Difference between revisions of "328 2010--Week 5 Questions/Comments"
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I have to admit to getting some strange looks from my roommate because I was laughing to myself while reading this one. Howe manages to outline the arguments made in favor of denying women the right to vote while simultaneously making each and every one of them sound ridiculous. It reads like a modern political satire, and it's interesting to discover that people used humor to make their points in Howe's time as well. Her decision to structure her work in couplets especially emphasizes the bizarre dichotomies that women became trapped in. They were angels and depraved, vicious individuals all at once. I suspect that class differences accounted for some of the disparity. Women of the upper class would have been to angelic and innocent to involved themselves in politics, while working class women would be too ignorant to deal with politics properly. When phrased this way, it's hard to see how anyone could have continued to employ these arguments against women voting, but I suppose if the anti-suffragists were really using women's hats as a reason to deny them the franchise, they weren't exactly trying to stick to even remotely reasonable attacks. -Mary Ann | I have to admit to getting some strange looks from my roommate because I was laughing to myself while reading this one. Howe manages to outline the arguments made in favor of denying women the right to vote while simultaneously making each and every one of them sound ridiculous. It reads like a modern political satire, and it's interesting to discover that people used humor to make their points in Howe's time as well. Her decision to structure her work in couplets especially emphasizes the bizarre dichotomies that women became trapped in. They were angels and depraved, vicious individuals all at once. I suspect that class differences accounted for some of the disparity. Women of the upper class would have been to angelic and innocent to involved themselves in politics, while working class women would be too ignorant to deal with politics properly. When phrased this way, it's hard to see how anyone could have continued to employ these arguments against women voting, but I suppose if the anti-suffragists were really using women's hats as a reason to deny them the franchise, they weren't exactly trying to stick to even remotely reasonable attacks. -Mary Ann | ||
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| + | I, too, found myself laughing at this article, particularly the line “Besides, when I look around me at the men, I feel that God never meant us women to be too particular” (p 104). The pamphlet provided a clever way to point out the ridiculous and contradictory arguments put forth by anti-suffragists without aggressively attacking them. However, I do wonder if this pamphlet helped to change anyone’s mind about suffrage, or if it was mainly an amusing piece for those already committed to the cause. – Alice W | ||
