A woman can avoid fire in the home, but she cannot keep her children safe if buildings and fire escapes are not strong. She can open her windows to give her children the air that we are told is so necessary, BUT if the air is laden with infection, with tuberculosis and other contagious diseases, she cannot protect her children from this danger.
A woman can open windows to give her children fresh air, but they will get sick if the air is filled with disease. She can send her children out for air and exercise, BUT if the conditions that surround them on the streets are immoral and degrading, she cannot protect them from these dangers. A woman can allow her children to play outside, but they will be in danger if there are immoral people around. Alone, she cannot make these things right.
Who or what can? A woman cannot address the issues above. The city can do it—the city government that is elected by the people to take care of the interests of the people. Print Text. Print Text And Summary. Ballot not a Panacea for Existing Evil. The right to vote is not a cure all for society. There can be no doubt that many earnest, sincere women declare they want to vote because they wish to take a hand in what they call municipal housecleaning.
More schools are needed, more parks and playgrounds; better tenements and cleaner streets. Give us the ballot, they argue, and all these things shall come to pass. But these enthusiastic would-be housecleaners fail to take one point into consideration, which is, that the ballot does not clean streets, nor provide more seats in schoolhouses, nor lighten dark tenements, nor furnish pure milk, nor stop child labor, nor administer justice. Women claim they want the vote so they can make society better.
But the vote does not clean streets, expand schools, improve tenements, or ensure healthy food. The advocates of woman suffrage who cling to this idea, which was prevalent at the time of the French Revolution, and even half a century ago, that the ballot in itself is a panacea for all existing evils and a short cut to the solution of government problems, are not progressive, but are in reality behind the times as students of government.
Suffragists support an old-fashioned belief that the vote will solve everything. Men who are interested in social reforms—and their number is legion—have found they could not bring about these essential reforms by merely voting on Election Day, and that is the reason they have organized all kinds of commissions and committees to consider the question of child labor, the care of dependent children and kindred subjects, from an economic and humanitarian point of view in order to educate and stimulate public opinion to a more intelligent and comprehensive understanding of these questions.
Even men, who can vote, know that they cannot make changes through voting. They realize that public opinion must first create a demand for a law, and afterwards enforce it in order to make the law effective. In this task of moulding and stimulating public opinion woman plays a great and important part—never greater than at the present day.
In appointive positions, as members of educational, philanthropic and reformatory boards, which deal directly with the needs of the unfortunate of both sexes, individual women of judgment and ability who are free from other obligations can render valuable service to the city or state.
Men and women who organize outside of politics can influence lawmakers. Women can work with men and hold appointed positions that make a difference. Mayor Gaynor has appointed several women as members of the Board of Education, and the borough presidents have also appointed women on most of the local school boards. Women are also members of various state boards and receive such appointments from the Governor. Two women were members of the Massachusetts Commission appointed to consider the question of establishing minimum wage boards in that state.
The women learned to like each other in that suffrage movement. The dispute was about who had priority: newly freed African American men or white women, who also wanted to be included in the post-Civil War expansion of political liberties represented by the 14th and 15th Amendments. Suffragists such as Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe had hoped for universal suffrage, but once the amendments were drafted, they supported ratification despite the exclusion of women.
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton adamantly refused to support the amendments, often employing racist language to imply that white women were just as deserving of the vote as African American men, if not more so. By the suffrage movement had split in two over this question, not to reunite until In the end both sides were necessary to win ratification, just as the 19th century split had allowed competing personalities with different approaches to advance the movement in their own ways.
By the early 20th century, women had already moved far beyond the domestic sphere and boldly entered public life, yet a fundamental responsibility and privilege of citizenship—the right to vote—was arbitrarily denied to half the population. The 19th Amendment changed that increasingly untenable situation, representing a breakthrough for American women as well as a major step forward for American democracy.
That river is enriched by the waters of each tributary, but with the passage of time it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish the special contributions of any one of the tributaries. While the United States still lacks truly universal suffrage and gender equity remains a widely debated issue, the 19th Amendment represented a giant step toward both goals and left a firm constitutional foundation for future progress.
