Women’s votes and equality for all races has been hard fought for. Even in England the battle is far from won. There are many uncivilised countries where women have no rights, religious intolerance rules and racism is extant. There is much work to be done.
Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts. Anna Quindlen
If something is right, it is right – even if the whole world is against it! Equality and tolerance are always right.
The first organised opposition by women to women’s suffrage in England dates from 1889, when a number of ladies led by Mrs Ward appealed against the proposed extension of the Parliamentary suffrage to women. Millicent Fawcett
Just as Female Genital Mutilation is inflicted on poor girls by their female relatives and female maimers and some women support compulsory wearing of burqas and segregation of women, there are many women who fight tooth and claw against equality. They are happy being second class citizens and instructed what to think and do by men. They are their world’s worst enemies.
Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority. Rutherford B. Hayes
Unless you have a free-thinking, educated population you cannot have democracy or freedom. Education is fundamental to equality and tolerance. An educated population questions what they are told and decides for themselves.
Every argument for Negro suffrage is an argument for women’s suffrage. W. E. B. Du Bois
Equality is equality. All people are equally important. Tolerance is essential for peace and freedom. Imposition is tyranny.
Woman suffrage is an unjust, unreasonable, unspiritual abnormality. It is a hard, undigested, tasteless, devitalized proposition. It is a half-fledged, unmusical, Promethean abomination. It is a quack bolus to reduce masculinity even by the obliteration of femininity. John Boyle O’Reilly
There are always arrogant, opinionated bigots who feel superior to other people. These small-minded individuals need arguing with.