February 02, 2017
Source: Bigstock
A “vision” that merely entailed the abrogation of a fundamental human right.
Prohibition might be a thing of the past, but many of the same people and institutions that condemn Republicans for trying to “control women’s bodies” applaud female prohibitionists for having brought about legislation that allowed the government to control the bodies of men.
There are two points I”d like to make with my little history lesson. The first is, to everyone on the left celebrating the “you”ll never see women lining up to limit the rights of men” meme, you”re as wrong as it’s humanly possible to be. That was literally the very first thing women in this country did once they got a taste of political influence. The very first thing. My second point is a response to what I imagine any lefties who are reading this are thinking right now: “Well, at least the prohibitionists weren”t trying to limit reproductive rights.” And my response is, exactly. Frankly, my own position on the abortion issue (and my severe alcoholism) notwithstanding, I think it was a lot worse to ban alcohol than it is to ban public funding of abortion. Prohibition was a direct affront to the right of human beings to control what goes into their bodies. What Trump did, love it or hate it, was not an abortion ban. The right to an abortion is still there, and the pro-choice world is not and has never been wanting for money from the private sector.
So stop with the “you”ll never see women doing this” nonsense. Women did it, with disastrous results. Not that the mainstream media will ever remind people of that fact. Every time a white dude so much as whispers “border wall” or “deportations,” the MSM immediately recycles old black-and-white footage of the KKK or the Nazis. But how come whenever a gaggle of nanny-state SJW harpies tries to bully some segment of society or ban some innocuous activity, we don”t see old black-and-white images of the temperance women? I mean, fair is fair. If the media rolls out Klan footage every time a dude says, “I”m not ashamed to be white,” why not trot out the prohibition images anytime a woman says, “This should be banned,” or “That shouldn”t be allowed”?
In fact, when discussing women’s suffrage in the U.S., mainstream journalists almost always leave out the prohibition angle, because the fake story”that all opponents of suffrage were sexist pigdogs”better fits the leftist agenda. But the truth is, a lot of men opposed the suffrage movement because they feared it would lead to a complete ban on alcohol. And they were right. As Daniel Okrent, author and former public editor of The New York Times, phrased it on NPR a few years ago, “you couldn”t have Prohibition without the women’s suffrage movement.” In her 1923 book, Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement, iconic suffragette Carrie Chapman Catt explained the dilemma perfectly:
Yet the woman suffrage struggle was vastly complicated by the prohibition struggle. Men indifferent to suffrage but hostile to prohibition were rendered impervious to the suffrage appeal, and men hostile to prohibition but in favor of suffrage were frightened by the continual insistence of liquor workers that woman suffrage meant the speedier coming of prohibition.
Catt “got” it, but one has to wonder how many suffragettes convinced themselves that opposition to their movement was based solely on woman-hating. Could it be that “women’s movement” politics in the U.S. was born of a kind of SJW “original sin”? That even right from the beginning, even while advancing a genuinely good and admirable agenda (suffrage), women just had to play the game, so popular today, of seeing sexism where it doesn”t exist?
I wonder how many men genuinely had no problem with women getting the right to vote, but hesitated because they feared that suffrage would mean they”d have to sacrifice their right to drink. And I wonder how many women failed to comprehend basic cause and effect. How many refused to understand that linking suffrage to prohibition ensured the creation of opponents who were not driven by sexism, and who could have otherwise been allies?
It’s a fascinating hypothetical question. Is there a direct line from suffragettes telling men, “We want the right to vote, and when we get it we”ll take away your right to drink, and if you oppose us you”re a chauvinist,” to today’s feminists saying (to use one example of many), “We want to be more influential in the STEM field, and when we are we”ll take away your right to tell jokes or wear the shirt of your choosing, and if you oppose us you”re sexist”?
Has something self-defeating been lurking in the DNA of women’s politics in this country from the very beginning? Something that perhaps unconsciously creates enemies where enemies need not be, in order to feed a paranoid notion on the part of female activists that every man is against them? This might not be a bad question for today’s feminists to ask themselves. Not that they will. After all, there’s more important work to do. Trump the genocidal overpopulator needs to be kept in check with memes and tweets. #Resistance!
