Votes & Petticoats

In this postcard, a young woman wears typical masculine overalls, but also a feminine hat, blouse, and shoes. Although  many classified the masculine woman as an aberrant criminal during this period, the woman is attractive and does not have any characteristics of a violent suffragette. It could be that the artist wanted to express the women’s desire to vote by highlighting the otherness of the female with masculine features.

This is one of a twelve-part suffragette series of postcards produced in 1909 by Dunston-Weiler, a New York-based postcard production company. It was believed that the enfranchisement of women would compromise gender divisions. If women engaged in voting, a masculine activity, they might descend into moral decay, represented as smoking and drinking.

Common motifs of the anti-suffrage movement, such as the rolling pin and woman in trousers, are featured on this card. It was believed that women, by voting, would take on traditionally male jobs, but their attempt at "masculinity" would be comical at best. Anti-suffrage advocates humorously spoke of women being employed as police officers or fire fighters.

The anti-suffrage movement predicted a shift in fundamental American culture if women obtained the vote. It was believed that when women became masculine, men in turn would become feminized to fill the gap that women left behind. Even Uncle Sam, an understood emblem of Americanism, could be feminized, as shown on this postcard.

The suffragette on this postcard dresses in a masculine style, including a hat, shoes, crutch, and cigarettes. Her smoking behavior is the “habit” mentioned in the title. Moreover, the “habit” includes the practice of voting. The right to vote was often related to masculine characteristics in the early 20th
century. Therefore, this postcard is an anti-suffrage card, and suggests that women will take up male behaviors, like smoking, when they obtain masculine, or voting, rights.

The anti-suffrage message of this postcard is found in the words running across the pants. The sentences claim that pants are only for men but not women, and that women are for men. At the time, pants were acceptable attire for men only, and voting rights were also considered to be an exclusively male right.

On this anti-suffrage postcard, a young woman is not allowed to attend a lecture for ladies only. While her hat and hairstyle are appropriately feminine, she is denied the entrance because she is wearing pants. In this scenario, the conflict between femininity and masculine clothing is evident. The postcard suggests that a woman's status as a lady is based on their attire, and her femininity can be lost by wearing masculine attire like pants.

The sad little girl on this anti-suffrage postcard is putting on pants, a symbol of masculinity,  and saying that she will become a suffragette. Since voting rights were believed to be a male right, the suffragette is shown becoming more masculine through her attire in order to obtain the right to vote. The caption “Nobody loves me, guess I will be a suffragette” suggestes that unloved and unwanted women become suffragettes. The message is that suffragettes are masculine women that no one likes.