Halation is just a little bit skeptical:
given your attitudes towards the intelligence and competence of women in general, do you understand why some might be just a tad sceptical when you say that no, no, you pwomise we’ll have all those lovely natural rights, and not to worry our pretty little heads about it, to just go ahead and leave all that hard votin’ stuff to the menfolk, who’ll protect us, bein’ all big and strong and masculine?
It makes no difference what women might think of my opinion. As one television show has demonstrated, the vast majority of women think so little about the issue that they are perfectly willing to sign a petition to end women’s suffrage. And yet, I not only don’t blame Halation for her skepticism, indeed, I salute her for it. I only wish that all women were equally skeptical about pretty promises from people with grand ideas for improving society.
As for those women who do think about such things, the very few who actually value basic human rights and the protection of human liberty soon reach precisely the same conclusion I do when they think about it. I seem to recall Ann Coulter, for one, making reference to being willing to give up her vote if it means taking it away from the rest of her sex as well. Unfortunately, even among the women who do take the time to consider such matters, most don’t value human rights as such, instead they substitute needs for rights and place a priority upon the equality of result instead of the equality of opportunity.
Halation’s fear of losing the vote betrays a typically unsophisticated understanding of how the world works. Voters control nothing in any Western country, they simply provide safe cover for the multi-factional ruling party. Whereas the head beneath the crown lies ever uneasy, the members of the ruling oligarchy in a modern quasi-democracy know that whenever the peasantry becomes restless, a simple and showy passing of the torch from one member to another will suffice to convince them that genuine change is at hand. Rinse and repeat as needed.
Would Halation be as concerned about losing her vote were she a citizen of the former Soviet Union? It is important to remember that Civics 101 notwithstanding, voting is not synonymous with freedom. The ironic truth is that most who consider themselves champions of “democracy” are no genuine fans of it, as they support neither the severely limited democracy that fosters freedom nor the full-fledged direct democracy that would significantly reduce the opportunity for oligarchical manipulation at the cost of mob rule. Instead, they prefer to cling to their illusion of people power even as they mindlessly obey, in Pavlovian fashion, the bell-ringing of their masters.
Women will always be ruled by an elite because every human society has always been ruled by one. The only question is whether they prefer to be ruled by a overt freedom-loving elite that will protect them and value them, by a covert totalitarian elite that sees them as useful and unwitting instruments to obtain power, by a barbarian elite that hates them as a necessary evil or by a primitive elite that sees them as prizes and toys.
The first elite, in my opinion, is definitely the most preferable. But because of women’s demonstrably greater susceptibility to the second type, anyone who values human freedom and honestly considers recent history should be able to recognize that women’s suffrage has been a disaster for human liberty and understand why I oppose it.
I neither designed this world nor did I write its history. I am simply reflecting upon what I have observed, and I make no pretense to understand more than a fraction of it. I speak for no one but myself.