When Susan B. As is the case of all Brookings publications, the conclusions and recommendations presented in this article are solely those of its authors and do not reflect the views of the Brookings Institution, its management, or its scholars. Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen examines the history of women entering the labor force and analyzes both the challenges that remain today and potential solutions to meet those challenges.
General ret. Lori J. In a strategic move with far-reaching consequences, she and other white voting rights activists opted to cultivate the support of southern white women—and to diminish the role of Black women. But when she arrived in Washington for the parade, she was told she would not be marching with the Illinois delegation. Instead, she could bring up the rear of the procession with other Black women.
She refused. Her voice trembled with emotion and her face was set in lines of grim determination, according to newspaper reports. But midway through, she walked out of the crowd and assumed her place among the Illinois women. No one dared remove her. When Illinois opened the vote to women later that year, she led a registration drive among African Americans that eventually helped elect the first Black alderman in Chicago.
A prominent Washington educator, she chose to demonstrate her solidarity by marching in the procession with Delta Sigma Theta, a newly formed African-American sorority from Howard University.
One hundred years later, in , the influential organization staged an anniversary suffrage march. This time sorority members led the procession.
At the time of the original parade in March , nine states, all in the West, had passed laws allowing for the enfranchisement of women. Several more, including Illinois, were on the brink of doing so. Elected officials now had women as their constituents, women they had to answer to. The time was ripe to push for an amendment to the U. Mary McLeod Bethune Educator and civil rights activist Born to former slaves in , she became the most politically powerful Black American woman of her time.
After the 19th Amendment passed, she organized Black voter registration drives, defying threats by the Ku Klux Klan. President what will you do for woman suffrage? Rather than protecting the protesters, police arrested them for blocking traffic or, in the case of Alice Paul, just for walking toward the demonstration. Most of the women were jailed at the Occoquan Workhouse prison in Lorton, Virginia, but Paul was put in solitary confinement at the D. She was tied down and force-fed by a tube thrust up her nose.
Conditions were no better at Occoquan. Some 15 women went on hunger strikes, and a few of them were force-fed. One woman had a heart attack and was refused medical care. They were released from jail; soon all charges were dropped, and the Senate and the House took up the proposed amendment. Even Wilson started to thaw two of his daughters supported the suffragists.
None of the 12 states fully enfranchising women by then were in the South. Yet ratifying the amendment would require support from at least some of the southern states, where white supremacy ruled and Black men had been effectively disenfranchised by local regulations. The language of the 19th Amendment echoed that of the 15th:. Ratification of the amendment took more than a year, but on August 18, , Tennessee pushed it over the finish line.
It was, at best, a qualified victory. Women had worked for more than 70 years to gain access to the ballot, and now they finally had it. But Black women still faced nearly insurmountable hurdles to voting in the south. Ninety-eight years later, in , the first majority-female legislature in the United States was elected, in Nevada. The parties were looking for the best candidates. Such an achievement was a long time coming. Instead, once the 19th Amendment was ratified, voting activists dispersed into other causes: the NAACP, labor unions, and peace organizations, to name a few.
Access to the vote is a powerful tool to drive change and transform communities. Yet, despite their exclusion from the promise of the 19th Amendment, women of color have emerged as a growing electoral powerhouse. While subsequent legislation has since enfranchised more women of color—and, today, women of color collectively have come to represent a potential powerhouse electorate—systemic discrimination still bars some women of color from the polls.
The promise of suffrage—and with it, the promise of American democracy and the promise of true equality—has yet to be fully realized. Robin Bleiweis , Shilpa Phadke.
Colin Seeberger Director, Media Relations. Peter Gordon Director, Government Affairs. Madeline Shepherd Director, Government Affairs. Despite some progress, the fight for suffrage rages on Many Americans still do not enjoy full voting rights. Policy solutions that will make suffrage a reality for all Lawmakers must enact robust policies to combat voter suppression to ensure that all eligible Americans can vote.
Jocelyn Frye Senior Fellow. You Might Also Like. Redefining Electability Report Redefining Electability. Aug 14, Judith Warner. Oct 27, Danyelle Solomon. May 24,
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