One of the many,
many contradictions about those among the left’s coalition is how they view so
many of those who vote among the Republican party as basically sheep. Because
they live in red states, because of the news they consume, because of their basic
stupidity, they mindlessly vote Republican in every election without thinking.
The implication being, of course, that if they were more educated, watched the
right news programs or lived in the right places, they would mindlessly vote
Democrat in every election instead.
It is the logic
of so many of the leftists in the Democratic party that how you identify
politically surpasses other parts of your identity, even the ones you were born
with. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio may have been born in Latin American countries
but because they chose to follow the Republican banner, they are not actually
Latino. Clarence Thomas and Tim Scott are conservative first and not really
African-Americans because of course no rational African American would identify
as Republican. But of course the biggest traitors of all are, of course, every woman who is Republican. Not just the Republicans
who serve as women in Congress or in elected office across the country but
every single woman who looks herself in the mirror and votes Republican.
There’s a list of
statistics on the back of Remember the Ladies related to the 2016
election. It points out that a greater proportion of women have voted then men
have voted in every Presidential election since 1980 and that 53 percent of the
voters in 2016 elections were women. It also tells us that 47 percent of white
women voted for Trump and that 4 percent of black women did the same. The book
also points out that ever since women were granted suffrage in 1920 they have
never voted in vast numbers for one party over the other: even in 1972 Richard
Nixon did immensely better with woman than George McGovern, the more ‘female
friendly’ candidate did. In the last pages of the book Angela Dodson makes it
very clear: “women have generally not voted as a bloc... (and) it turns out they
have divergent interests and ideologies just like men.’ This is the greatest
sign of equality possible – and it has to infuriate those on the left who can
only see things in a binary lens.
Remember the
Ladies takes
a very clear view at the long and complicated history of the generations of
women who fought for freedom and equality at the ballot box. It talks about the
pioneers in the front and the names that so many women hold dear – Lucretia Mott,
Eliabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony in the first wave; Carrie Chapman Catt
and Alice Paul in the second – and it goes into great details about the fights
they fought for more than a century, the toxic sexism they had to overcome and the
long struggle. But this is not a book that paints either the woman involved as
saints or that the battles they found were well intentioned. Indeed, the great
strength of Dodson’s narrative is that it makes clear as to how flawed these
women were and how many times they got in their own way.
The battle for
women’s rights for Mott and Stanton began in the movement for abolition. Many
of them were among the Quakers and for most of the battle was for equality
rather than suffrage. Indeed Mott famously rejected political participation as
a remedy or even a goal to relieve women’s oppression. When she learned of Stanton’s
demand for suffrage Mott’s reaction famously was: “Lizzie, thee will make us
ridiculous.”
The battle for
women’s rights was early on seen as part of the battle for African-American
rights. Frederick Douglass was among the attendees of the Seneca Falls
convention and wrote about it eloquently in his publication The North Star. Douglass
would be an ally in the fight for women’s suffrage for much of his life, though
that sentiment would frequently not be returned among women towards blacks.
The book deals
with how the movement was, from the early days, viewed with scorn and sexism by
the male-dominated press and most politics. But it also shows how some of the
movements that women were involved in were also involved in a more
controversial one – the temperance movement. While built out of an
understandable reason to deal with the rampaging nature of alcoholism in
society, it was build an often fractious
alliance with suffragettes for half a century. The Woman’s Christian Temperance
Union was the most powerful woman’s organization in the nation, but many of its
members were never thrilled about allying with suffragists. It also led to the
liquor lobby becoming one of the chief enemies to woman’s suffrage for the next
half-century out of fear that the woman’s vote would lead to the national
prohibition of alcohol. Many female leaders would later attribute the struggle
being far longer because of this alliance – and when the original leader died
in 1896, the WCTU would basically abandon women’s rights in favor of
temperance.
The Civil War led
to a pause in the woman’s suffrage movement and after Appomattox a division flared
up. When the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed, the Anti-Slavery Society became
divided between those who believed the ‘Negro Vote’ needed to take priority and
those who like Stanton and Anthony who believed universal suffrage needed to be
enacted.
