Women’s suffrage
The fight for women’s suffrage around the time of Australian federation was a hard fought battle between the suffragettes (the women fighting for voting rights) and the male voters and politicians. There were many reasons in favor of women’s suffrage namely: 1. Why should a woman pay taxes when she has no vote? 2. Why should a non law abiding, idiotic, alcoholic male get a vote when an honest, smart, hard working woman doesn’t? 3. Why if a woman shares the same opinions, morals and religious beliefs as a man should they not be allowed to vote? 4. Why if they live in a democracy do they get no vote? And lastly 5. Why if women raise their children, teach them and develop their opinions are they not permitted to determine which of those opinions are represented in government? Therefore why shouldn’t women be allowed to vote, and why don’t men want women to have the right to vote.
One argument presented in the fight for women’s suffrage is, why should women be forced to pay taxes if they have no vote. As mentioned in source 5, why should a woman have to pay taxes that pay the salaries of parliamentary members who she can’t even decide upon? In source 3 Rose Scott also mentions in a letter to the commissioners for taxation that she pays her land tax under “strong protest”. She believes she shouldn’t have to pay land taxes if she has no right to vote for the election of the aldermen and auditors who control municipal affairs. If women are taxed then surely they should be allowed to vote.
Another argument in the fight for women’s suffrage is, why should alcoholics, idiots non Australian, or non law abiders get a chance to vote when smart, hard working, honest women do not. This is shown strongly in source 1 with a cartoon on the front page of the “Women’s Sphere” which shows, pictures of different men who are idiots, drunks, Aboriginals, Asians and wife kickers who all have the vote but in the middle it shows a female scholar who does not have...