Getting the vote: When women campaigned against women

"Men - brothers - sons - save us from politics. Our world is hearth and home and it shall remain thus. This is why we need a double no to women's suffrage. Zurich women who trust their husbands." The poster is signed by the "Cantonal Action Committee against Women's Suffrage". Zurich, 1947. Keystone / Str

March 8, International Women’s Day, is when women from all over the world proudly come together in solidarity. Surely this would always have been the case regarding the right to vote? Not in Switzerland.

One woman who did not believe women should have the right to vote is Rosmarie Köppel-Küng, who joined the League of Swiss Women against Women’s Suffrage at the end of the 1950s.

A paradox ensued: female opponents of women’s suffrage found themselves having to be politically active – in order not to be politically active. There were limits to what they could do, though. While supporters were able to attract media attention with creative and sensational activism, opponents were limited to adverts, roundtable talks and podium discussions. They let themselves be carried away by the spirit of the times and tried their hand at coarse rhetoric, but then soon backtracked as this wasn’t considered very feminine.

Opponents argued primarily with the natural distribution of roles. Anti-suffragette, Gertrud Haldimann-Weiss studied pharmacy at the University of Bern and graduated in 1930. She wrote: “Our true task is to serve, to give, to give thanks, not to rule, to demand or to coldly calculate.” While the husband was responsible for political decision-making and affairs of the state, the wife took care of the home – always under the supervision of her husband’s “fatherly authority”, of course.

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A vox pop was carried out with Swiss women on women’s suffrage in 1946. Mrs Feller, a tobacco seller: “I’m against it. Personally, I know nothing about politics and am not interested in it. The wife should talk to the husband and thus influence politics. She should think about where she belongs: in the family, and politics is not necessary there, but deep understanding and love of a peaceful home. For many women, it’s more of an afterthought than a great need. Few women supporters actually know exactly what is at stake!” Keystone / Str

Voting poster with the slogan “No” to the introduction of women’s suffrage designed by Donald Brun. The poster was used in German-speaking Switzerland in the 1946 referendum campaign. At that time, women’s suffrage was rejected by a large majority. Keystone / Str

Mrs Haab of Zurich: “What’s the point of woman’s suffrage? The woman should prepare a friendly home for her husband. She should pursue fewer pleasures and attractions, a little less cleaning and pretending to be beautiful, but more warmth of heart and goodness. But it’s the men’s own fault. They are so quick to let their heads be turned by affected and overdressed pretty little things that they forget their own families and wives. That’s why I say, instead of women’s suffrage, instead of running around with newspapers, talking politics and thereby forgetting the upbringing of the children, the woman should become a mother again, bring up strapping sons and expectant mothers. I’ve brought up three daughters like this and all three are happily married and share this view with me.” Keystone / Str

‘Do you want women like this?’ The poster was used in German-speaking Switzerland in the 1920 referendum campaign in the cantons of Basel City and Zurich. Keystone / Str

Mrs Surbeck from Zurich, mother of two and vegetable seller: “I’m in favour in principle and also prepared to take on the duties that go with the right to vote. However, I have no time for politics – work and maternal duty come first. If votes come out wrong, the men could say it’s because the women voted, and so everything is ‘blamed’ on the women.” Keystone / Str

The carpet beater refers to the household, which the opposing committee believes women should confine themselves to. In the cantonal referendum of 1947, women’s suffrage was rejected in canton Zurich. Keystone / Str

Mrs Emmi Guendel, married for 20 years and owner of café “Kathya” in Zurich: “I am fundamentally against it! Women’s main purpose lies in the household and the family and bringing up the children. In this way they also influence public life. In voting proposals that affect women, women should influence their husbands.” Keystone / Str

Give women the vote and this is what will happen! A campaign poster with the slogan “No” to the introduction of women’s suffrage, designed by Ernst Keiser. This poster was created for the vote in canton Basel City on May 15, 1927. Keystone / Str

Elisabeth Hudreoli, 23, single and branch manager in a grocery store in Zurich: “Men should do it [politics]! Women should do the housework, educate the kids and create a nice home. My rejection is the product of my own reflections. Even if women’s suffrage were introduced, I would not go along on principle.” Keystone / Str

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A letter to a Zurich group of female opponents of voting rights said: “The rejection of political equality among women, however, is based on the certainty that what they do as wives and mothers, as sisters and daughters, as professional employees, has at least as high a rank as the direction of the affairs of state.”

Men who campaigned for equality were often portrayed as weak. “I sometimes almost explode,” Haldimann-Weiss wrote. “But I often grind my teeth when I see how men put up with such things.”

Despite Switzerland’s slow progress in making it legal for a woman to vote, in other countries that had already set the tone for liberation, like the UK and the US, there was a tendency in the 1960s to deplore the effeminacy of men and their integration into domestic work. In the 1955 film Rebel without a Cause there is a sceneExternal link in which the father runs around in an apron serving the family – no wonder it doesn’t end well with James Dean!

Prior to airtime on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, five leaders from prominent women’s organisations prepare for the live broadcast in November 1977. Bottom row, from left: Eleanor Smeal, National Organization for Women; Margaret Mealey, National Council for Catholic Women; top row, from left: Audrey Rowe-Colom, National Women’s Political Caucus; Phyllis Schlafly, Stop ERA; and Liz Carpenter, ERAmerica. Keystone

These views were notably upheld by Harvard-educated lawyer and author Phyllis SchlaflyExternal link, who campaigned against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and argued that women should stay at home. Paradoxically, Schlafly, who was also anti-Communist, was highly politicised and ran for the Republican Congress in 1952. She also later claimed that the ERA would lead to unisex toilets and the promotion of gay marriage – a visionary, no less.

Despite the emphasis on domesticity, many opponents to women getting the vote could afford domestic help and came from wealthy, middle-class backgrounds. They simply had an interest in maintaining the status quo. Thus, during the Cold War, the desire for gender equality was also equated with the “egalitarianism” of communism. Even knowing that the status of women behind the Iron Curtain was somewhat different, the rejection of women’s rights was justified by the fight against communism.

In Switzerland, it was feared that women’s suffrage would shake the nation and make it vulnerable to leftist subversion. One scenario, for example, was that women’s suffrage could target the military and weaken the country. This also speaks to a fundamental distrust that other women will act manipulatively and irrationally.

Calling oneself an anti-feminist is still a common statement today, referring mostly to issues of everyday gender culture: Who looks after the children? Who works part-time? But the idea that women should give up the vote has become unthinkable. Even Rosmarie Köppel-Küng said in an interview more than 50 years later: “Today I would be for it.”

This text is based on the licensed work of historian Daniel Furter, ‘Die umgekehrten Suffragetten, Die Gegnerinnen des Frauenstimmrechts in der Schweiz von 1958 bis 1971’ (The reversed suffragettes, the female opponents of women’s suffrage in Switzerland from 1958 to 1971).