Oh gods. How dare that lady kiss that man! How dare that man be a father to his children!

The best part is that they're framing housework and childcare as absolute, unbearable drudgery and backbreaking labor--for men. For women, it's presumably all of those things as well, but nobody gives a damn because they're SUPPOSED to do it!

Anyone else sensing a guilty conscience?

"Oh no! My wife will start treating me the way I've been treating her!"

Wonderful (and disturbing) collection that will be presented in the courses I teach post haste!!!

Like Missmaia, I can't help looking at them with an ironic eye. "Look this is the life of a woman, would you like to have it?"

Hey, who knew they'd be right about "what" would happen, but not about how they would feel about it? Oh yeah, the Suffragettes.

Well, to be fair the logistics of women voting are daunting.  How do you get voting machines to all those kitchens?

I think it is interesting the interpretations of power which comes with the right to vote.  While voting is a form of power given to citizens these cards interpret it as power in family life rather than just power for the people to select who represents them.  It is amazing how the gender roles are instilled into the people to the point where it becomes their argument against women's suffrage.  Supposedly women would be switching their roles with men.  These cards acknowledge the way women were treated and their argument is men will have to experience the horror of "women's work."  While the the cards are an obvious exaggeration of the creator's argument, they are using the idea that women's voting rights somehow empowers women over men.

What I think is interesting here is how many of these images show things that we think of as normal and even desirable: the "Suffragette Madonna" and "What Is Home Without a Father," (available through the "12-card series" link) for example, show us fathers...participating in childcare.   Others show women expressing opinions and wearing trousers ("Electioneering" and "Pantalette Suffragette") in ways that are free of anything that looks to my modern eye like misogynistic imagery.  (The "Pantalette Suffragette" girl, in her overalls and big picture hat, looks really cute!)  If these images were presented without context, a modern viewer might assume that they must be *pro* women's suffrage images, because they depict things that are consistent with mainstream values today. 

Other images in the same collection (the 12-card series) do have imagery that would read as misogynist today, like the woman in police uniform brandishing a rolling pin while the man behind her looks alarmed, and the man emasculated in an apron doing laundry with a sign behind him reading, "Everyone works but Mother--she's a suffragette."  These images, too, show us things that we consider normal and desirable today--women police officers, men doing housework--but they include signs that we can easily read as indicating that the viewer is meant to consider these images threatening to the social order--a man in woman's apparel, the rolling pin as a symbol of domestic tyranny. 

I think, based on the juxtaposition, that both sets of images--the ones that look positive to us (to me, anyway) and the ones that look misogynistic--were intended to be viewed as equally threatening.  A girl in pants is threatening, even if she's cute.  A woman talking to other women about politics is scary, even if none of them are hideous or hectoring.  A man taking part in domestic life is emasculated, even if he isn't wearing a garment associated with femininity.  I believe intellectually that that must have been the intended reading, but as a 21st century viewer, I can hardly grok it. 

And finally, these anti-women-suffrage artists were essentially correct, about the facts if not about the feelings.  They predicted that women's suffrage would lead to a world in which men were expected to take part in childcare and housework (whether they enjoyed it or not; many women don't enjoy it either), in which women might be leaders in politics (one of the postcards shows a woman wearing a tag reading, "District Leaderess," with campaign signs bearing the names of women candidates behind her), and in which women would hold jobs formerly reserved for men.  And all of these things have occurred.  It's just that the idea that these things are desirable is now the mainstream view (for example, even men who try to avoid housework and childcare as much as possible pay lip service to the idea that they should do more).  This collection of postcards essentially shows us the world that we live in. 

Couple more from the same period: http://scenesofeating.com/2012/07/30/force-feeding-unruly-women-at-the-turn-of-the-20th-century/

There's another sort of cutesy one featuring geese, but it becomes a little scary in comparison to another cartoony-looking postcard which depicts men gleefully force-feeding a suffragette--something that was done to the ones who were arrested and then went on hunger strike to protest. That's startling to remember: when we say these women fought for the vote, we sometimes forget that they were physically brutalized in that fight. 

