It is Time to Reconsider
Is it time to reconsider the 19th Amendment?
The argument for female suffrage is that women are not more prone to bouts of emotionalism than men, and hence is it equally worthwhile, as the whole, to consult with them over the conduct and control of public business.
Unfortunately, it is evident that there are but rare and few men in the current generation show any particular manly or masculine virtues which would entitle them to a say in the public business, if stoicism, reason, and virtue were preconditions for the franchise.
The argument against female suffrage is that voting is a peaceful substitute for revolution, wherein the less numerous party, seeing himself outnumbered, agreed without bloodshed to abide by the vote of the more numerous. Women, being largely less ready, willing, or able to take up arms than men, have no place in these military questions.
A corollary argument is that a woman, being immune from the draft, should have no say over such questions as whether to enact a draft or when and how to conduct a war.
For better or worse, this argument only applied to a limited government whose business is matters of the prevention of crime and the conduct of war, where the mass of voters, by and large, are also the armed militia and posse members who make up those public bodies. That would not seem to be the case in the current generation.
Another argument against is that experience over the last several generation shows that female suffrage erodes the willingness and ability of maidens to become wives and mothers, to shape the character of the next generation, which is a task more needed for the preservation of the republic.
Moreover, women becoming less feminine as a whole become less happy, which makes men, as a whole both less masculine and less happy. Granting the vote to women grants, in the long run, misery to them and to all.
And, again, women who intrude into positions of political power make self-centered and highly emotional decisions, see, for example, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.
The argument here is that chivalry, good sportsmanship, and grace toward an opponent are personality traits not naturally found in women, but are needed in any vocation both more ruthless and requiring greater diplomacy and willingness to compromise than everyday public life.
Another argument in favor of female suffrage, on the other hand, is that when the public business is concerned with welfare payments to the poor, and medical welfare to the sick, this are properly feminine and motherly concerns, and so the insight of the feminine mind is needed.
A somewhat libertarian rebuttal to that argument is that without the influence of female voters, the government would not be eager to intrude into matters of charity and welfare, or would not long be willing to stay.
A stronger argument in favor of female suffrage is that since anyone, male or female, living within the nation and paying taxes both affects and is affected by the public business, therefore he should have a say in the matter, by simple justice.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
