The recent buzz word floating around the Left is the "War On Women" , but let's look back in history a bit. Was it the Democrats that have really stood for the rights of women over the years or is that just another one of those urban myths?
Just like we hear that the Democrat Party has been the champion of Civil Rights and have been the stalwart advocates for the rights of minorities, we have to go back in time once again and see a different picture. It was not until 1920 that women finally won the vote throughout the nation.
Sure, some of the battles for women's suffrage was overcome by that time in various parts of the nation, but it was in 1920 with the election of Republican Warren G. Harding over Democrat James M Cox that the women's vote in this nation really had an impact upon our nation. The Nineteenth Amendment that gave full voting rights to women across the nation did not go into effect until August 26, 1920, just in time for the fall elections.
Prior to this it was a long road for women in this nation to be recognized as equal citizens with the same privileges as men and even former slaves. In 1913, a march of eight thousand participants on President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration day protested the fact that women were not allowed the right to vote in the election. Of the roughly half a million spectators that watched, around two hundred were injured in the violence that broke out. During Wilson's second inauguration in 1917 another march took place. They were opposed by a well-organized and well-funded anti-suffrage movement which argued that most women really didn't want the vote, and they were probably not qualified to exercise it anyway. It was not until women entered into the workforce taking up jobs in factories to support the war, as well as taking more active roles in the war than in previous wars that they could no longer be ignored as they were previously.
Alice Paul who went on a hunger strike on October 30th to be only a few days later force fed while behind bars
It was not until after the war that Wilson could no longer ignore that women's war work should be rewarded with recognition of their political equality. He was a late advocate for the women's vote and this hurt the party come the election of 1920 when the women across the nation came out in force to vote the Democrat party out of office. It took great measures on the part of the Suffragettes to finally get Wilson to come around. In June of 1917, a Russian delegation drove up to the White House and the suffragettes unfurled a banner which stated;
"We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of their national enfranchisement". Later that same year in August, another banner was unfurled that compared Wilson to the Kaiser of Germany and the plight of the German people being oppressed as the Women were oppressed with their freedoms. This form of protest did not sit well with the President and those who were in opposition of women getting the vote, women were subject to arrest and many were jailed as a result. One of the women arrested was the co-leader of the National Woman's Party, Alice Paul who went on a hunger strike on October 30th to be only a few days later force fed while behind bars.
During the Civil War, Women's rights activists and leaders put aside their cause during the war for the most part, but they also knew if they helped work with the Republican Party to get the Black vote, that they would be helping their cause move closer to the granting of their rights as well. After the war, when peace came, they hoped to start up their cause again especially in light of the fact that African Americans were granted the right to vote. The Republicans never forgot the help and support they received from the suffragettes and how they helped them gain majority in Congress. The Republicans never forgot this and the Republicans in the Senate decided to support the Nineteenth Amendment. The increase in the Republican majority was due to the woman's vote may be indicative of their appreciation of the Republicans for voting in their favor.
With the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920, thus came the first in which women had the right to vote in all 48 states
Warren G. Harding was one of the Republican Senators who voted in favor of the Nineteenth Amendment and this played out well in his election to the presidency, as Republican women turned out at the polls in larger numbers than Democrat women. In the early years following the passage of the right for women to vote, most women tended to vote along the lines of their male counterparts, but out of appreciation and recognition they voted in larger numbers for Harding. One thing that people need to remember is that up until Johnson in the '60s Harding won the largest popular vote percentage at 60.3% running on a platform against Wilson and not Cox. Harding virtually ignored Cox and called for a return to "normalcy" from all of the progressive legislation and programs that Wilson instituted along with out-of-control spending. With the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment on August 18, 1920, thus came the first in which women had the right to vote in all 48 states. As a result, the total popular vote increased dramatically, from 18.5 million in 1916 to 26.8 million in 1920. Wilson's early rejection and hostility for the Suffragette movement in the end came back around to hurt his party's nominee even with FDR on the ticket for vice president.
Today's Democrats may like to adopt a catchy cliché such as the Republicans are waging a so called "War On Women" but just as with the Civil Rights movement they have some large skeletons in their own closet that they need to be honest about. One such skeleton is that they have not always been the champion for women's rights that they would like you to believe.
