Alice Stone Blackwell, Answering Objections to Women’s Suffrage (1917)
Summary: In Alice Stone Blackwell’s, Answering Objections to Women’s Suffrage, Blackwell has a very clear objective set in front of us. This primary source is on the bias that women have every right a man has to a voice and an opinion. Blackwell dives into common reason’s made up as to why women shouldn’t have these rights and argue against them with logic and quotations from other women with strong reasoning. She and fellow women and women organizations denounce the idea that women are not equal in pay, basic rights, and household relations. In fact, Blackwell’s rationalization shows women would only make all of these objectives better for not only themselves but for both genders as a whole because of the reasons against women’s rights.
Reason why it is important: Blackwell’s primary source is extremely compatible with what women still see today. She briefly mentions how American women all though have freedom should not mean men can stop being gentlemen. “Justice and chivalry are not in the least incompatible. Women have more freedom and equality in America than in Europe, yet American men are the most chivalrous in the world.” (The question of Chivalry, para. 4). We see today when brought up in women’s wages versus those of men, men get uptight for various reasons, but one commonality amongst a large portion of them is that they mock women when speaking of the matter. Though women have come so much further today, it is important to know this past, so that we can keep on with the good fight for equity and liberation.