Do Men Represent Women?
O'Hagan, Anne. Small leaflet: "Do Men Represent Women?" Harrisburg, Pa.: Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association, [ND, but ca. 1914].
Small leaflet: 6-1/4" x 7"; printed one side on off-white stock; folded at middle; rumpling and creasing with some mild offsetting as well; right edge has one or two short tears; about very good; from "Why I am a Suffragist" in Smith's Magazine.
A standard anti-suffrage argument held that women did not require the vote because their fathers, husbands and brothers represented them at the polls. O'Hagan refutes this thinking, declaring that "no class has ever, in the history of the world, proved itself equal to legislating justly…for any other class.” She points out that it took nearly 150 years before men decided that all public schools should be open to girls as well as boys; and, when it comes to property, men inevitably pass legislation favoring male ownership. In short, men "have done exactly what every ruling class has always done throughout the history of the world—they have discriminated against the class which has no legal voice.” The NAWSA first published the leaflet in 1900. This later printing by the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association suggests how suffrage organizations continued to recycle arguments they considered effective. (See Franklin, p. 175.)
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