February 2, 2023

It's a propaganda postcard, but what is it propaganda for?



The postcard, from circa 1904-1915, is supposed to cause you to oppose giving women the right to vote. 

The biggest theme in the comments there is best expressed here:
The propaganda is working. Now I want a suffragette girlfriend.
Others on that theme:
You drive a hard bargain. But I'm buying whatever you're selling.

Was that supposed to be against the[m]?

Don't threaten me with a good time!

Kinky!!!

Yes please 
I see their point but am dismayed that they are not more vigilant about the sexualization of children. But the poster is... asking for it. The artist had to know what he as doing. It's too good. 

But I want to explore a secondary theme, expressed in this comment:
There’s something upsetting but also hilarious about this “If women get the vote, they’ll automatically become your supreme overlords” fearmongering. I saw some Spanish right winger the other day saying very seriously on an interview that we can't give political power to women because sexism exists for a reason. We'd only fuck when they want, he said. He argued that that's such a powerful tool of mind control that they'll become our overlords in no time if we supported the si es si 'yes means yes' law we recently passed in Spain; the law defines consent so rapists don't get away with it, btw. 
The thing is that it didn't feel like propaganda to me. It seemed like the guy truly believed what he was saying. Made me think. Like, wtf. If that's how they think, then it makes sense they defend sexism so bad. It's natural too that I defend feminism so bad, given there's people like that out there.

Or, as another commenter puts it: 

"What chance has a mere manchild"

There's no decent, ethical argument against equal rights for women. The argument — evident in both of those Reddit themes — is that men's minds are so subordinated to their sex drive that women must be subordinated because if they are given equality they will easily and naturally rise to dominance. It's an argument written in nature: The best chance at equality is male dominance. What an awful argument! But that is the argument, put clearly and bluntly. 

47 comments:

rhhardin said...

The argument against politcal power for women is that they put feelings (whatever seems needed at the time) over structural stability (the system eventually collapses if you do this or that). The founding fathers were into structural stability, which is the reason for being an originalist if you're not capable of doing structural stability yourself, say you're a woman.

The woman's inclinations are better for small systems, neighborhoods and households, where the system itself also depends on feelings for its existence and not much is long-term in its effects.

Denying women the vote was to protect stability, not to oppress women. There's no reason that women ought to vote differently from men otherwise.

The propaganda poster ought to have been the old New Yorker cartoon, woman to businessman at dinner, "Now, don't try to reason with me."

Thurber made an art form of expressing the differences. He loved his difficult bitches, which was not sexual love, but love of getting it right.

tim maguire said...

My first thought on seeing that poster is it could be the Incel flag.

The line about how women shouldn't get the vote because then they'd be in charge reminds me of the old matron who said women didn't need the vote because any woman worth her salt could already make her husband vote however she wanted.

And, of course, I'm also reminded of the cliché that only weak men fear strong women. Which further reminds me of the observation that clichés are clichés for a reason.

rhhardin said...

Try Christine Macdonald and Derrida interview Choreographies for a few pages, or read the page numbered 68 at least, for a friendly view of feminism and the mistake it's making about its own self-conception. A reactive feminism that winds up in power to oppress the original feminism, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."

rhhardin said...

Just as black studies winds up being exclusively about detecting new forms of racism, feminism in power is about detecting new forms of oppression.

Both are displacements, from what a black is, and what a woman is.

TickTock said...

I think it is the ability and willingness of many women to be insufferable. Which produces a reaction similar in function to a baby's crying.

Enigma said...

Internet Slang Rule #34:

https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/rule-34/

RideSpaceMountain said...

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2023/01/just-funny-cover-inside-is-bunch-of.html?m=1

From "twigs intertwine" to "The Secretary And Secretariat", there's nothing vegan leather harnesses can't do.

Also, there's some kind of subconscious horse-fuckery creeping around on this blog. No horses tag?

rehajm said...

I see their point but am dismayed that they are not more vigilant about the sexualization of children.

Yah...how's that vigilance going these days? Have you noticed we've been sneaking pedophiles into schools inside a giant wooden badger?

Big Mike said...

There's no decent, ethical argument against equal rights for women.

