Anti-Suffragette postcards
The ugly, embittered spinster © June Purvis
Rank and file suffragettes were most frequently portrayed as ugly, flat-footed, emotionally embittered and man-hating spinsters, as in this postcard titled ‘At the Suffragette Meetings You Can Hear Some Plain Things – and See Them Too!’
As the women’s suffrage movement gained momentum in the early 20th century, the picture postcard industry was utilised to denigrate women fighting for the vote.
In a feature published in our August issue, June Purvis, professor of women’s and gender history at the University of Portsmouth and editor of the journal Women’s History Review, explores the stories behinds some of the anti-Suffragette postcards of the time.
You can hear more from June Purvis on this week's podcast – live from Friday. Visit www.historyextra.com/podcast-page for more information
http://www.historyextra.com/suffragettepostcards
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All we have left are some old clippings from newspapers when my Great Great Grandmother got arrested in Colorado trying to vote for her HUSBAND! This shows how nasty and vile the rhetoric was then. Because there were women who wanted to vote, and women who wanted to vote for their HUSBAND'S. And from some of her old journals - we know this type of stuff just got her even angrier.
Now - how do we turn today's denigrating images of women who call bullshit - into activism?
Because these images?
Rather than making our Great Grandmothers 'limp away' - at least in my case - Margaret Mary McCreary Hill it just "caused her to" and I quote Turned on my witch switch and got myself sent to jail! 
1) Sex-positive promiscuous sluts (as you suggest)
and
2) Humorless prudes who are nasty and hate sex and men (everyone that isn't loudly "sex positive"
just like in the cartoons above
