While the vast majority of societal problems today can be traced to the left, there is an annoying problem that persists among a few on the right regarding blaming broad groups of people, unfairly stereotyping them as leftists. Fortunately, I’ve noticed few conservatives say this about blacks and other minorities today, as they realize minorities are finally seeing past the left’s lies, victimization and using them as pawns, becoming conservative. But here and there some Facebook friend will pop up and denounce the 19th Amendment.
Superficially, they sound clever. “More men vote Republican than women, and more women vote Democrat than men, so if women couldn’t vote, our elected officials would be Republican.” Then they launch into a rant about how women are more emotional, vote based on their feelings, vote based on needing security and government there as a backup pocketbook, etc.
The problem with this argument is while it may be true for some women, it’s not true for the almost equally sized number of us women who vote Republican. Thankfully, the younger generations aren’t inundated with outdated stereotypes, it’s refreshing seeing all the studies coming out these days showing that a lot of notions about men vs. women weren’t accurate. One consistent finding across most of the studies is that gender differences are deepest in the wealthiest countries — a sign that many are societally created. Today, men are no longer encouraged as much in wealthier countries to hide their feelings. So fewer people today are being indoctrinated.
It’s not right to punish the most ambitious, independent, logical women — who make most men look touchy-feely — due to the slightly larger percentage of women than men who aren’t. Should the late Margaret Thatcher, Carly Fiorina and I be prohibited from voting while all the men who vote Democrat aren’t? Using their logic, incumbent British Prime Minister James Callaghan of the Labour Party should have won reelection, instead of Thatcher defeating him and going on to become one of the most legendary leaders on the right.
These critics like to point out that our wise Founding Fathers did not give women the right to vote. But that’s not accurate. The Constitution left that decision to the states. Article I, Section 2 states in part, “the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” So in New Jersey, women voted when the country was founded. Non-whites could vote too, although both groups had to be property owners. In fact, women were allowed to vote in several colonies including Massachusetts and Connecticut before 1776; it was only after the country was founded that states broadly began implementing restrictions.
This wasn’t based on Biblical principles but on “Coverture,” which was English common law. It “dates back to the Middle Ages,” not Biblical times. Similarly, these same types of men whine about women working — but never bother to address the fact that a lot of men are lazy and refuse to hold a steady, decent-paying job to pay for themselves, much less a wife and children. I know plenty of women who would be perfectly content to work from home and raise children if it was an option, and they aren’t demanding a life of luxury either, just enough to get by. Instead, plenty of women are stuck footing the bills for these deadbeats; they’re not on welfare, they’re quietly working but no one ever cares to point these types of situations out because they don’t fit the stereotype of the greedy woman who marries for wealth or is a welfare queen.
There is a parallel situation here — this is not an isolated problem. There has been a lot of condemnation lately of people using the n-word to describe blacks (granted, the ire is not directed at blacks using it, but that’s another issue). Why is there zero outrage, other than from primarily Christian conservatives who dislike all profanity, at the use of the b-word to describe women? It’s thrown around constantly; on TV shows, movies, rap lyrics along with the n-word and usually comes up in any nasty verbal fight involving a woman so we are bombarded with it constantly.
Women were also treated poorly in history; besides being unable to vote in most states there were other restrictions that amounted to treating us like property. In 1887, one-third of states didn’t allow women to keep their own earnings. There were all kinds of restrictions on women’s working conditions until the 20th century, including prohibitions on getting business loans without a male relative co-signer until a law was passed banning it in 1988. Women were prohibited from serving on juries until the last state, Mississippi, relented in 1968.
Yes, there is a significant contingent of feminists who prefer to embrace the word — but there is a significant contingent of blacks who embrace the n-word, what’s the difference? The #MeToo movement is just another hypocritical feminist movement; it claims to care about women but ignores other sexism, focusing on only rape and sexual harassment. And it completely overlooks the problem that women commit more domestic violence than men.
If we found that fat people were more likely to vote Democrat, should we ban them from voting? What about Irish guys with the surname O’Brien? The logic doesn’t pan out. Conservatives believe in treating people as individuals, not as groups. So why the exception, treating women as one stereotype? No one (without getting into the small new minority promoting transgenders) believes that men and women aren’t different “physically,” and fortunately those differences are relatively minor in the modern era with women able to do a lot of the same jobs as men; for most of us women those differences are just annoying minor inconveniences, like needing extra help trying to move something heavy or dealing with menstruation.
When men whine wishing women hadn’t been given the right to vote, they’re not reflecting the Founding Fathers. Why should those states that banned women from voting be allowed to dictate the rules today?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member