Joe Biden as President is all the argument I’d need.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

World War I put the lie to the structural stability argument.

Temujin said...

Man...I don't see the ruckus about any of this.

If you're a woman of strong character and confidence, why would you care about what other's think, woman or man? Wouldn't you just get on with your life and enjoy those who get you and think 'fuck off' to those who don't?

And...if you're a man of strong character and confidence, that sort of woman- a person of independent and strong character, would be attractive to you. You wouldn't care if that woman is your doctor, your Senator, or your wife.

There are way too many insecure people leading discussions and movements these days. Strong women seem to not be as en vogue as weak women are these days. And strong men have been cast as evil by those weak women and men who seem to own the mic in every room.

Patrick Henry was right! said...

Last Wave Feminism. RIP.

khematite said...

Jason Whitlock, a black political commentator, just blamed the killing of Tyre Nichols on the ruling power, within the Black community, of "the Black matriarchy"--the source of what he labels a "baby-mama culture."

Dave Begley said...

"We'd only fuck when they want, he said. He argued that that's such a powerful tool of mind control that they'll become our overlords in no time ...."

There's a stylist in the Twin Cities that goes by the name of "The Makeover Guy." Check out his youtube videos. Genius!

His trademarked slogan is: The Power of Pretty.

The Power of Pussy is one of the most powerful forces in human nature. Right there after the Bomb, Jealous and Greed.

Amadeus 48 said...

Still waiting for the Anti-masking Moms to make themselves felt in the 2020 election. Missed it by that much.

Oh, wait...it turns out that female voters wanted more abortions in MI, MN, IL, etc. To watch Pritzker run on moar abortion in IL was disconcerting. We already had as much abortion as anyone can have.

dbp said...

"There's no decent, ethical argument against equal rights for women."

At the time, there was a decent, ethical argument against (at least most women) being allowed to vote: They mostly didn't participate in public life.

Back then and even now, I would suggest that voter registration, at least for federal elections ought to flow out of being a net contributor to the federal income. You can vote if you send more tax money to the federal government than you receive in direct, non salary, payments.

Rusty said...

In Vegas you have to pay more for that.

mccullough said...

And yet nowadays so many girls are identifying as boys.

Joe Smith said...

'In Vegas you have to pay more for that.'

Same in San Francisco, but it's invariably two dudes (leather not included)...

William said...

Woman's suffrage hasn't had the dire consequences that some predicted. Nor has woman's suffrage had the benign consequences that others predicted.....The subtext of sex and civilization is the continuation of the human race. Childbirth is an unfair burden on woman. Childbirth is innately painful and, until very recent times, they stood a fair chance of undergoing an extremely painful death in the process. I don't see how you can possibly make child bearing an equal or equitable process. Maybe a certain amount of masochism helps women make sense of the world they live in. They're destined to suffer. Maybe if they eroticize the process, it would make their lives a tad more endurable.

William said...

Maybe what we need is radical gestation reform. The man and woman could submit their sperm and ova to the gestation center. There trained lab technicians could pick out the premium samples for union and gestate them in artificial wombs with optimum settings for fetal development. Then, when the baby is ready for harvest, the happy couple could pick the infant up. This would solve so many problems for women. No more painful placenta previas or post partum depression We landed men on the moon fifty years ago. Why have we not developed the technology to make this possible? I suspect that the big money behind both pre-natal care and the abortion industry are suppressing the development of this useful breakthrough.

William said...

Maybe what we need is radical gestation reform. The man and woman could submit their sperm and ova to the gestation center. There trained lab technicians could pick out the premium samples for union and gestate them in artificial wombs with optimum settings for fetal development. Then, when the baby is ready for harvest, the happy couple could pick the infant up. This would solve so many problems for women. No more painful placenta previas or post partum depression We landed men on the moon fifty years ago. Why have we not developed the technology to make this possible? I suspect that the big money behind both pre-natal care and the abortion industry are suppressing the development of this useful breakthrough.

rcocean said...

Men (most normal ones) don't want to ruled by women. That's what this poster is getting at. And playing with. That people in 2022 immediately think of lesbian S&M shows how drenched in sexual thought and Gay thought we are. I doubt people reaction's in 1910 would be the same.

