The Case for Disenfranchisement

I see we've got a book advertising with us called Why Women Should Rule the World which reminds me that it kind of seems to me as if granting women the franchise in 1920 was an inadequate remedial measure for having denied it to them for over 100 years earlier. Really there ought to be a 100-year span during which men can't vote. That would have more procedural fairness and it would also lead to substantively good outcomes as women have, in general, sounder electoral preferences than do men.

UPDATE: I've actually made this modest proposal before, it seems.

Comments

The Great Helmsman was not that far off in saying "all power comes from the barrel of a gun."

Posted by George | April 7, 2008 9:34 AM

Dee Dee Myers's tome inspired me to write my own book.

Vapid Ostriches: Why the Daily Press Briefing Should End, Press Secretaries Should Be Abolished, and the White House Press Corps Should Be Kicked in Their Collective 'Nads

Too long a title?

Posted by joejoejoe | April 7, 2008 9:42 AM

Arguably this current election season is the debunking argument to your last sentence.

Posted by Benjamin | April 7, 2008 9:43 AM

an inadequate remedial measure for having denied it to them for over 100 years earlier. Really there ought to be a 100-year span during which men can't vote.

How exatly does a 100-year period in which men can't vote "remedy" the prior 100 years of disenfranchisement? Under the theory of "two wrongs make a right"? Or is it under the theory "an eye for an eye" (which isn't a theory of rememdies - taking out the second eye doesn't bring back or compensate for the first lost eye, of course)?

Instead, we ought to have policies that actually compensate women for the lost vlaue of the franchise.

The last time Matthew came up with a goofy gender-related post, he blamed it on, er, I mean attributed it to, the girlfriend, but he seems to have come up with this one one his own.

Posted by Al | April 7, 2008 9:55 AM

Probably time to mention that the US is the outlier here: in Europe and Australia women are more right-wing than men by a significant margin (8% in the UK). No idea why, but please feel free to speculate.

Posted by ajay | April 7, 2008 10:00 AM

Blacks couldn't vote for over 100 years. Why not let them pick the next President?

Posted by wiretapp | April 7, 2008 10:01 AM

And when the 100 years are up women will vote to allow men to vote again, right? Right?

Posted by aleks | April 7, 2008 10:03 AM

a couple of hundred years of slavery for white people. Maybe some reverse middle passages to depopulate the east coast.

MY must be on the new theAtlantic.com page-views bonus plan -- this will reach 150 posts by its end.

Posted by mike c | April 7, 2008 10:03 AM

Al, how the heck can anybody calculate the value lost by not having the franchise for (well over) 100 years? Maybe a good way would be to, I don't know, let women decide for themselves what the compensation should be? Maybe by allowing them to make all the decisions for a while, under the assumption that they will know best what their needs and desires are?

I don't think that Matt's plan is actually a good one, but it just is a policy to compensate women for the lost value of the franchise, and I challenge you to devise a better one.

Posted by OhioBoy | April 7, 2008 10:04 AM

So, dude . . . Do I still have to register for the draft under this plan?

Posted by southpaw | April 7, 2008 10:11 AM

Though I know Matt is only kidding here, the *sentiment* behind this idea is at the heart of why liberals have trouble attracting small-l, moderate libertarians; these guys are unquestionably the branch of conservatism most susceptible to being brought into the liberal fold.

Groups such as men and women don't have preferences or feelings or hopes or goals; only individuals do. Any sense of "procedural justice" that relies on punishing innocent individuals (today's men, who had no part in the pre-1920 policy) or benefiting unharmed individuals (today's women, whose suffrage was not denied) is completely at odds with the understanding of liberty and justice that we've inherited from the Enlightenment.

More respect for individuals rather than groups would go a long way toward broadening the liberal base.

(Rousseau - wrong on justice, wrong on liberty, wrong for America.)

Posted by cure | April 7, 2008 10:12 AM

Matt may very well be the first person ever to express this idea.

Posted by phil | April 7, 2008 10:13 AM

This is surely nothing more than a Swiftian modest proposal. Because MY surely knows that those who were harmed by the unjust withholding of the franchise are basically all dead; because a new class of people will be harmed under this plan despite not having been responsible for the former disenfranchsement; because retracting rights sets a bad precedent; because the idea is intellectually Coulterian, albeit a mirror image of her proposal. Still, I do not find it funny. Associations to left authoritarianism are too fresh in people’s minds (including mine, which doesn’t change the fact that I’m a liberal because of the philosophy’s insights and virtues) for this modest proposal to have its desired effect. I can appreciate its provocation only in a strained way.

Posted by jason | April 7, 2008 10:19 AM

I think Matt's joking, but it's very hard to tell.

