The Sexually Disordered Woman
In the disciplines of medicine and psychology, female biology was linked not only to hysteria but also to sexual disorder. Women’s sexual role as wife and mother was the norm and any variations to that were deviant. The opposite of the true woman was the sexually disordered woman. She acted as an impure foil to the pure woman. Even the threat of being called impure kept women in their place.
The vote, it was argued, made women unfit to be true women. Images of sexually disordered women were used to stereotype voting women. Those who left woman's proper place in the home were considered dangerous to the social order. Through linking the suffrage movement to sexual disorder, anti-suffragists made suffrage a law and order problem.
Sexually disordered women included
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The vote, it was argued, made women unfit to be true women. Images of sexually disordered women were used to stereotype voting women. Those who left woman's proper place in the home were considered dangerous to the social order. Through linking the suffrage movement to sexual disorder, anti-suffragists made suffrage a law and order problem.
Sexually disordered women included
- Fallen women - prostitutes, whores, lesbians - those whose sexual activity was not located in virtue
- Redundant women - spinsters who failed to fulfill their life's mission to marry and bear children, widows, divorcees, childless women
- Masculine women - suffragists who failed to stay within proper feminine roles in the private sphere thereby upsetting the sexual order
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Vida Milholland in Prison
Sitting on a drop down cot, Vida Milholland stares with piecing eyes through the bars of a small jail cell. Her crime? Peacefully picketing the White House with other militant suffragists on July 4, 1917. This action placed her outside of the law; a woman simply did NOT harass the president in public.
-Suffrage photograph
The White Slave
A corrupt political leader forces a woman trying to enter New York politics out of the alley and back into the main street. The alley is in the red light district. Women attempting to enter politics were thus stereotyped as sexually deviant prostitutes, or white slaves.
-Anti-suffrage political cartoon
The Temptation of Saint Samuel
A saintly but unhappy Uncle Sam kneels before the U.S. Constitution. Demanding, unattractive women tower over him. The women carry purses identifying them as suffragists. They wear the costume of a marching army and one wears a graduation cap. Through a lack of desirable feminine attributes, these women are stereotyped as ‘unsexed.’ They are redundant, not true women.
-Anti-suffrage political cartoon
"Oh! - Tee-hee! - Horrors!"
Tiptoeing into forbidden territory, a giggling young woman opens the bedroom door of male politics, compromising her own virtue. She observes a male voter in bed, eyes closed, and smoking. On the bed next to the man lies a paper labeled "Blanket Ballot."
This sign indicates concern over election fraud should there be a large influx of women voters. Further, the placement of the ballot in the symbolic place for women suggests woman's place is still in the bed, not in the polls.
-Anti-suffrage political cartoon
A Suffrage Problem
A couple, in bed, exchange glances as the man holds up his pants. An unspoken question hangs in the air, "Who is going to wear them?" The dangerous "suffrage problem" is the threatened inversion of sexual roles.
-Anti-suffrage postcard
Suffragette: "How Did You Manage It?"
A suffragette seems to be wondering how to become a man. She asks a question of a bearded lady sitting in a display window, "How did you manage it?” The suffragette is stereotyped as a spinster. She has a stick-like figure lacking in feminine curves, an overly large nose, and a downturned mouth. Both women represent sexual disorder and danger to society.
-Anti-suffrage postcard
Queen of the Poll
The attractive Queen of the Poll stands on a street next to a fire hydrant and a pole covered with anti-suffrage political signs. In spite of her feminine appearance, her surroundings and the cigarette she smokes mark her as a 'public' woman - a prostitute. Voting is thus equated with loss of virtue.
-Anti-suffrage postcard
The attractive Queen of the Poll stands on a street next to a fire hydrant and a pole covered with anti-suffrage political signs. In spite of her feminine appearance, her surroundings and the cigarette she smokes mark her as a 'public' woman - a prostitute. Voting is thus equated with loss of virtue.
-Anti-suffrage postcard