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Politics, Economic Provisioning, and Suffrage in St. Louis: What Women Said, What Men Heard
Author(s) -
DOBKINS LINDA HARRIS
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2011.00813.x
Subject(s) - suffrage , provisioning , politics , status quo , diversity (politics) , power (physics) , economic power , political science , women's suffrage , gender studies , sociology , law , telecommunications , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science
A bstract One of the enduring questions in history is why any group would choose to share power with another group. The granting of suffrage to American women in 1919 is one of those events in which we seek answers. I focus here on the diversity of women's economic provisioning functions, arguing that, because of that diversity, the granting of suffrage had more political benefits to the men in power and less political risks. The social provisioning status‐quo, which had been threatened by the feminist voices of the 19 th century, must have seemed to be back under the control of the men in power. In order to consider economic provisioning and politics more specifically, I study the economic profile of women and the political cost/benefit thinking of male legislators in St. Louis, Missouri.