Saturday, November 12, 2016
MARIE JENNEY HOWE (1870 - 1934)
Feminist organizer, leading suffragist, founder of Heterodoxy in 1912 for "women who did things and did them openly." It was a gathering place for suffragettes, feminists, radicals, labor organizers and professional women who met twice a month to dispute topics such as women's rights, pacifism, birth control, revolutionary politics and civil rights.
"To her life was not a man's thing, it was a human thing. It was to be enjoyed by women as it was by men; there should be equality in all things, not in the ballot alone but in the mind, in work, in a career." Frederic Clemson Howe, husband
Drawing on domestic traditions of parlor plays and dramatic tableaux, suffragists used brief plays and monologues to enliven their own meetings and to enlist new members through performances at women's clubs and community theaters. She wrote the Anti-suffrage Monologue also known as Someone has to wash the Dishes in 1912 for the drama group of the New York Woman's Suffrage Party and other suffrage organizations. She parodied anti-suffragist arguments that relied on stereotypes of female dependence, irrationality, and delicacy even as they also warned that women voters would exert too much power.
(Resource: History Matters, the U.S. Survey Course on the Web, http://historymatters.gmu.edu/)
EXCERPTS FROM THE ANTI-SUFFRAGE MONOLOGUE
Please do not think of me as old-fashioned. I pride myself on being a modern up-to-date woman. I believe in all kinds of broad-mindedness, only I do not believe in woman suffrage because to do that would be to deny my sex.
Woman suffrage is the reform against nature. Look at these ladies sitting on the platform. Observe their physical inability, their mental disability, their spiritual instability and general debility!
Could they walk up to the ballot box, mark a ballot, and drop it in? Obviously not. Let us grant for the sake of argument that they could mark a ballot. But could they drop it in? Ah, no. All nature is against it. The laws of man cry out against it. The voice of God cries out against it--and so do I.
Enfranchisement is what makes man man. Disfranchisement is what makes woman woman. If women were enfranchised every man would be just like a woman and every woman would be just like a man. There would be no difference between them. And don't you think this would rob life of just a little of its poetry and romance?
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My first argument against suffrage is that the women would not use it if they had it. You couldn't drive them to the polls. My second argument is, if the women were enfranchised they would neglect their homes, desert their families, and spend all their time at the polls. You may tell me that the polls are only open once a year. But I know women. They are creatures of habit. If you let them go to the polls once a year, they will hang round the polls all the time.
If the women were enfranchised they would vote exactly as their husbands do and only double the existing vote. If the women were enfranchised they would vote against their own husbands, thus creating dissension, family quarrels, and divorce.
.....Women cannot understand politics. Therefore there would be no use in giving women political power, because they would not know what to do with it. On the other hand, if the women were enfranchised, they would mount rapidly into power, take all the offices from all the men, and soon we would have governors of all our states and dozens of women acting as President of the United States.
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I have talked to many woman suffragists and I find them very unreasonable. I say to them: "Here I am, convince me." I ask for proof. Then they proceed to tell me of Australia and Colorado and other places where women have passed excellent laws to improve the condition of working women and children. But I say, "What of it?" I ask for proof.
Then they quote the eight million women of the United States who are now supporting themselves, and the twenty-five thousand married women in the city of New York who are self-supporting. I don't believe in statistics. I wish to prove anti-suffrage in a womanly way, that is, by personal example. This is my method of persuasion. Once I saw a woman driving a horse, and the horse ran away with her. Isn't that just like a woman? Once I read in the newspapers about a woman whose house caught on fire, and she threw the children out of the window and carried the pillows downstairs. Does that show political acumen? Besides, look at the hats that women wear! Have you ever known a successful woman governor of a state? Or have you ever known a really truly successful woman president of the United States? Well if they could they would, wouldn't they?
As for the militant suffragettes, they are all hyenas in petticoats.
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I know the suffragists reply that all our activities have been taken out of the home. The baking, the washing, the weaving, the spinning are all long since taken out of the home. I say all the more reason that something should stay in the home. Let it be woman. Besides, think of the modern invention, the telephone. That has been put into the home. Let women stay at home and answer the telephone.
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Let us consider the argument from the standpoint of religion. The Bible says, "Let the women keep silent in the churches," Paul says, "Let them keep their hats on for fear of the angels." My minister says, "Wives, obey your husbands." And my husband says that woman suffrage would rob the rose of its fragrance and the peach of its bloom. I think that is so sweet.
Besides did George Washington ever say, "Votes for women?" No. Did the Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm ever say "Votes for women?" No. Did Elijah, Elisha, Micah, Hezekiah, Obadiah, and Jeremiah ever say, "Votes for women?" No. Then that settles it.
.....Have you ever pictured to yourself Election Day with women voting? Can you imagine how women, having undergone this terrible ordeal, with their delicate systems all upset, will come out of the voting booths and be led away by policemen, and put into ambulances, while they are fainting and weeping, half laughing, half crying, and having fits upon the public highway? Don't you think if a woman is going to have a fit, it is far better for her to have it in the privacy of her own home?
And how shall I picture to you the terrors of the day after election? Divorce and death will rage unchecked, crime and contagious disease will stalk unbridled through the land. Oh, friends, on this subject I feel---I feel, so strongly that I can--not think!
Resource: Wikipedia Marie Jenney Howe
#heterodoxy #NationalWoman'sParty #NewYorkWoman'sSuffrageParty #MarieJenneyHowe
#feminist #suffragist
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