I find it creepy that we can't look at poster with kids in it, and not think of Sex. Pepophile much?

As for women voting, its a failed experiment. We can't go back. We didn't have the guts (or brains) to put restrictions on which women can vote, and we won't do it now. If I'd beeen King in 1920, I would restricted the vote to married women, and only allow them to vote in state and local elections.

Today, I'd suggest we just give married mothers/fathers wiht kids under 18, an extra vote, which could be cast be either parent. We could also raise the voting age to 21, except for those serving in the miliatry. But this is just dreaming. We have illegal aliens voting, and the Left WILL Get their wish to have 16 y/o's vote. Its just a matter of time.

takirks said...

Yeah, well here's the missed point that blasts right over the collective heads of most, when it comes to "the woman's right to vote", which is this:

Women already had influence, as it was, before getting the formal right to vote.

Influence that they did not give up.

Whose votes were they, after all, that got them that right? Oh; yeah: The men who were supposedly not voting in women's "interests".

How'd that right-to-vote thing happen, again? Why'd men vote against their own supposed sex-based self-interest? Hmmmm... Do tell, do tell. Could it be because there was a whinging, bitching woman in the background, with her influence at work, already?

Giving them the right to vote effectively doubled their power to influence. Before, they only had the ability to suborn or henpeck every male in their life to do as they desired in the voting booth; afterwards, they still had that and their own vote, giving women entirely disproportionate influence. Granted that not every male voter followed the distaff dictates he was given, but a sufficiency did.

And, if you think that a huge swathe of men didn't wind up voting the way their women wanted them to back in the old days? They still do; Lysistrata is a real thing, when it comes to voting. The whole thing is a joke; women retained their traditional prerogatives to "influence" while at the same time, getting their own "in".

So, since the women didn't "disarm" their already-existent influence over the course of things, they effectively achieved certain dominance over public affairs once they had the right to vote. There have been steady erosions of male position in society in general, ever since; the right to vote produced this as a side-effect. None of this was at all "natural"; if it were, then there would have been a simultaneous effort by women to eschew their insidious influence campaigns within the households of the nation, allowing men to vote their conscience and their own interests.

That didn't happen, so you can do the math. I expect that the end state in a few generations will be a total reversal of things, and men won't have the right to vote at all, let alone for their own benefit. That's the way the trend-lines are headed, and I see nothing stopping it.

takirks said...

khematite said:

"Jason Whitlock, a black political commentator, just blamed the killing of Tyre Nichols on the ruling power, within the Black community, of "the Black matriarchy"--the source of what he labels a "baby-mama culture."

He's not wrong, but I'd suggest that he's looking at the wrong people to blame. The conditions for all of this were set by the people in authority, who were permissive and supportive when those "black matriarchs" walked into their offices and "demanded action".

The really aggravating thing about black America is this: Just about everything they complain about being imposed on them by "whitey" is oftentimes precisely what they demanded whitey do, and they just don't like the consequences. Huge swathe of young black males in prison? Oh, noes!!! Whitey oppressing us!!

The fact that a deputation of "black community leaders" walked themselves into the White House under Nixon and demanded that "something be done" about the drug trade in their communities? Oh, that has nothing to do with him then starting up the "War on (some) Drugs". Same-same with the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine; that didn't happen because whitey wanted it, it happened because the black community went in and demanded that "something be done" about the crack epidemic...

Notably, it never once occurred to any of these assholes that maybe the best way to deal with the drug problem was by simply eliminating the market; if blacks didn't buy the drugs, didn't use the drugs, there would be no damn drug pushers selling drugs for the DEA to be imprisoning, now would there?

Same as it ever was. Crime epidemic in Memphis? DO SOMETHING. They did something--They put together those Scorpion teams to go after the very black criminal class that "needed something to be done" about, and here we are.