Posted by right | April 7, 2008 10:19 AM

I would like to submit a request for reparations for years of unjust primogeniture in England.

Posted by en_dash | April 7, 2008 10:22 AM

Guys, Matt's not joking. He's trolling.

Posted by John | April 7, 2008 10:26 AM

Yes -- and for the next 1000 years, only women have to serve in combat.

Oh, and they're also responsible for developing the science/technology to fix the Peak Oil and global warming problems.

Posted by Don Williams | April 7, 2008 10:27 AM

I'm not sure of your assertion. Limiting the franchise to an entire class of persons suffering spacial congnition deficiencies seems unwise. It'll get messy when a woman President sets out to attack the Middle East and instead attacks the Midwest.

Posted by steve duncan | April 7, 2008 10:30 AM

Granting women the franchise was a symbolic gesture at best, and probably harmful. Wealthy women, and the wives of wealthy men, had plenty of real political power in the 19th century. And since wealthy educated people are more likely to exercise their franchise than the poor, granting women the vote effectively reduced whatever voice blacks and poor white men had in this country and skewed "progressive politics" into becoming a synonym for identity issues like abortion rather than focusing on economic injustice - which had been the primary focus of progressives before suffrage. All in all the 19th amendment has been a disaster for the left.

(How's that for contrarianism? Think I can get a job writing for Slate now?)

Posted by vanya | April 7, 2008 10:34 AM

That woulda been excellent news for Hillary!

Vanya, why would you want a job writing for Slate?

Posted by 55 | April 7, 2008 10:37 AM

"as women have, in general, sounder electoral preferences than do men."

White women put out for George Bush in a big way in 2004. Maybe you'd like to switch your plan to allow only non-white women to vote? They liked Kerry a lot more than Bush.

Posted by Helter | April 7, 2008 10:39 AM

I am sure MY's lame little joke will get him plenty of right-wing outraged links. So from an ad revenue perspective, huzzah! As a good representative of liberalism... something about visting the sins of the father on the son comes to mind, so less with the huzzah.

Posted by AJ | April 7, 2008 10:50 AM

http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/no_vote_for_me.php

This is an old and not entirely original idea of Matt's.

Posted by peep | April 7, 2008 10:53 AM

Given that Yglesias was only trolling, he did a pretty good job. After all he managed a couple of responses which instead of addressing why his suggestion was stupid, managed to portray men as the put upon gender during the period that women were disenfranchised. So he managed to show that however silly a liberal looking idea might be, there are conservatives ready to outsilly them.

Posted by Lon | April 7, 2008 10:57 AM

Yeah! Bring on the Matriarchy! We -- um; hold it just one second....

That means Barbara Bush would be one of the elder Women running things, right? And Laura Bush? And Ivana Trump? And Cokie Roberts?

Well, fuck that.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | April 7, 2008 11:00 AM

Clearly, this is a joke. If it's not, Matt needs to relearn every lesson his parents taught Re: Good V Evil.

anyone who thinks women would make naturally better rulers need to rethink history. Lust for power and an absolute callousness while using it is hardly a 'male' trait. Women are evil too.

Posted by Soullite | April 7, 2008 11:13 AM

Matt may very well be the first person ever to make a joke.

Posted by phil | April 7, 2008 11:15 AM

Any sense of "procedural justice" that relies on punishing innocent individuals (today's men, who had no part in the pre-1920 policy) or benefiting unharmed individuals (today's women, whose suffrage was not denied)

That is a bit of a narrow view of things. The idea that women are "unharmed" individuals since 1920 belies the fact sexism has been and is a very potent factor in daily life and in terms of breadth more of an issue than racism is. Like african americans many of the gains made by women were used to climb out of a hole. White guys are still in the driver seat unfortunately. Give up the wheel for a while and take a nap or enjoy the view you sexist white devil.

Posted by blank_stare | April 7, 2008 11:23 AM

The Great Helmsman was not that far off in saying "all power comes from the barrel of a gun."

Now that I have pried away Chuck Heston's power away I gonna git me some more. Who wants a taste of my BOOM STICK !!! and shop S-Mart :-)

Posted by balnk_stare | April 7, 2008 11:28 AM

Methinks Matt isn't entirely serious here. I am curious to know why Women make better voters than men. I don't find it incredible--it is plausible that male or female characteristics may generally work better for voting, and to me it is just as likely that Women would come out better as not. I am just curious to know what Matt has in mind.

Posted by Chris Dornan | April 7, 2008 11:32 AM

1920 was a great year for men! They no longer had to vote for their wife's favorite candidate!

Posted by Anonymous | April 7, 2008 11:51 AM

Al in his ham-fisted way, missed the joke.

