Did every woman support the suffrage cause?
Not every woman was in favor of suffrage. Catherine Beecher,
sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe and a standard-setter for American domestic
life, was opposed. She, and others like her, thought the gift of the ballot was
not a privilege conferred but an act of oppression, forcing women to assume
responsibilities belonging to men, for which females were not and could not be
qualified. Consequently, having the vote would withdraw attention and interest
from the distinctive and more important homemaking duties of their sex.
I thought otherwise. “I do pray, and that earnestly and
constantly, for some terrific shock to startle the women of this nation into a
self-respect which will compel them to see the abject degradation of their
present position; which will force them to break their yoke of bondage, and
give them faith in themselves.”
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