Don't ask government for anything, without first asking what the hell the long-term second- and third-order effects are going to be. Black America has a bad habit of never doing that, and also can't quite seem to connect Cause "A" with Effect "B"... Would the black incarceration rates for low-level drug crimes look the way they do, if the "community" hadn't demanded "something be done"? Kinda doubt that, TBH... I don't recall white America demanding much of anything be done about drugs in the black communities of the era; they simply didn't really care, didn't affect them all that much. The people who wanted the War on (some) Drugs were the blacks... 'Cos, instead of doing something themselves, they demanded whitey come in and save them from themselves.

American blacks don't really understand agency or responsibility; it's always someone else's fault for their own problems. Things are never the result of their own actions; it's always someone else doing something to them. Saw that sh*t in the military, all the damn time. If I had to estimate it, I only ever saw about maybe 10-15% of the black population in the services who would say things like "Yeah, I f*cked that up, my bad... Let me fix it..." Instead, it was always some outside agency that either did it, or made them do it.

I'm not the only person that ever noticed this fact, either. I used to work with a couple of Nigerians and some Afro-Caribbean types that saw the same syndrome I'm describing. The Nigerians were pretty racist about it, and said things like "American blacks are natural slaves... That's why we sold them to the white man..."

There was a certain amount of resultant friction from those attitudes, I might add.

rcocean said...

The real reason women got the vote is because the power elite wanted it. Divide and conquer. Plus, women care less about politics and economics as a group, and therefore are more easily persuaded by Big Media and the power elite that certain positions are correct and others are not.

Overrall, they are a counter-revolutionary force. Their instinct is to NOT to rebel and fight against oppression but to submit. I think many women would be perfectly happy if we got rid of Democracy and just went back to monarchy. And then the Queen or King could handle everything.

This of course, is a generalization.

Ampersand said...

If we set out on a clean sheet of paper, determined to optimize the distribution of voting rights, and behind a veil of ignorance in which we had no idea whether were going to be male or female, old or young, sane or crazy, rich or poor, altruistic or sociopathic, we would want a system that maximized the quality of collective decision-making, and created broad sociopolitical quiescence, aka consent of the governed, or political legitimacy. Stop right there. We already have a tension between our two primary goals, as we have no reason to believe that the rules necessary for political quiescence and those needed for high quality decisions have so much overlap that our system will not so prioritize one of our goals that it will prevent our realization of the other. So even some omniscient benevolent lawgiver won't have some a priori rule that will produce an ideal system for allocation of the voting franchise.
The rules to be adopted would have to take account of historically contingent technological, cultural and economic factors, as well as the many asymmetries within the population that will always exist. For example, men and women have, across all cultures and times, had different relationships to things like violence, and reproduction. If we lived in a medieval world in which military power was based upon male muscle, each instance of human reproduction was for mother and child a life threatening event, and knowledge of significant public affairs was concentrated in one percent of the population (and that one percent was overwhelmingly male), we would probably decide on some sort of aristocratic system. The issue could not be decided on the ground that there is simply no moral basis to exclude this or that group.
If contemporary womanhood had significantly superior knowledge, wisdom, and judgment in comparison to contemporary males, and men would not rebel at being made into voiceless drones, wouldn't there be a compelling argument for restricting the voting franchise to females? There would be no a priori moral objection to such a system. All optimal systems of voting suffrage must be historically contingent.

gahrie said...

Politics and government clearly changed in the United States after women were given the ability to vote, I believe for the worse.

Government went from being an enemy, to a provider.

Fairness was suddenly the most important value.

Emotionalism replaced rationality.

Repeal the 19th.

RideSpaceMountain said...

@rcocean

"I think many women would be perfectly happy if we got rid of Democracy and just went back to monarchy. And then the Queen or King could handle everything."

Just so long as they got to marry the prince...all 167.5 million of them. The husband store joke turned out to be political allegory. Who knew!

Readering said...

Fortunately for me, single sex grade schools.

Rabel said...

"I see their point but am dismayed that they are not more vigilant about the sexualization of children. But the poster is... asking for it. The artist had to know what he as doing. It's too good."

In 1904? In a publication by an established publishing company? I doubt it ever crossed the artist's mind. It's not a Dominatrix theme. He's wearing a horse's mouth bit and blinders. She has a riding crop and is training him like a horse.

