DBWI: We should have given women the right to vote in 1919

Commissar

Banned
As we all know, there was a strong urge in 1919 to pass the proposed 19th Amendment that would have given women full suffrage with Tennessee being the crucial swing state, but instead somehow, the Suffrage movement lost steam and a backlash occurred with the current 19th Amendment which forbids women the right to vote in the United States, to own property, have her own choice in reproduction, a say in who they marry, and the right to divorce.

They are also restricted from factory, mining jobs, the military and most police work. Also they have to wear corsets and proper bonnets or hats when outside the house.

But if Iran can have universal suffrage and women in high government positions including the Vice Presidency along with full participation in the workforce and Pakistan had a female Prime Minister and Great Britain as well, why are we so ass backwards?

What gives? What could possibly go wrong with electing women to office or letting them vote and have equal rights?

Support the 26th Amendment my fellow U.S. Citizens and give Suffrage and equal rights to women. Let America have a new birth of freedom.
 
black angel

black angel

who knows it might cut down on the inner city woman's riots its really making NYC and Boston unlivable, might have saved President Kennedy and President Clinton from being shot by White House Maids

that being said many people feel that if Woman get the vote than blacks will want the vote, and White Southerns love talking about about a "second war between the states" if the North does anything to push that, and most every one uses the line that if woman have a legal say in their marriages homosexuals will want marriage rights, like the ones that just passed in Iran, and divorce will lead to messed up kids....
 
Aelita

Aelita

And get rid of the sex appeal that is the Womyn's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell? You sir are mad. Mad mad mad mad!

Okay maybe not. But I'm not the only person who finds radical communist terrorist women sexy. It's like the fascist-chic in Italy and Britain; the black leather and firearms just are awesome.

OOC: I don't think the reaction would be that bad as to explictly prohibit women voting, let alone owning property, which was already fairly accepted.
 

MaskedPickle

I will report your treacherous post to the cyberpolice, you godless marxist! No one should dare to contradict the policies of our President Pat Robertson!
 

Falkenburg

Monthly Donor
Not only women should get the vote. Everyone should. Abolish the Property Qualification!

Falkenburg
 
Aelita

Aelita

Falkenburg said:
Not only women should get the vote. Everyone should. Abolish the Property Qualification!

Falkenburg
Click to expand...
Do you really want a Communist landslide next election? If we had universal suffrage, all of those propertyless proletarian masses and debtor farmers would be able to vote. They're the majority, and most of them are communists.
 

Commissar

Banned
Snowstalker said:
OOC: Unless something massive happens in the 1910's, ASB.
Click to expand...

OOC: Not really given the large mount of Hostility of even women to the 19th Amendment. Some different players here and there and different thinking prevailing at the polls and this is quite possible.

For example, Harry Burn who cast the fateful vote in Tennessee and spent the night hiding in the attic of the State Capitol to protect his life, might have had lost his nerve and stayed within the anti-suffragist camp and risk the anger of his mother who was a suffragist.

IC:

I object to being called a Communist, MaskedPickle, I challenge you to a duel. Choose your strategy game and we'll settle this like gentlemen over the internet.
 

Finn

Commissar said:
OOC: Not really given the large mount of Hostility of even women to the 19th Amendment. Some different players here and there and different thinking prevailing at the polls and this is quite possible.
Click to expand...

OOC: Yeah, no. It can't possibly stay like that while the rest of the world moves on.
 

Falkenburg

Monthly Donor
Hey at least the Communists have Universal Suffrage.
They can harness the energy and intellect of ALL of their people, rather than the small elites places like the US do.

Or do you think it's a coincidence that the first person to walk on the Moon was Valentina Tereshkova?

Falkenburg
 

Swan Station

OOC: (This entire wall of text post is OOC)

I wish this had been proposed as a regular WI, the actual discussion of the possibility is much more interesting to me than the alternate universe discussion.

I'm unconvinced that the POD would work. If Tennessee failed to ratify the amendment, it would just get ratified by Connecticut, or Vermont... maybe Delaware. If these three fail to ratify, then yes, maybe it doesn't get passed in 1920 or '21, but was there a time limit on ratification? Maybe a couple of decades down the line one of the Southern states that didn't ratify until the 1950's might ratify it, and suddenly it's there.

There's almost a century of history of increasing rights for women behind this amendment by 1919, you can't just halt this completely.

If it doesn't get ratified immediately, and it loses steam, we might just see it becoming de facto law anyway, as more and more states start to allow women to vote in their states. More than half the states already allowed at least partial suffrage to women by then.

As far as a "backlash" amendment goes, in which the rights of women are actually removed... I don't think that would ever happen. Since there are 15 states who have full suffrage for women at this time, that leaves only 33 which even would have a chance of voting for such an amendment, whereas ratification would require 36. Sure, maybe you get 3 states of those 15 willing to do it anyway, since the congressmen are probably majority male, but... why would they? At least the first two of these three are taking a chance that the amendment never gets passed, and suddenly there'll be massive recall elections as their female constituents drag them out of their seats.

I think you need a far earlier POD, or a fascist takeover of the government in order for this to happen.

Yes, there are places in this world today where women have lost the rights they had, or never had those rights in the first place. But, IMO, I think that if you looked closer at those places, you'd see quite a few reasons why that happened there -- reasons which simply would not be applicable to US society.
 
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