opposition to women's suffrage

At the risk of minimizing the efforts, sacrifices, struggles, and triumphs of the women suffragists, a question arises. Why did some women fight against their right to vote? The antisuffragists succeeded in making voting seem unimportant to the majority of women by urging women not to vote in municipal elections. It makes sense that lack of a vote would hold more water for their cause than even a vote for their cause. It appears different answers can range from reasonable to profoundly absurd.
Mary Wilson Thompson (1866-1947) was an anti-suffragist with a reasonable platform. She believed that women could do a lot more good and exert much more influence if they distanced themselves from direct political dealings. She believed that women made better lobbyists than voters. She held the position that would who could not vote were unlikely to be suspected of having ulterior motives when lobbying political leaders. She stated that a woman who would openly oppose her husbandâ...