Shall Women Vote

"This book is not written for women; it is written for men. It is in opposition to woman's suffrage, which the writer regards as one of the greatest afflictions which could happen to any state"--P.9. The author uses the laws of Virginia to demonstrate how the women's rights movement, and woman suffrage in particular, seeks to strip men of their rights and transfer them to women and children.

In 1844, seven widows dared to cast ballots in an election in Canada West, a display of feminist effrontery that was quickly punished: the government struck a law excluding women from the vote. It would be seven decades before women regained voting rights in Ontario. Our Voices Must Be Heard explores Ontario’s suffrage history, examining its ideals and failings, its daring supporters and thunderous enemies, and its blind spots on matters of race and class. It looks at how and why suffragists from around the province joined an international movement they called “the great cause.” This is the second volume in the seven-part Women’s Suffrage and the Struggle for Democracy series.

A mapping of the political contexts and problems faced by advocates for women's suffrage and wider rights in the Atlantic Provinces. It was only after exhausting campaigns for the Great Cause that women in Atlantic Canada finally won the right to vote and to run for office. Despite virulent opposition, most regional nonindigenous women won enfranchisement in the immediate post-World War I era. This victory curbed the most blatant political misogyny and paved the way for other rights, such as improved social assistance and access to birth control. Yet progress was uneven and the movement itself was marred by class and racial inequities. We Shall Persist painstakingly captures the long struggle, years of disappointment, and suffrage victories across Atlantic Canada--all steps in the unfinished march toward gender, race, and class equality.

August 18, 2020, marked the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibited states and the US government from denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of sex. See how the 70-year-long fight for women's suffrage was hard won by leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, Carrie Chapman Catt and others. Learn how their success led into the civil rights and feminist movements of the mid- and late twentieth century, as well as today's #MeToo, #YesAllWomen, and Black Lives Matter movements. In the face of voter ID laws, voter purges, gerrymandering, and other restrictions, Americans continue to fight for equality in voting rights.

Suffrage Songs and Verses, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a collection of 25 poems which advocates the suffragette movement and women’s rights. Published in 1911, the poetry anthology includes both famous and lesser-known works such as ‘Women of To-day’, ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ and ‘The Socialist and the Suffragist’, and is a clear inspiration for modern feminist writers and pro-women’s rights campaigners. Now seen as a classic selection of American female poetry and inspirational literature, this forward-thinking anthology examines the role of women in a pre-WW1 patriarchal society – and was one of many works to inspire the 2015 British historical drama film ‘Suffragette’ which starred Carey Mulligan, Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne‐Marie Duff. A selection of Perkins’ work featured in this book were originally published in the book ‘In this our World’ in 1898. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s best known work was her autobiographical-inspired short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, written about her experience of severe postnatal depression, which was made into a 2011 gothic thriller film by Logan Thomas. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, also known as Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was born on 3rd July 1860 in Connecticut, USA. Her early family life was troubled, with her father abandoning his wife and family; a move which strongly influenced her feminist political leanings and advocator of women’s rights. After jobs as a tutor and painter, Perkins – a self-declared humanist and ‘tom boy’ – began to work as a writer of short stories, novels, non-fiction pieces and poetry. Her best-known work is her semi-autobiographical short story, inspired by her post-natal depression, entitled ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ which was published in 1892 and made into a film in 2011. A member of the American National Women's Hall of Fame, Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a strong believer that "the domestic environment oppressed women through the patriarchal beliefs upheld by society". A believer in euthanasia, she was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in January 1932 and chose to take her own life in August 1935, writing in her suicide note that she "chose chloroform over cancer".