Catfight: Women and Competition

by Leora Tanenbaum

The divide began when Stanton and Anthony organized the National Woman Suffrage Association, for women only. This organization regarded the right to vote as one elemental part of the larger struggle for women’s autonomy.

In response to the formation of the National, Lucy Stone led an alternate suffrage organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association. This organization was cautious and conservative. It worked solely for suffrage.

Right wing women

Between 1880 and the early 1900s, many members of the conservative faction of the suffrage movement were also involved in the moral crusade of the social purity movement. They advanced the idea that women were morally superior to men and lacked sexual desire; they therefore needed to be protected from the lustful excesses of men. These activists sought regulations against prostitution, obscenity, even divorce and contraception—all in the name of “protecting” women. In truth, they were concerned almost exclusively with the interests of white, middle-class women, and they actually did little to advance the cause of women’s equality. If anything, they hurt women more than they helped them by reinforcing the old idea that women and men belong in separate spheres with distinct roles.

Roght wing women: if a womanni. The house making children ks revered and protected at least leta fight for that and against anyone who would bring freedoms that directly devalue that position