We see sexualization because we are swimming in it. In 1904, they were training horses.

n.n said...

Feminism, masculinism, you're doing it wrong. Equal in rights, complementary in Nature, nature. Reconcile.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Women are naturally better and dominant but also men have successfully oppressed and subordinated everywhere throughout all history until about 5 minutes ago. Women are perpetual victims but also self-evidently superior; any failures they suffer are the fault of the patriarchy and any successes they have are due to their innate preeminence.
Women are winning everywhere but also are profoundly unhappy/dissatisfied--I blame men.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Women developed verbal skills - perhaps even at the level of DNA - to counteract their significant physical disadvantages and vulnerability to violence. It is at least possible, though by no means proven, that when violence is taken out of the picture that women therefore have the advantage. In most marriages I know the husband defers to the wife as a matter or course. And isn't especially distressed about it when the advantage is only moderate. This includes the evangelical and trad catholic couples I know.

For those who have followed the HBD arguments over the past couple of decades, the Hajnal Line may come to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajnal_line

There are good arguments that it is a source of the prosperity of Western Civ.

Narr said...

Mencken wrote that every married woman in America knew her husband was a fool, and he wasn't wrong.

OTOH I've never consulted my wife about who to vote for . . . or anyone else for that matter.

If it came down to pussy, I'd cheerfully lie, but so far it hasn't been necessary.

JAORE said...

"There's no decent, ethical argument against equal rights for women."

Well then no further discussion necessary. Likely that's why the ERA was put in a Constitutional Amendment by a 100% vote.

At the most my agreement would include:
For various definitions of decent, ethical and equal.

Rocco said...

rcocean said...
... I would restrict the vote to married women, and only allow them to vote in state and local elections...

Too much focus on gender. My humble $.02:
- Must be at least 25 years old. The human brain is not fully formed until that age.
- Must be married. Widows/Widowers are grandfathered in.
- If you receive money from a certain level of the government, you cannot vote for issues at that level of government. People will happily vote for stuff financed with other people's money. Doctrine of Unclean Hands and all that.

takirks said...

I wouldn't mind it all so much, but the incessant whinging and complaining gets on my nerves.

Women (in general terms...) seem to want all the perks and prerogatives of what they perceive as "white male agency", but what they actually demonstrate wanting is license to do as they damn well please, and if things don't go the way they want them to, then they're not responsible and demand that someone, usually male, rescue them from the ill-effects of their exercise of agency.

Consider this gedankenspiel: Let us assume two (perfectly spherical, of course...) college couples of late teenage or early twenties vintage. They (all four of them) go out to party, get inebriated, and then go home as two couples, all four stipulatedly equally incapacitated by drink. Let us further propose that all four have drunken sex that, while ill-judged, is at the time thought by all concerned to be consensual. This sets the stage for my experiment: What happens when one member of each couple later decides that they regret having the sexual encounter and report that to the appropriate authorities. Let us set the stage further: One of the parties experiencing regret is male, one is female. Other than that, they're in identical situations.

What happens?

Well, typically, from observation, what happens is that the male is laughed out of the office of whomever he dared report his sexual exploitation to. His peers further humiliate him, and he receives zero satisfaction with regards to his complaint of sexual abuse at the hands of his equally drunken partner. They'll tell him "Tough sh*t, you shouldn't have put yourself into that situation..."

The female rape-reporter? Do I need to lay out what happens in her case? Do I?

The fact that women aren't up in arms protesting this base inequity in the system is proof positive that they really don't give a rat's furry rectum for "equality" or "fairness". They want, honestly put, "advantage", and that's it. They want agency without the ugly ramifications of responsibility and assumption of accountability. You're never, ever going to hear from a woman in this country a phrase like "Well, I was drunk, too... I shouldn't have been there doing those things with him, and while I regret it, we were both drunk and equally at fault for what happened..."

White women and black men have a lot in common; they both want the goodies associated with "white male agency", but then when the bills come, for exercising that agency and having bad decisions actually result in bad outcomes? Oh, noes... Not our fault; not our responsibility! It's that bad old patriarchal white guy, over there... The one who had not a damn thing to do with them getting into those positions.

