Day 3: Why give women the vote?

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Day 3: Why give women the vote?

During the suffrage movement, women's advocates made claims about how women's votes would change politics and society. Did those changes actually happen?

Members of the National League of Women Voters in Sept. 1924.Getty Images

Mar. 10, 2014, 12:40 AM EDT

By Sara Kugler

This is day three of the Nerdland Scholar Challenge, led by Melissa Harris-Perry. You can sign up here.

Why should women have the right to vote? Alice Stone Blackwell offered up 16 reasons in her publication “Why Women Should Vote.” They included:

It would make it easier to achieve “the moral, educational and humane legislation desire by women”
To fix laws unjust to women
To create fair treatment of women in public service
To secure legislation for the protection of children
It would “help those women who need help the most”
To ensure only men “of respectable character” are nominated

Assignment: Scan the full list here and reflect. Did women winning the right to vote actually create the changes Blackwell predicted?

Sara Kugler