The most ridiculous historical arguments denying women the right to vote

[Nevilledog]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/26/us/womens-equality-day-suffrage-19th-amendment-voting-arguments-trnd/index.html

Today, women being able to vote is a given. A no-brainer. A natural, non-negotiable insurance of a Constitution designed to provide equality for all people. But before the 19th Amendment was ratified 100 years ago in 1920, ensuring all women the right to vote*, people invented all sorts of reasons why they didn't belong at the polls. (*Assuming you weren't Black or disabled.)

Women were seen as somehow too fragile and too powerful at the same time, liable to burst into hysterics or upend the entire family unit just by casting a ballot. Here are a few examples of these arguments, from the absurd to the downright depressing.

Argument: Eve ate the apple which made women unequal to men and, sorry, voting won't change that



Some of the most common arguments against a woman's right to vote centered on religion, which tied into ideas about the family unit, relationships between men and women and, as Justin D. Fulton, a pastor of the Union Temple Baptist Church in Boston, Massachusetts put it, "nature and common sense." His 1869 pamphlet, "Woman as God Made Her," not only incorporates traditional arguments from scripture, but also features this bold take:

"If we give to woman the ballot, shall the equality which woman lost, when she ate of the forbidden fruit, be restored, and shall she be made again the equal of man?"

Unsurprisingly, his conclusion is ... no.

*snip*

[Guilded Lilly]

1. Ah, yes, the big...

Patriarchal blame, fear, controlling, intimidating, ultimate gaslighting, man in God’s (literal) image, put down LIE.

(Flicking the Apple core so it bounces between his crossed eyes with a BOINK)