Against Women's Suffrage

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Youths oppress My people,
and women rule over them.
My people, your leaders mislead you;
they confuse the direction of your paths.
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Isaiah 3:12

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Were our State a pure democracy, there would yet be excluded from their deliberations, women, who, to prevent depravation of morals and ambiguity of issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public meetings of men.
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Thomas Jefferson


Women's suffrage means that women vote in general elections together with men.  I will argue here that this undermines democracy and is disastrous for society.  I would go so far as to say that women's suffrage is probably the greatest disaster in all of human history since it destroyed the most successful culture in human history.

First I want to replace the phrase "right to vote" with "power to vote".  A right is something that you are permitted to do, as in the right to speak or the right to practice religion.  A right is not a government granted authority over others, that is a power.  Technically, the right to vote just means being permitted to vote.  But voting itself is meaningless unless that vote is counted by the government, and the result of the vote is implemented by force by the government.  So what really matters isn't the right to vote, but rather the power to have your vote counted and to have the decisions of the majority of the voters implemented by the government.

The central idea of democracy is that the government is selected by the governed.  So indirectly, the governed exercise power over themselves collectively.  It was the violation of this concept that upset the American colonies and led to the American Revolution.  The British House of Commons was democratically elected, but only by residents of Britain.  The Americans were upset because they were governed by a government elected by others.  Similarly, imagine a campaign to have Mexican and Canadian citizens win the "right" to vote in American elections.  We recognize this as absurd because the American government doesn't govern these people, so these people have no business voting in American elections.

Now let's consider the question of whether children should vote.  The first question is whether children are primarily governed by the government.  I argue that no, in fact children are primarily governed by their parents, and therefore they have no business voting since they cannot really be counted among those governed by the government.  One could argue back that children are in fact subject to government law and are punished for violating that law.  I respond that the same applies to a Canadian citizen who visits America as a tourist, but this isn't enough to give the Canadian tourist the right to vote because the Canadian spends most of his life in Canada and is mostly governed by Canadian law.  The same applies to children who are basically just tourists in the adult world, to the extent that they enter it.  The primary government of children is their parents, so children have no business voting in government elections.

But there is another, more obvious issue with children which is whether they are qualified to vote.  In the case of teenagers, it is hard to argue that they lack the needed intelligence.  Rather, we recognize that teenagers think differently from adults and that their thinking patterns make them unqualified to make wise voting choices.  So this is a second reason that children shouldn't vote.

Now I will argue that these same arguments for why children shouldn't vote also apply to women.  First, let us consider how women are governed.  One way that one can judge the extent of the government's impact on people is to look at who is punished for violating government law.  In America, the incarceration rate for men is 15 times that of women.  Why is this?  Are women really 15 times as good as men are?  I don't think so.  I believe that there are several explanations, but the main one is that government law is primarily designed to govern men and to prohibit certain typical male behaviors.  Typical bad female behavior is rarely if ever regulated by the government.  So what governs women?  My answer is primarily peer pressure and cultural norms.  Women are more social than men are, and are more sensitive to social pressure.  Social pressure is not enough to make men behave, men must face the threat of punishment to control their behavior.  But for women, social shaming is enough to regulate most behavior.  And in fact the idea of sending women to prison inherently feels odd to most people for this reason.  If anyone disagrees with what I am saying here, I would like to hear their explanation for why the incarceration rate for women is so low.  If I am correct and women are primarily governed by social norms, not by government law, then women have no business voting for the reasons I gave above for children.

Now let's consider the other issue, which is whether women are qualified to vote.  As I pointed out regarding teens, the issue here isn't intelligence.  The issue is whether the mental framework of a teen or a woman is well suited for making wise voting choices.  If we look at how primitive people of the past organized themselves in tribes, or how chimpanzees organize themselves today, we see that the tribe is always governed by a group of men/males.  And because men were in this position, men evolved to have the right instincts for governing.  In particular, men have a strong sense of fairness, of loyalty to a group, and an instinct to protect everyone, including women and children, in the group.  Women have none of these instincts.  Women developed instincts suited to their role in primitive tribes, which was primarily focused on the family and on personal connections.  Women excel in these areas, none of which have anything to do with good governance.  The extreme difference between men and women is obvious to anyone who hasn't been brainwashed by feminism.  Consider how a man reacts to a woman crying out in distress compared to how a woman would react to a man crying out in distress.  Men instinctually protect women in their tribe, but women only instinctually protect children and people they are connected to.  And because of these differences, men are qualified to vote but women are not.

