The Case for Women's Suffrage

The Case for Womens' Suffrage:

At one time, I had an advisor in college who had this poster on her door. I was reminded of it today because I was thinking that it might provide a synthesis position on the question we've been debating.



It's a good argument -- one that demonstrates the injustice of women being categorically denied the vote in clear and undeniable terms. It's interesting to note what it is not, though: it is not an argument for universal suffrage. It's an argument for suffrage based on those public or civic virtues we've been discussing.

A woman can be all the things that 'a man can be, without losing the vote.' The question is, which of these should cause someone to lose the vote? The implication is that at least some of them should.

(I have occasionally been given to the drinking of beer, so perhaps I've already achieved Elise's condition of suggesting "principles for limiting the franchise that would eliminate him or herself from the pool of acceptable voters." On the other hand, I have always dissented from the Women's Temperance Movement on their interpretation of temperance as abstinence. Still, it's certainly highly likely that they would have excluded me!)

The wider point is that the defense of womens' suffrage does not depend, as it did not originally stand, on a notion of the importance of universal suffrage. They fought, and won, on the grounds of virtue: of the virtues of women, and the consequent immorality of denying them the vote. I think that was the right ground, and I suspect it remains the right ground.