When the Women’s
Right Convention met in 1866, a new organization was founded to gain women’s suffrage.
Almost from the start there was division.
Stanton would become vocal in her opposition to black men received the vote
ahead of women, while women like Lucy Stone and Abby Kelley Foster thought the
rights of black men were more urgent. After the passage of the Fifteenth
Amendment was passed Stanton and Anthony were outraged. Republicans had made
the decisions as a political one thinking (correctly) that former slaves would
reward Republicans with votes and that they could not guarantee the same if
women got the vote (also correct). As a result Stanton began to deliver both
racist and nativist commentary in her writing and speeches, as demonstrated by
a December 1868 editorial:
“Think of Patrick
and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung who do not know the difference between a monarchy
and a republic, who never read the Declaration of Independence…making laws.
Would these gentlemen who, on all sides, are telling us ‘to wait until the negro
is safe’ be willing to stand aside and trust all their interests
in hands like these? The educated women of this nation…are as sure that the
highest good of all alike demands the elevation and impression of the women.”
This would lead
to several critical abolitionists, including Douglass, scorning Stanton. Anthony
publicly defended her friend and suggested that as downtrodden as black were
Douglas would not switch places with a woman. This public alienation of their
abolitionist allies not only showed little respect for the black men that many
had spent decades speaking in favor of as slave but isolated them as allies in
the cause. Douglass would be loyal to the cause until the day he died but
Stanton became increasingly rigid and spent years isolated from Douglas. When
Anthony and Stanton formed the National Women Suffrage Association three days
later, they furthered the split by making sure the leadership was entirely
female because of their belief of betrayal from their male allies. Lucy Stone
formed a separate organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association with
Julia Ward Howe. This division in the ranks and a refusal to reconcile between
the leadership no doubt did much to hinder the cause, particularly as members
of the former group did much to undermine the latter in the early struggles.
The NWSA focused
on an amendment for women’s suffrage and opposed the ratification of the
Fifteenth Amendment. The AWSA would focus its energy on state referendums. This
competition hindered the struggles for decades. The groups would not unify until
the early 1890s, well after most of the first generation of suffragists had
died. Stanton would be a bugbear to the generation even after with her
publication of the so-called Women’s Bible which challenged religious
orthodoxy as the major stumbling block to women’s rights. While no doubt the
right idea it was so controversial it was disavowed not long after it was published
by the suffragettes.
Even after
reunification the suffragettes squandered an opportunity when they adopted their
own ‘southern strategy’ in which they tried to appease the segregationists. In
order to appease the Southern states whose votes they would need; suffragettes
chose to ignore the reality of Jim Crow and began to distance themselves from black
supporters. They would argue that literacy tests, a way to suppress the black
vote for nearly a century, would be helpful to the causes. Anthony herself made
her position clear when she turned down a request from black women to form
their own chapter of the NAWSA. Some black members were accepted but discouraged
from attending the organizing conventions in the South. This appeal not only
did not prevail, it led to a gap between African-Americans and suffragists
nationwide.
It was not until
the 1910s that women finally began to win victories at a statewide level and
the momentum regained steam. Yet again there was division between women Alice
Paul, who had seen the violent struggles in Great Britain work for women there
and believed the same strategy could work in America, and Carrie Chapman Catt who
was unconvinced they would work.
Paul would led
another split in 1913 when she insisted in targeting the Democrats, who had
taken control of both the White House in Congress with Woodrow Wilson’s
election. While the leadership thought they should stay non-partisan, she would
find the National Woman’s Party in 1916. Its goal was to defeat Wilson’s bid
for reelection and Democratic congressional candidates – even those who supported
women’s suffrage.
It is worth noting
that at one point the NAWSA would have anywhere to 2 million members, Paul’s
never had more than ten thousand. In the summer of 1917 in a series of pickets
at the White House 218 women were arrested and 97 went to prison. Many went on
hunger strikes and were, like those in Britain, force fed by their jailers.
