The New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage was founded in 1897, and by 1908 it had over 90 members. It was active in producing pamphlets and publications explaining their views of women's suffrage, until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed in 1920. A Geneva branch was founded in 1909. The suffragists in New York often extended invitations to open discussion with the anti-suffragists. The New York association had its own magazine, The Anti-Suffragist, published by Mrs. William Winslow Crannell from July 1908 to April 1912. The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) was the first national organization of women who challenged the fight for women's suffrage. Several state associations assembled for an anti-suffrage convention in New York City and formed the NAOWS. The association gained significant momentum between 1912 and 1916 and was operational in twenty-five states. The NAOWS was said to have as many as 350,000 members. At the start, the organization was run by Josephine Dodge and Minnie Bronson. Alice Hay Wadsworth, wife of James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr., assumed leadership of the association when it moved its headquarters from New York to Washington, D.C. in 1917. NAOWS produced The Woman's Protest, a newsletter that helped defeat close to forty woman suffrage referendums. Everett P. Wheeler, a lawyer from New York, created the Man-Suffrage Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage in 1913. This organization was made up of powerful and affluent men and started out with around 600 members opposed to women's suffrage.