And they vote too...
My friend Andreas has started a post about feminism where everyone agrees: equal rights and opportunities and men and women are as equal as opinion can suppose them to be. I do not mean this to be dismissive or insulting, but a record of how much people agree. This, I suppose, is fundamental to the regime.
But my friend Adam quoted an instance of how extreme feminism was once thought: women used to not vote. Further, in Switzerland, every moderate's idea of a republic in modern times, women did not vote, I was told, as a kind of reproach to that inestimable people. Confident however that the Swiss will live with such imagined shame, I note that they may have been right.
This is the Great Debate and I wonder whether anyone is willing to consider the alternative, which is also known as our past. It may have been wrong; it may not be. Why ought women to vote? As everyone seems very clear on this, it is merely a matter of explaining it to me. My interlocutors here, friendly or otherwise, must have noticed that I am not incompetent; I am aware women do vote and was forced in history classes to learn when in different countries around the world. I am merely asking for the reason behind this fact. For those who care to know that I am a man and hence can afford to make the argument: true - but how many men do in fact make it?
To correct one misconception, if women were involved in this process, securing the vote in America, it must be the suffragettes who get the credit, not feminism, an entirely different thing and a later apparition in the public square. Finally, I believe the fact that black men already had the right to vote shows that the question is about men and women not about race or anything of the like. Imagine that in other countries, unlike in America, there were no slaves, so it was not even an issue.
And yet women did not vote once. And now they do. People now take it for granted and call people in previous times primitive or worse. But why?
But my friend Adam quoted an instance of how extreme feminism was once thought: women used to not vote. Further, in Switzerland, every moderate's idea of a republic in modern times, women did not vote, I was told, as a kind of reproach to that inestimable people. Confident however that the Swiss will live with such imagined shame, I note that they may have been right.
This is the Great Debate and I wonder whether anyone is willing to consider the alternative, which is also known as our past. It may have been wrong; it may not be. Why ought women to vote? As everyone seems very clear on this, it is merely a matter of explaining it to me. My interlocutors here, friendly or otherwise, must have noticed that I am not incompetent; I am aware women do vote and was forced in history classes to learn when in different countries around the world. I am merely asking for the reason behind this fact. For those who care to know that I am a man and hence can afford to make the argument: true - but how many men do in fact make it?
To correct one misconception, if women were involved in this process, securing the vote in America, it must be the suffragettes who get the credit, not feminism, an entirely different thing and a later apparition in the public square. Finally, I believe the fact that black men already had the right to vote shows that the question is about men and women not about race or anything of the like. Imagine that in other countries, unlike in America, there were no slaves, so it was not even an issue.
And yet women did not vote once. And now they do. People now take it for granted and call people in previous times primitive or worse. But why?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on -
Well, do you think me an obtuse man?
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Permalink Reply by Jamie Q on -
I honestly don't know. I'm struggling to understand why a rational person would need to ask such a question.
Assuming men are allowed to vote, why shouldn't women be allowed vote, as well? -
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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Jamie, it is always a problem to talk with men you think might just be obtuse. You alternate unfortunately between the feeling of having your leg pulled and the wonderment at someone's naivete.
But I will try to help you along to this, because after all this discussion is to serve at least my interest in debate. Fair is fair - women used to not vote, now they do: why the change? Do not behave like you were born yesterday - when these things change, even if you think the change is good - what's the reason?
I agree with you that why men vote is a very good question; I disagree on one part: it is not the same for women; we shall get to why in a second - but it clearly is not the same: without men voting America could never have existed. Without women - it did just fine. Is that no evidence? Must history be abandoned? -
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Permalink Reply by Jamie Q on
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As I understand it, women didn't vote in the past because it wasn't their place; they weren't deemed qualified to have an equal say in matters of state. Just as black men were once thought unqualified to cast an informed vote. Things change; people wise up.
Anyone who seriously believes that a single woman should not have the same political voice as a single man is most likely beyond reasoning with. -
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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How do you establish that? Clearly, that person must entertain disagreeing with you - but is that the ground for calling people crazy?
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Permalink Reply by Jamie Q on
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Not crazy (necessarily). Just unreasonable.
If a man believes that all women should be disallowed to vote simply due to their gender, then I can't fathom finding enough common ground from which to begin reasoning with him. -
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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Gender is not the way people used to refer to this. But you are mistaken regardless: the Founders and yourself happily agree that men should vote regardless of color, creed, or station. You need not call the people responsible for the electoral laws in America prior to 1920 or thereabouts past reasoning.
Perhaps it is that I am more interested in what these eminent figures thought and how they figured out talking over God making all men equal, but leaving women out of the polls. You suggest it makes no sense; it is some error the benighted many and few alike committed for a good century and almost one half. That is not serious thinking. That is merely laziness. -
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Permalink Reply by Jamie Q on
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That was the thinking for millennia beforehand. That doesn't make it right.
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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Well, you must wait awhile. I am about to get to this with my friend Jamie, who has beat you to the punch, no pun intended. But you suppose men and women rigorously identical?
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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Do not let me pretend to be very original - others here who have read as I have or have thought as I have would then mock my pretense - the criterion for citizenship has always been the effective means of separating us from them. What is to say the same: the willingness and ability to butcher mercilessly one's own country's enemies. I do not mean to seem world-historical. Banal is what I am aiming at, rather.
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Permalink Reply by Titus Techera on
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If the following is too obscure, I must ask for the arbitration of our interlocutors here:
"the criterion for citizenship has always been the effective means of separating us from them. What is to say the same: the willingness and ability to butcher mercilessly one's own country's enemies."
Endquote, as people say. It is perhaps formulated more in the way of Thomas Jefferson, if you must know, than the current standard expression. But it is very straightforward, I think. -
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