Wilson would pardon all the prisoners, including Paul in November but her actions
appalled many, including those of the NAWSA, who went out of their way to
distance themselves from Paul. More importantly that fall New York became the
biggest state to pass an amendment in favor of women’s suffrage.
It is not only
women like Paul who were in favor of being spectacles as much as advocates. In
1872 Victoria Woodhull became the first suffragist to get a hearing before
Congress, something Stanton and Anthony had been unable to do. Later that year
she would become the first female candidate to run for President on the Equal
Rights Party Ticket.
Woodhull, to say
the least, was a controversial figure. She was not even 34 when she ran for
office and named Fredrick Douglass her vice president without his consent. (He
learned about it weeks later and may never have acknowledged it.) She believed
in free love, an idea that suffragettes
did not want part of their movement. A few days before the election, she and
her sister were arrested for mailing obscene materials – her newspaper. In it
she excoriated Henry Ward Beecher, an ally of the woman’s movement but an enemy
of her movement of free love, by exposing an extra-marital affair he was
having. This case also involved Stanton herself and no doubt caused more damage
to the cause then helped it.
There are a
series of appendixes at the end of the book who pay tribute to many of the
women who served in Congress in the last century. Some of the names such as
Nancy Pelosi and Carol Moseley Braun are well known, some like Shirley Chisholm
and Geraldine Ferraro are historic, and some such as Margaret Chase Smith, the
first woman Senator who boldly condemned Joe McCarthy when her male
counterparts refused to, are examples of profiles in courage.
It is difficult,
frankly, to look at some of the women who represent Congress to day and do
anything but shudder, not only in comparison to the suffragists battles but also
so many of these brave woman who served in national office and took courageous
stands. The battles they fought mattered and they remembered they were elected
to serve the nation, not just the people who voted for them, and certainly not
just the women in the country. Yes many of them including Bella Abzug were
prominent voices for the ERA but many took even braver stands. After the
attempt on George Wallace in 1972, Shirley Chisolm was among those who visited him
in his hospital bed. This created controversy but Wallace remembered it. Years
later when Chisholm worked on a bill to give domestic workers the right to a
minimum wage, Wallace used his influence to help gain votes from Southern congressman
to push the bill through the House.
I can’t be the
only person who thinks that Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
are just two sides of the same coin, believing more in spectacle and
self-promotion than any actions towards compromise and legislation. Far too
many of the female congresswomen in the House are more about spectacle agendas
and this is a both sides issue, from Ilhan Omar to Lauren Boebert. And let’s
not forget one of the last occasions of bipartisan unity was when every single
member of the squad joined eight Republicans – among them Nancy Mace of South
Carolina – to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker. And there is no unity among
women even among the partisan lines: the Squad spent much time chafing against
Pelosi’s leadership and Boebert and Greene had a screaming match about whether
to vote for McCarthy as Speaker in the first place. Somewhere Mott might be
thinking these are the women who made Stanton ridiculous.
I don’t speak to
cast aspersions on the fight for woman’s suffrage because I admire it. It’s
hard not to. For nearly a century, generations of women fought a long battle
against the odds, society and frequently each other to empower themselves and
generations afterwards. I point out their flaws mainly because we must not have
a ‘great woman’ version of history any more than a ‘great man’ one. I also
think of the level of struggle that they were willing to undergo to fight and
win their rights and not despair at so many of today’s so-called activists who
believe in spectacle but refuse to use this very right to bring about the
change they claim to want.
As I’ve written
before the right for suffrage is something I hold sacred and am flummoxed by so
many of those who write about it on this sight with something close to indifference.
In a sense, this dates back to so many of their activist ancestors who believe
that political power is either irrelevant to the struggle at hand or too
limited in order to bring among the change that’s needed. The fact that by
making these stands they are cutting of their noses to spite their faces shouldn’t
come as a shock: principles always will seem to matter more to some that
tangential achievement.
But Remember
The Ladies reminds us that these battles are winnable if we are willing to
play the long game and willing to focus on the future rather than the present.
That is impossible to comprehend for so many who believe progress should come
yesterday if not sooner and care little for who they hurt along the way. But
that’s not how real change takes place and we need to remember that even in a
more urgent time.
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