fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2565 ]

[ SECRET POST #2565 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2565 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

08. [SPOILERS for Shingeki no Kyojin / Attack on Titan]

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09. [SPOILERS for The Walking Dead]
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[gore in image]

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10. [SPOILERS for American Horror Story]

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11. [SPOILERS for Doctor Who]

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12. [SPOILERS for Sherlock]
http://i.imgur.com/d4tbog4.png
(OP requested link)

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13. [SPOILERS for Sherlock]

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So, I'm writing a fic in a fandom whose characters are in the early 20th century -- a future fic that takes place a few years after the events of canon. I'm planning on making the (mainly American) women's suffrage movement a big part of the fic, and I wanted some advice on how to write the male characters' thoughts in a way that lets them be still sympathetic, but not super-progressive and enlightened. Like, what kinds of erroneous assumptions about women voting, and what kinds of 'problems' might essentially good men see with the idea of women's suffrage that aren't just mindless "durr women should stay in the kitchen durr." And more importantly, what would you guys suggest for ways to make them understand that come around to supporting women's suffrage even if they were a bit iffy at first?

only thing i can come up with off the top of my head: if a woman is married to a good man then her husband's vote should already factor in her opinion as well

I'm far from an expert but from what I've read, some of it was paternalistic attempts to protect women from upsetting topics. Some men thought that women weren't well-informed enough to vote and they were happier that way.

And I know someone who says she would happily give up her right to vote if it meant also taking away the gains that LGBT people have made too. She says that women could try to influence their husbands to vote the way they wanted to and at that time the man's vote was more of the family's vote. She doesn't know much about history but I thought you might be interested in one person's thoughts on the anti-women's suffage argument.

And I know someone who says she would happily give up her right to vote if it meant also taking away the gains that LGBT people have made too.

Wait, what the hell? How... how would that even work?

In the moon-logic of the sort of person who would say something like that, I'm guessing it's because women, as a voting demographic, tend to swing liberal, so if women's suffrage were repealed, the skies would darken as the thousand-year reign of the GOP began, and "sodomy" would go back to being criminalized.

I don't pretend to understand her. I just try to avoid talking to her as much as possible.

Well, one of the common arguments made at the time was that women would automatically vote as their husbands did, so there'd be no point to them voting at all. Anti-suffragette propaganda also strongly implied that voting would make women into masculine (and ugly, the cartoons were often HIGHLY unflattering) she-demons who bossed around their husbands. It also stressed this as an emasculation of men, who'd then be all hen-pecked and doing "woman's work" like cleaning the house and raising babies since the women would all be busy. Seriously, Google the fear-mongering propaganda of the era, it's hilarious.

While a lot of that is pretty extreme, they're only exaggerations of the sorts of opinions everyday men would've had. It's much like today-- many "essentially good men" still buy into a lot of misogynist bullshit, just slightly milder, more subtle forms of it. ("What's wrong with women in comics being portrayed as scantily clad sex objects? Men get drawn with muscles!", "I support your claim to equal rights, but you're not doing it right/your tone offends me", etc.)

As for ways to come around on the issue... like real life, nothing hits closer to home than seeing people you know and care about come to harm because of the laws that are supposed to protect them, or seeing examples that break all the negative stereotypes women supposedly all have.

You could try asking

little_details!

Like some of the other commenters have suggested, men were afraid that voting (or working in certain jobs, etc.) would fundamentally change women. The cult of true womanhood suggested that women were inherently suited to the domestic sphere and to the religious and moral education of the household; their purity provided a respite for their husbands who had to deal with the immoral, wearying, and anxiety-ridden world outside to the house. To thrust women into the political sphere is to 1) remove that safe haven the angel in the house provides for her husband and 2) force women to deal with issues that will corrupt them.

A common thought at the time, from my understanding, was that womens brains were legit different and couldn't really understand such complicated manners. It would stress them, they would get 'hysterical' etc etc. So a lot of the worry was more...paternal? Some men just really thought women weren't cut out, genetically or something, for such manly topics of voting and politics and banking etc etc.

Also some men feared this would mean a dirty and ill kept house and wild children, because womens rights meant that women wanted to be out of the house all the time and protesting and all that, and then who would care for the house and family?

For changing their minds...Have them actually hear some arguments for women's suffrage that shake up their view of the world/cause them to think about the issue as something that might, in some way, work. Then take time with them changing their mind, and have them actively look for more information from the other side. Note: There are a few ways for them to start down it. Maybe they decide to pick up a pamphlet to see the silly arguments and find them to be well reasoned, or maybe someone they respect says that they support it,or they over hear someone mocking a reason they find compelling and it inspires them to look for more information.

As for making them sympathetic...one of the best ways I've seen it done is in the episode of Quantum Leap that dealt with the feminist movement. The father in that managed to be fairly sympathetic, but still against feminism until the end of the episode. But, basically, make it obvious that they care about the women in their life and just...legitly don't see what's wrong with women not being able to vote/worried that it will do something to harm them if they get that right.

ALSO: As far as the American Women's Suffage stuff goes...it might help to remember that some states actually had it before the 19th amendment, and some states even had women holding public office prior to that. So maybe one character [major or minor] could be from them, and help get the rest of the characters to at least start looking into it as something that might not be what they thought.

In many ways, a man voting was seen as not just voting on behalf of himself so much as voting on behalf of his family. The idea was that voting was a representation of self-interest, so a woman's vote was already represented via her father or husband.

Another thing is that men and women are both meant to be involved in the community, but men do so via political organization, where as women do so via non-political organization (i.e. Boards, charities, certain social institutions, etc). These two shouldn't overlap (much), and men should stay in politics while women should stay in charity, and this is the optimum balance of community organization.

One argument that can help sway a man who isn't big on woman's suffrage is pointing out that the 'domestic' sphere and 'political' spheres are increasingly overlapping, so you need women in politics, i.e. as laws relating to schools and children become more of a thing, you need women - the majority of teachers and childcare givers and who are thus the 'best informed' on such subjects - to be involved. In general, women were the ones in charge of social issues, and in the decades prior to the Suffragist Movement this was primarily through religious and secular organizations that worked for specific causes (i.e. women running that era's halfway houses to help the poor or house pregnant teens or get prostitutes off the streets, charitable organizations, etc). Social issues are already primarily a woman's domain, so now that social and economic are overlapping and there are more laws about social issues, women need to step in via voting.

For certain men, another way to sway them is pointing out that while the idea is that a man is supposed to vote on behalf of his family, not himself, that doesn't always actually happen, so at that point it's a woman's prerogative to vote so as to better represent her family's interests, or at least her own and her children's interests. If a man is too drunk to vote, the woman should have the right to vote because her husband/father won't, but if both the man and woman are in fine standing, then their combined votes/opinions will be more powerful and more 'trustworthy' because they are both in fine standing.

I don't know if you're still checking this, OP, but it's worth noting the women's suffrage movement in America had a significant amount of overlap with both with the (alcohol) prohibition movement and the progressive income tax movement, both of which were also intertwined with each other. Some of the opposition to giving women the vote was an indirect result of men fearing the policies they thought women would vote for.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2565 ]

Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage

Re: Fanfic Help! male attitudes towards women's suffrage