womens rights

This is the third in a series of blogs debating a statement in an average American History textbook. The statement that is being debated in this blog post is, "By giving women the right to vote in at least in local or state elections, these states recognized the women's contributions."

First, I will debate for the statement. My main argument for this statement is simply that a step forward is a step forward, however small it is. As long as there was being reform allowing women somewhere sometimes to vote at all, it should be recognized and praised. If we don't believe that small steps are important, than we will make much less progress. "The turtle always wins the race" because the turtle is careful and does not rush through issues blindly. The turtle understands the importance of making small progress, which adds up quickly. If I may ask a somewhat stupid but interesting question, is 10+10=5+5+5+5, or are the two fundamentally different?

But how is something so small as local elections important? Shouldn't we be focusing on the big picture, not the small details? I have a few points against the statement. First of all, they may or may not have been trying to include women when they let them vote. They just as well may have been trying to expunge their state of the women's rights protesting and rioting. Just like some of the giants of the Gilded Age gave away tons of funds to charitable causes, they just did it for the fame and recognition and to not be viewed as such a "bad guy." I don't believe that the government had some kind of emotional epiphany where they saw the light and decided to let women vote. They must've been doing it for it's own personal malicious benefits. 

I believe that this statement is not true and that the small benefits that it had were nowhere near the significance of the large scale reform of the 19th Amendment.