Being a relentless GOP apologist has its costs.

Posted by Otey2 | April 7, 2008 11:52 AM

Chris, Matt means that if you disenfranchised men women would vote in some sort of Euro-style socialism or however it is that Matt characterizes his preferred policy outcome.

So, simpler version: Wouldn't it be grand if we could eliminate people who disagree with me from the voting population?

And, yes, I know it's a joke. Just not a very original one, albeit wrapped provocatively.

Posted by Anonymous 2 | April 7, 2008 11:56 AM

If my wife is doing all the voting, does that mean I have to do the laundry?

Posted by Brautigan | April 7, 2008 11:59 AM

UPDATE: I've actually made this modest proposal before, it seems.

Matt may very well be the first person to equate his humerous suggestion to eating Irish babies.

Posted by phil | April 7, 2008 12:00 PM

Actually, women have often tended to vote more conservatively than men. This was the case particularly in Catholic countries up until the early 1960s, when the Catholic church was (in a very broad sense) associated with the right more than the left. Women are, of course, almost universally more religious and traditionally inclined than men. It's also been speculated (a la "In a Different Voice") that they are less given than men to abstract ideological causes, which is probably why they were traditionally less likely to vote for the radical Left.

I'm pretty sure there are some countries where the Socialist and Communist parties actually tried to delay womens' suffrage in the fear that it would lead to a more conservative electorate. I don't have a cite though.

Suffice it to say that I don't think that restricting the franchise to women would be at all a good idea.

Cure,

America is already sick to its stomach with 'respect for individuals'. Most people see themselves very largely as members of different groups, not as autonomous individuals. We need more emphasis on group interests, and group 'rights' and responsibilities. My own inclinations are much more towards Rousseau than towards the British/American Enlightenment.

Posted by Hector | April 7, 2008 12:13 PM

Reverse Coulterism, I like it.

Posted by Chris O. | April 7, 2008 12:21 PM

Not that this is a good idea in real-world as opposed to facetious-world, but it's formally similar to systems like "rotating presidencies" where everybody gets to be the decider for a while before passing it on. It'd probably be better though to shorten the timeframe -- say women get to vote for 10 years, then men for 10, etc.

Of course by this time all the women we oppressed by not letting them vote are dead so it's too late to compensate them directly. Funny how often that kind of thing seems to happen, isn't it?

Posted by brooksfoe | April 7, 2008 12:48 PM

Al in his ham-fisted way, missed the joke.

I don't think it is a joke.

BTW, did other people see the advertisement on Matthew's sidebar for Dee Dee Myers' new book Why Women Should Rule The World? Coincidence?

Posted by Al | April 7, 2008 1:49 PM

Al -

Look up Jonathan Swift. He was English. He used to write stuff. (I'm using baby steps here.) He did a piece called "A Modest Proposal." It was neither. It was a satire.

Now go back and read Matt. Slowly this time.

Posted by Otey2 | April 7, 2008 1:56 PM

You should put up the post where you make clear this is a joke, like, fairly soon.

Posted by Mike | April 7, 2008 2:08 PM

You should put up the post where you make clear this is a joke, like, fairly soon.

Posted by Mike | April 7, 2008 2:11 PM

Thanks for the clarification Anonymous 2. So European-style socialism is for girlies, eh. We had a PM who might beg to differ, and you have a presidential candidate that might too.

Posted by Chris Dornan | April 7, 2008 2:41 PM

I'm utterly unsurprised that some humorless men have taken this post seriously. Just goes to show that the notion that feminism is inversely proportionate to sense of humor is a myth, but does in fact accurately describe the relationship between humor and anti-feminism.

Posted by Amanda Marcotte | April 7, 2008 5:09 PM

Here's an equally bright idea, Matt. Since anarchists aren't responsible for any of the shit you voting morons have inflicted on the world since day one, how about we decide how things are run for the next 100 years?

Besides, I've already said, you want women to run the show - run Angelina Jolie for President instead of this corrupt politician Hillary Clinton. It's unimaginable that Jolie wouldn't be a more honest, less corrupt, more compassionate President than Clinton could ever hope to be.

At least the orphans around the world would get more aid money than bombs.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 7, 2008 6:22 PM

Matt, really now this is a bit dumb. Why stop 150 years back? For all of recorded European History patriarchy has viciously and shamefully repressed the aspirations of women. I'd like to see a society with a good balance of femininity and masculinity, and as masculinity tends to bully femininity (see Clinton's attacks on Obama's bowling, among other things), maybe a matriarchy would be marginally better than a patriarchy. But disenfranchisement? I'm not into it.

Posted by Robert | April 8, 2008 7:55 AM