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A Plea for Extension of Women’s Influence (part 3)


. . . Another argument brought forward against giving votes to women is "If women were to vote they would want to run for Parliament." Why would they? Our Canadian widows and spinsters from the Atlantic to the Pacific, have for years been voting for mayors and aldermen. The idea that women, having the right to vote, would destroy the home has proved incorrect. It has not been found to work that way in our towns and cities. Women have been admitted to municipal franchise without any disturbance of the home, deterioration of her character, or interference with her higher functions. There has not been the slightest change in our social and domestic sphere by so great an innovation as our mothers and sisters casting their votes at a municipal election. Can any reasonable man explain why he fears disaster falling on his home and society if his mother should cast a vote for a parliamentary candidate as well as for a municipal officer?


But one says it is not the time in casting the vote, it is the time qualifying to cast it, getting the information on public questions necessary to cast an intelligent vote. The great educator of the mass of voters today is the newspaper; women, good wives and mothers, spend as much time reading the newspapers as men do. The only difference the right to vote might make is, that perhaps they would read the editorials and articles rather than the advertisements and social items-might take more interest in the passing of a bill and less in the details of smart gowns worn at fashionable "At Homes."

WCTU Convention Edmonton Journal 12 Oct. 1907: 9.
 

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Nellie McClung
Emily Murphy
Henrietta Muir Edwards
Council’s Ruling
God’s Greatest Gift
Women’s Influence (part 1)
Women’s Influence (part 2)
Irene Parlby
Louise McKinney


 
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