The Feminized Man
There was an unspoken flip side to women upsetting the sexual order which became visible in postcards. As women acted more like men, men were made to act more like women and the sexual order was inverted.
Uncle Sam, Suffrage
The icon of America, Uncle Sam, is feminized with a puckered, sour, spinster-like face, and no facial hair. He wears a skirt with a large suffrage bonnet and is shorter in stature than usual. This image suggests giving women the vote would sexually disorder the nation itself.
-Anti-suffrage postcard
Uncle Sam, Suffrage
The icon of America, Uncle Sam, is feminized with a puckered, sour, spinster-like face, and no facial hair. He wears a skirt with a large suffrage bonnet and is shorter in stature than usual. This image suggests giving women the vote would sexually disorder the nation itself.
-Anti-suffrage postcard
Uncle Sam, Suffrage. 1909. Postcard. Publisher, Dunston-Weiler Lithograph Company. Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA.
I Want to Vote, But My Wife Won't Let Me
A henpecked husband performs womanly labor with sleeves pushed up. He wears an apron, scrubs clothes and tends the baby. A sign on the wall calls attention to the inversion of sexually divided labor, "Everybody works but mother, she's a suffragette."
-Anti-suffrage postcard
I Want to Vote, But My Wife Won't Let Me. 1909. Postcard. Publisher, Dunston-Weiler Lithograph Company. Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA.
Once I Get My Liberty, No More Wedding Bells For Me
A wife saunters out of the home next to a singsong sign: "Once-I-Get My Liberty, No-More Wedding-Bells For-Me!" Her husband, left to incompetently do her work, watches her leave. The verse suggests the inversion of sexual roles brought on by votes for women may spell the death of the institution of marriage.
-Anti-suffrage postcard
Once I Get My Liberty, No More Wedding Bells For Me. Postcard. 1910. Copyright by C. Hobson. Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA.
