"An appeal against female suffrage, " June 1889

[MichaelHerbert]

“An Appeal Against Female Suffrage” was published in the Nineteenth Century magazine in June 1889. It was apparently organised by the best-selling novelist Mary Augusta Ward and signed primarily by women from the upper classes, a good few with titles. Some 2000 women eventually signed.

The suffragists responded with their own appeal in favour of suffrage in Fortnightly Review which also attracted 2000 supporters.

The Women’s Penny Paper commented tartly that the anti-suffrage appeal was based on the premise that “man is a superior being” and signed mostly the “wives of men eminent for intellectual attainments and high character..if only their bit of the world were a sample of the whole, instread of being an exception to the whole, their views might possibly be sound…” redflagwalks.wordpress.com/2020/11/26/an-appeal-against-female-suffrage-june-1889/

This sort of thing makes me feel better because I know that feminists have always had to face backlash from their own. It’s unrealistic to expect all women to be on board with something, even if it’s blatantly for their own benefit. It makes me think of all those woke girls waving placards saying ‘you can pee next to me’ and claiming that they’d rather share a changing room with a TW than a TERF. None so blind as those who will not see and all that.

Oh gosh. The more things change, the more they stay the same, huh?

Really interesting, OP. Thanks for posting!

Very interesting.

Good grief. Plus ca change.

signed primarily by women from the upper classes, a good few with titles

The ultimate in 'I'm all right, Jill'.

By “special mission” did they mean “servitude”? Plus ca change indeed.

@EsmesRedPetticoat

By “special mission” did they mean “servitude”? Plus ca change indeed.

I'd guess childbearing. And to certain extent they had a point - equality with men merely on men's terms, and with male priorities isn't sufficient . But it's a necessary prerequisite.

Thank you for posting OP. Classic arguments here all underlining that the higher oppression of women then was due to biology of sex...(and still is).

“To men belong the struggle of debate and legislation in Parliament; the hard and exhausting labour implied in the administration of the national resources and powers; the conduct of England’s relations towards the external world; the working of the army and navy; all the heavy, laborious, fundamental in industries of the state, such as those of mines, metals, railways; the lead and supervision of English commerce, the management of our vast English finance, the service of that merchant fleet on which our food supply depends. In all these spheres women’s direct participation is made impossible either by the disabilities of sex, or by strong formations of custom and habit resting ultimately on physical difference, against which it is useless to contend.”

“But we believe that the emancipating process has now reached the limits fixed by the physical constitution of women, and by the fundamental difference which must always exist between their main occupations and those of men.”

“Were women admitted to this struggle, their natural eagerness and quickness of temper make them hotter partisans than men.”

“Special mission” I think relates back to where they talk about women being the moral reserve of the nation.

“If we turn from the right of women to the suffrage – a right which on the grounds just given we deny – to the effect which the possession of the suffrage may be expected to have on their character and position and on family life, we find ourselves no less in doubt. It is urged that the influence of women in politics would tell upon the side of morality. We believe that it does so tell already, and will do with greater force as women by improved education fit themselves to exert it more widely and efficiently. But it may be asked, On what does this moral influence depend ? We believe that it depends largely on qualities which the natural position and functions of women as they are at present tend to develop, and which might be seriously impaired by their admission to the turmoil of active political life. These qualities are, above all, sympathy and disinteredness. Any disposition of things which threatens to lessen the national reserve of such forces as these we hold to be a misfortune.”
“We believe that their admission to the suffrage would precisely reverse this condition of things, and that the whole nation would suffer in consequence.”
“The quickness to feel, the willingness to lay aside prudential considerations in a right cause, which are amongst the peculiar excellencies of women, are in their right place when they are used to influence the more highly trained and developed judgement of men. But if this quickness of feeling could be immediately and directly translated into public action, in matters of vast and complicated political import, the risks of politics would be enormously, and what is now a national blessing might easily become a national calamity. On the one hand, then, we believe that to admit women into the ordinary machinery of political life would inflame the partisanship and increase the evils, already so conspicuous, of that life, would tend to blunt the special moral qualities of women, and so to lessen the national reserves of moral force; and, on the other hand, we dread the political and practical effects which, in our belief, would follow on such transformation as is proposed, of an influence which is now beneficent largely because it is indirect and gradual.”

thanks for reading the appeal ,took me ages to type up !

signed mostly the “wives of men eminent for intellectual attainments and high character.

I had a good laugh at this. Thanks for sharing OP. Fascinating.

Really interesting to follow this thread of thinking through to the present day. Depressing, but interesting and oddly a bit heartening, too.

Recently I read "Separate Spheres" by Brian Harrison, a history of the anti-suffragist movement. Mary Ward was an interesting case: she was against women having the vote, but she did a lot of work advancing women's education. It would be interesting to know why she thought the vote was a step too far, especially as one of her sisters was active in the pro-suffrage cause!

(Her mother was also a fascinating woman whose marriage fell apart over the issue of religion - read "An Unconventional Wife" by Mary Hoban. She must have been a determined woman to stick to her guns in spite of the power imbalances between the sexes in the early nineteenth century. )

Anyway, sorry for any derailing. Women's history: it's a hobby of mine and I find it endlessly fascinating.

Brian Harrison taught at The University of Manchester when I was there 1973-1976. (photo attached of me at college) Another book on this is "Women Against the Vote: Female Anti-Suffragism in Britain" by Julia Bush. Some women could include women getting eductaion, even middle-class women becoming doctors within what they believed women could do but could not extend this to envision politics. I teach freelance courses on radcial women and have put up some posts on this topic and also on the Women's Liberation movement. redflagwalks.wordpress.com/

cheers, and thanks for adding another book to my to be sought out and read list.

I suppose education and medicine could have been seen as an extension of "woman's mission", though women made inroads into local government through the 19th century and were granted the vote in New Zealand in 1893 and Australia in 1902.
Ury

I suppose education and medicine could have been seen as an extension of "woman's mission"

Yes, wasn't there a view that the roles were equally divided and that women had power within the domestic/nurturing sphere that was comparable to men without? It's one way to look at the domestic/biological burden, I suppose Wondering if you can draw a line to the Homemaker's Equal Rights Association & Phyllis Schlafly (although obvs in the US), she was a huge proponent of home schooling, seeing education as part of the 'homemaker's' remit. Supporting capitalist sexual division of labour. Thanks for the book recommendations, really interesting. I find it fascinating that women can evangelically dedicate themselves to holding women back.

Interesting read. Thanks for posting.