Did suffragette really won voting rights for women?

63daddy · 2025-08-23T03:43:58+00:00

In early America, most men and most women couldn’t vote, some of this minority in fact were women. Over time, more and more women and men could vote, with several states passing laws against gender discrimination in voting prior to the 19th amendment, so the idea no women could ever vote prior to the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920 is pure fiction.

Similarly, civil rights, all citizens having equal rights was a growing push independent of suffrage.

Some of the greatest opposition to suffrage actually came from women who feared that guaranteed equal voting rights might mean a loss of privileges women enjoyed even back then. (See source)

https://www.societyforhistoryeducation.org/pdfs/M15_Miller.pdf

Newbosterone · 2025-08-23T03:30:54+00:00

That sounds like the British suffragette movement. Feminists downplay how violent they and their Labor allies were. Arson, bombings, and street riots were a big part of the protests.

Edit: https://www.thesuffragettes.org/history/key-events/

Classic-Economy2273 · 2025-08-23T21:31:38+00:00

In the UK, for centuries the monarch appointed politicians from hereditary peers/aristocracy with no votes/elections until Oliver Cromwell removed Charles I in the mid 17th century, establishing the republic Commonwealth of England and a period of political reform, leading to the Parliament of Great Britain in 1707.

The aristocracy recognising this trend of ever increasing representation, took advantage of the system while parliament was still unelected and made sure they still controlled the laws/taxation;

British aristocratic women exerted political influence and power during the century beginning with the accession of George III. They expressed their political power through the four roles of social patron, patronage distributor, political advisor, and political patron/electioneer. British aristocratic women were able, trained, and expected to play these roles. Politics could not have existed without these women. The source of their political influence was the close interconnection of politics and society. In this small, inter-connected society, women could and did influence politics.

The Representation of the People Act 1832 secured the vote for men who weren't hereditary peers, but limited to those with property and sufficient wealth, and had no real impact on the political landscape. The reaction was a huge campaign for universal suffrage, representing a real threat to the peers power and control, so instead they supported women's suffrage for those that can meet the wealth requirements.

Feminism was never really about equality, the movement openly excluded black and working class women, whilst promoting white supremacy;

Pioneering feminist activist, Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton, became the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, was also a white supremacist and racist who openly advocated for the systematic lynching of African Americans. Increased numbers joining the Ku Klux Klan were due to the recruiting efforts of women's suffrage. Many members were related to Klansmen and some women joined the WKKK.

Many British suffragettes joined the British Union of Fascists, standing as candidates in local and national parliamentary elections. "Dorothy Downe, Norah Elam, and Mercedes Barrington, for example, had worked for the Tory Party but simply grown disillusioned. The BUF seemed a natural successor to the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), Several of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst’s colleagues regarded her movement as a forerunner of the interwar dictatorships because of its insistence on total obedience to the Leader."

The vast majority of men gained the right to vote at the same time as women, with the passing of the 1918 Representation of the People Act which removed the requirements for assets and income from the right to vote.

sgtm7 · 2025-08-24T01:19:45+00:00

You probably need to specify which country you are referring to. And then, to which jurisdiction in that country.

YetAnotherCommenter · 2025-08-30T07:15:00+00:00

The UK Suffragettes (Pankhurst etc) weren't advocates for universal suffrage.

They were wealthy women who opposed "Coverture" (the practice in English law which transferred a woman's property to her husband upon marriage), because that made wealthy women lose their property and consequent right to vote (voting rights at the time were for landowners only). They were also opponents of how their husbands would sometimes cheat and leave them destitute as a result (since he got her property upon marriage), and thus were also opposed to male infidelity. Their full slogan was not "Votes for Women" but "Votes for Women and Chastity for Men."

They also participated in the White Feather campaign - they shamed men into joining the Armed Forces to fight in World War 1.

They were an Upper-Class Women's Interests group. Whilst they did technically contribute to expanding the availability of the franchise, and they were right that Coverture was unjust, they were not what we'd call a Human Rights or Individual Rights movement.

Beautiful_Hospital · 2025-08-28T01:58:49+00:00

Okay, so basically every claim in the quote you posted looks extremely made up. You didn't even specify a country or year, but you have such a precise statistic as 96% of women refused the right to vote? You think that in the late 19th century the US or UK government wanted women in the army? You think that the word suffragette didn't refer to women agitating for the right to vote, instead it referred to women who accepted the offer of being drafted in exchange for the right to vote, meaning it referred to the only group of women who could actually vote? Who all, I guess, went to war?

I don't know where you pulled this from, but I need you to understand that trying to deny the fact that women were largely denied voting rights in the US and UK is flat earther/Holocaust denial levels of delusional. Delusional to the extent that it degrades the person trying to correct you. Do not take my ire here as me being feminist. I'm trying to keep you from making us look stupid by denying reality.

Title	Did suffragette really won voting rights for women?
Author	Gamilat
Upvotes	30
Comments	41
Date	August 23, 2025 2:52 AM UTC (10 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1mxq5s6/did_suffragette_really_won_voting_rights_for_women/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/did-suffragette-really-won-voting-rights-for-women.1560244 https://theredarchive.com/post/1560244

Comments