Opponents of woman suffrage used images of suffragists as unattractive man-haters to discredit the movement.
To counter such stereotypes, suffrage leaders promoted a public image of conventional femininity. Shaw, who previously sported short hair, grew her hair long and wore it in a conservative chignon.
“I learned that no woman in public life can afford to make herself conspicuous by any eccentricity of dress or appearance,” she noted, because negative attention “injures the cause she represents.”
Suffrage leaders also emphasized women’s roles as wives and mothers. Addams and Breckinridge were founding members of the Woman’s City Club of Chicago, which produced a popular pro-suffrage graphic that illustrated the connections between domestic life and local government. NAWSA adopted the image as its own, featuring it on suffrage posters.
To avoid criticism and gain support, NAWSA’s leaders upheld conventional femininity. But this was not the whole story.
Demanding equality for all
In a 1910 speech, Breckinridge predicted that the time was coming “when man and woman would stand on the same industrial plane and their wages would be equalized by an equal social condition.”
Breckinridge’s lesbian-like lifestyle helps explain her stance on gender equality. As a single, self-supporting woman, she understood that many women, like herself, could not rely on men for financial security.
Thus, at the same time that she promoted equal voting rights, she also championed financial support for single mothers and maximum hour and minimum wage legislation for women workers.
As members of the Immigrants’ Protective League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, both Breckinridge and Addams rejected exclusionary strategies.
Addams protested proposed literacy tests for immigrants. Breckinridge coauthored a report advocating education, rather than employment, for working class youth.
The new lesbian leadership team also welcomed African American participation in the movement.
W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of the NAACP publication The Crisis, had publicly criticized NAWSA’s racism, warning that the movement’s mission was becoming “Votes for White Women Only.” He also published numerous editorials and articles in support of woman suffrage.
Breckinridge advocated inviting Du Bois to speak at the suffrage organization’s 1912 meeting. His participation signaled NAWSA’s growing commitment to racial equality.
In 1911, NAWSA had refused to allow a resolution linking woman suffrage with African American rights to be presented at its annual meeting. In 1912, however, NAWSA published Du Bois’s speech, “Disfranchisement,” which did just that, advocating a “Democracy of Sex and Color.”
This lesbian leadership team lasted for only a year. But while it operated, these leaders made the suffrage movement more diverse and inclusive.