Frankly, the more I examine it, the entire premise of civil rights in this country is ass-backwards: You want rights? Fine; have some... But, guess what? You have all the obligations that go along with exercising those rights. ALL. OF. THEM. To include paying the piper when your choices turn out to be ill-advised and sub-optimal in outcome. You want to do drugs? Fine; do them. Just don't come whinging to me about how they've f*cked up your life. Nobody stuck that needle in your arm and got you hooked; nobody made you take that drink. You did that on your own, you pay the penalty for abusing those things on your own.

JK Brown said...

"There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers."
Susan B. Anthony

Yeah, that, according to feminists, didn't work out that way. According to the college coed feminist, women have it far worse now that ever in history.

I'm wondering how much of the historical "anti-women" culture was and is still, driven by gay men who found influential positions in the Church, and in Court.

I find it amusing to consider what difference in Anglosphere law might have been made had the Viking raids not caused the decline of Merica, with it's culture of valuing the mother and father's lineages equally. Instead Wessex became the dominant culture on the Anglo Saxon side, where they didn't even have a queen but rather "the king's wife" due to some legend of pass treachery by queen of Wessex.

rcocean said...

Chat AI must have showed up

RideSpaceMountain said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RideSpaceMountain said...

@JK Brown

I have quoted it here before, and I would highly encourage everyone to read Martin Van Creveld's "The Privileged Sex". The entire premise of the book is debunking feminist claims of a long and extensive history of oppression before the modern Era.

Super good work overall.

khematite said...

>In 1904? In a publication by an established publishing company? I doubt it ever crossed >the artist's mind. It's not a Dominatrix theme. He's wearing a horse's mouth bit and >blinders. She has a riding crop and is training him like a horse.

Hard to say what the particular artist who created that poster knew or didn't know about about the medieval legend described below. But the legend was pretty widely known for quite a long time and certainly seems interwoven with an element of humiliation that seems very sexual. And we know that Leopold Sacher-Masoch connected women, whips, and men as horses in Venus in Furs (1870).

"Here’s the legend: Alexander the Great, Aristotle’s pupil, fell in love with a young woman named Phyllis. Aristotle, concerned that Phyllis was distracting Alexander from his kingly duties, cautioned him and advised him to spend less time with his love. Hurt, Phyllis decided to take her revenge. The next morning, she told Alexander to look out for her from the palace roof. She let down her hair, hiked up her skirts, and ran barefoot through the morning dew in the garden outside the window of Aristotle’s study. The philosopher looked up from his books to see a vision of beauty. Enchanted, he called her to him and begged her to be his.

“Certainly—on one condition,” Phyllis told the philosopher, and demanded that he put on saddle and bridle and give her a ride through the garden. Alexander, up on the battlements, was shocked to see his dignified old tutor with a bit in his mouth, while Phyllis brandished a whip over his back.

"Perhaps the story was so popular because its meanings were so fluid.
The story of Aristotle and Phyllis is rarely told today, but throughout the Middle Ages, it was an immensely popular tale. Phyllis rode Aristotle here, there, and everywhere, from the undersides of church benches to the bedrooms of private homes, from sacred spaces to secular ones. The saddled Aristotle was chiseled into the capitals of columns, carved into delicate ivory boxes, cast into bronze pitchers, hewn into blocks for woodcuts, and etched into copper plates for engravings."

Gahrie said...

The fact that women aren't up in arms protesting this base inequity in the system is proof positive that they really don't give a rat's furry rectum for "equality" or "fairness". They want, honestly put, "advantage", and that's it. They want agency without the ugly ramifications of responsibility and assumption of accountability.

No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.

Patrick Henry was right! said...

Democratic Socialism, h*ll, ALL Socialism, is impossible without women voting. Socialism is the formalization of the mean girl clique.

rcocean said...

Looking at that poster, I always imagine that was Rod Dreher or David French as a child.

rcocean said...

BTW, my Chat AI comment was unfair. A couple long-winded comments, but actually well written. Now that I re-read them. Of course, I don't agree with all of it. Amazing someone would churn out a 600 word comment and another 400 word comment on a blog, but some people can do that in a couple minutes.