How Wilson Approved Women s Suffrage

Women’s Right to Vote

One of the big reasons the right to vote took so long to obtain for women in the US was that they did not have the political backing for it. It was not until WW1 that the backing arrived. Till then, the Women’s Movement had been largely anti-war. It had helped to re-elect Wilson who ran on the platform of staying out of the war. However, the leader of the Women’s Movement at the time, Carrie Chapman Catt, flipped on the peace policy that women had pursued up to that point. She threw the Movement’s support to Wilson after election (once Wilson had changed his mind about staying out of the war). She approved of US entry into the war, and in return Wilson assured her he would support women’s suffrage. So it was very much a political maneuver on the part of the leader of the suffragettes. All she had to do was sell out the Movement and support the war and women got in return the political backing to obtain the right to vote (PBS).

Up to that point, women had little to offer politically speaking, and so there was never really any attempt by political leaders to try to curry their favor. By the 20th century, however, the Movement had grown so large that it was clear women could have an impact on politics. In the latter half of the 19th century, this movement was still in its growing stages. A few generations needed to pass before its strength could really be felt.