A cat in a big feathered hat and a purple, white and green shawl, paw on a paper that reads "We demand the vote." The joke, the artist suggests, is that letting women vote makes as much sense as letting cats vote — and don't women complaining that they can't vote sound like a lot of howling cats?
"An Advocate for Woman's Rights," postcard, about 1910–1913. Ann Lewis Women's Suffrage Collection. Photo: Joanne Westbrook, National Park Service.
The anti-suffragists
As suffragists won more people over, their opponents organized. In 1911, anti-suffragists who had been fighting at the state level formed the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, which published a newspaper, the Woman's Protest. They argued that if women could vote they would neglect their homes and families and become "mannish." Ridicule was one of their main weapons, often in cartoons printed on postcards that showed suffragists as angry, ugly and violent — or as frivolous and silly.
Four more postcards
| Postcard | What it shows | The message |
|---|---|---|
| Militant Suffragettes | Children march with signs — a girl's misspelled "More kandy more jam," another's "No more school for us!" — and a girl leads a boy by a rope around his neck, wearing a sign: "Hubbies to be home by 8 P.M." They pass a dog with a doll in its mouth. | In cartoons of the time, cats often stood for women and dogs for men. |
| Queen of the Poll (Suffragette Series No. 9 of 12) | A well-dressed "District Leaderess" beside a pole of campaign signs: "Don't vote for Dr. McMoney for Treasurer. Vote for his wife. She has been his treasurer for 40 years." Another promotes "Ann Howolde, Boodle-holder." | "Boodle" is slang for bribe money: women are shown bribing voters. |
| Suffragists Attacking a Policeman (No. 641) | One woman holds back a police officer while another hits him with an umbrella. | Suffragists sometimes did resist rough arrests, but they were far more likely to be brutalized by police than the reverse. |
| The Suffragette for Senatoress | A candidate in an evening gown points to her platform: lower tariffs on Paris gowns, "a reduction of the duties on women," "Correspondence solicited from the trusts. I'm just 16." | Part of a 16-card series by Walter Wellman of attractive women "acting as men," mocking the idea of women voting and holding office. |
"The Suffragette for Senatoress," postcard by Walter Wellman. From the National Park Service.
The words themselves
The suffixes did some of the mocking. -ess, as in "Leaderess" or "Senatoress," marks a job as held by a woman, presuming it would normally be a man's; many people now avoid it. -ette in "suffragette" also marks a woman — but it means "little" too, and American suffragists found the word demeaning.
For the classroom
This activity, created with the Hard History Project for grades 6–8 (ages 11–14), asks students to analyze how women and men are represented, and to connect that to how they themselves respond to teasing. Questions to discuss:
- How are suffragists represented in these pictures?
- What do the images say about men and women at the time?
- Can you think of people ridiculed the same way today, in advertising, movies, social media or comics?
- How has the representation of women changed in the century since these postcards?
Sources
Based on "Teaching Suffrage: Anti-Suffrage Postcards," National Park Service (Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument), created with the Hard History Project; a work of the United States government in the public domain.
In these publicationsNational Mall and Memorial ParksBelmont-Paul Women's Equality National MonumentTeaching Suffrage
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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