But like any sexist joke, the more "innocent" postcards in this post are points on the same continuum with violence and dehumanization.

Ye gods, the hypocrisy! As thick as a whale omelette ...

It's always when people seem to view civil rights as a precious resource like platinum or oil. Thus, if some people have more, others have to make do with less.

My god, the war on men has been going on for a longer time than I thought. 

Absolutely unbelievable.  I'd love to see Romney do some useless housework while Obama does the important stuff.  

These pictures are not as 'retro' and bygone as you might think. Present day American misogynist websites who want to strip women of the vote are reposting them right now. Like this one: http://patriactionary.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/humour-interlude-offend-a-suffragette-edition-2/

Stripping women of the right to vote is a relatively constant topic on many rightwing websites (and of course on all misogynist websites), in part because women lean more towards the Democrats (this election, 67 % unmarried women voted for Obama).

I cannot wait until the next nerd convention so I can dress up as one of these!

I know these images are supposed to scare the menfolk, but I love them as a modern woman.  They're so wonderful in a look-how-far-we've-come-but-how-little-has-changed kind of way.

i love how the men are 'suffering' when expected to do what, presumably they expect their 'little woman' to do every day! and yet they see nothing wrong with the image. "We can make women work like dogs and suffer in the home" they seem to say "but if we had to do it , it would be terribly cruel"

Different day, same shit:
From the Christian Men's Defense Network (via gawker)

"[O]n radio ads, on TV, and on the web, the Democrats tried to make this election about a single issue: The right to slut. Or more precisely, the right to slut without the responsibility of
consequences. The famous 'gender gap' isn't really a gap based on
gender. The right overwhelmingly wins older and married women. The 'gender gap' should more accurately be called the slut vote. I
predicted this [Obama's win] largely because he played up his alpha cred in the first debate. But one photo-op on the Jersey Shore with Obama looking tough in a bomber jacket destroyed all that, which is yet another reason sane societies don't let women get involved in government.
Instead, we are looking at four more years of skyrocketing debt, stifling
regulation, and the only First Lady who could possibly be bitchy enough
to make Hillary Clinton look feminine.
Women want to delay marriage as long as possible so they can 'have it all',
and usually 'have it all' means 'have as much hot alpha sex as possible
without any consequences.'
One thing one has to remember about women, especially slutty ones: They usually don't make decisions based on reason. "

http://gawker.com/5958728/fact+checking-the-slut-vote-with-the-christian-mens-defense-network

For more on this view (common in the right-wing): http://manboobz.com/2012/11/06/election-day-open-thread-plus-some-inane-crap-from-heartiste-on-the-single-white-woman-vote/

They almost seem "ironic" because the portrayals are so humorously over the top. They're not like political cartoons vs the Irish or something: there's almost a warmth.

I wonder if they were taken super-seriously, or if these were produced in a "this is inevitable and ok, but lets have some fun along the way" attitude.

Oh, poor men, having to run household chores! How degrading.

Interesting to think that: 1. The women's life is painted as awful, showing some awareness of the trials pf being a woman at the time- but the logic never extends understanding the suffgragettes. 2. Beyond tyat the post cards seen ridiculous by today's standards. "woe is me for having ot take care of my own children and household!" 3. On a more depressing note, they're still using these arguments 100 years later.

I love how all these ads depict things that are downright awesome, with the pathetic framing that they are bad. 

The media has always been the media. These prints were designed to be exploitative then as now. 

American men back then really did not want to take care of their kids or help their wives. At least according to these ads.

Oh, I see. You'd really hate to be told that you aren't good for anything except homemaking, wouldn't you? That's how we feel.

Yes, scaring men with women's work and role shows just how oppressed women were. Isn't it something they couldn't conceive of how good it would be to work together, many hands making light work of house chores? I do feel we've made progress. I know we haven't arrived, but look where we've been!

I did all that, except the the last one.