What actually happens when women are given the vote?  Since women do not have any sound tribal instincts, they instead vote based on their selfish desires and their instincts for personal connections.  In particular, when a woman votes for a man, she is giving him her approval.  And the basic instincts wired into women regarding giving men approval are sexual.  So in effect, women will vote for men who they would date.  Of course women will never admit this, but this is what is happening subconsciously.  A man like Abraham Lincoln, who isn't the type who naturally appeals to women, could never have been elected after women's suffrage.  Now, to be elected, a man has to be handsome and smooth talking.  Women naturally seek men who can provide for them, and through this instinct, women vote for a government that can provide for them.   So women vote for big government.  To the extent that women support particular laws, these are always laws that benefit women at the expense of men.  Women have never supported any law to address some injustice against men, child custody imbalance for example.  And women have never supported any law primarily designed to regulate women's behavior.  Giving women the vote simply allows women to govern men, and this is a violation of the concept of democracy.  It is disastrous for society because women are unqualified to vote and will vote for big government and for anything that benefits women at men's expense.  Women will never vote for something based on fairness or for something to regulate their own behavior.

So does this mean that I am against rights for women?  Not at all.  First of all, voting is a power, not a right.  I have no problem with equal rights.  And second, I don't even have a problem with women voting as long as women are not given political power over men.  In a system of universal suffrage where men and women vote together, the result is inequality where women vote to oppress men.  Some men, particular the most corrupt and immoral men, actively support women in this oppression.  To have true equality, the sexes must be separated.  Let men govern men and women govern women, so that neither can oppress the other.  It is my view that women would soon become totally bored with governing themselves since women have no desire to regulate themselves, and they would just as well not be bothered with all this and just let men govern them.  But this should be women's choice.  Let women decide if they want to be governed by women or by men.  Men should not impose their will on women, but if women choose to submit to the will of men, then there is nothing wrong with this.

What is the Bible's view?  The Bible had women prophets and women judges, but almost no women rulers (the only one being the unpopular Athaliah).  This is fully in accordance with my views.  The judges in the Bible were judges of arbitration, more like Judge Judy than like a government judge.  In other words, people would submit their cases to judges, the judges did not have political power over people.  So in the Bible, while women were respected and equal to men in many roles, women were never given political authority over men.

What about the successful queens in history (not in the Bible)?  These women became queens in royal courts full of intrigue.  And as I said, women excel at personal relations, so women are well designed to succeed in a royal court.  I am particularly thinking about the royal court of England during its rise.  But these queens were no feminists.  They rose to power with the support of men and their authority depended on these men.  And they relied on men as advisers for making policy.  This worked because women as a whole could not impose their will on men and because these queens could not remain in power without the support of men.  To put this in perspective, it is worth quoting Queen Victoria's view of feminism:

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I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Women's Rights," with all its attendent horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were woman to "unsex" themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection. I love peace and quiet, I hate politics and turmoil. We women are not made for governing, and if we are good women, we must dislike these masculine occupations.
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Queen Victoria, 1870

Another point worth making is that political power is not the most important power.  The single most important power for shaping the future of a society is the power to raise children.  I made this point in Making a Difference.  And in fact I couldn't care less whether I personally have the vote or not, but I absolutely care about being able to influence my children.  Unlike most men, I was able to work from home and homeschool my kids, and I believe this will have more impact on the future than anything I could have done in politics.  Women who value politics over their children are just following bad modern social norms.

We can see the practical result of the issues here by looking at religions today.  All of those religions that have successfully managed to remain moral and not conform to the immoral modern world are religions that have not given women authority over men.  Examples include the Amish and Orthodox Judaism.  There isn't a single religion with a low divorce rate that has given women authority over men.

So far this has all been purely theoretical.  There is no practical chance that modern society will come to its senses and repeal women's suffrage.  So what are the practical implications here?  First, women's suffrage is a malignant cultural condition.  Any society that has degenerated to the point that it has enacted women's suffrage is doomed.  Don't waste your time trying to save such a culture.  This applies both to countries and religions.  Any religion that gives women authority over men is doomed.  In Rabbinic Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements give women authority over men but the Orthodox do not.  This means that Reform and Conservative Judaism are doomed but Orthodox Judaism will likely survive.  In Karaite Judaism "In the 10th century, the leader of the prominent and powerful Karaite community of Spain was a woman whom the Karaites referred to as "The Teacher" [al-Mualema]."  So it is no surprise that this Karaite community did not last long.  On the other hand, I haven't heard of any cases of women having authority over men among the Egyptian Karaites, which explains why they still exist today.

Here is a good related article:

http://www.returnofkings.com/34330/women-should-not-be-allowed-to-vote