INTRODUCTION
It was typical of many psychologists and anti-suffragists to automatically
associate feminism with mental illness. In 1918, H. W. Frink wrote of
feminists: "A certain proportion of at least the most militant suffragists
are neurotics who in some instances are compensating for masculine trends,
in others, are more or less successfully sublimating sadistic and homosexual
ones." It has, of course, always been easier for traditionalists to label
those who challenge the status quo as "Crazy" than to confront their arguments.
(Kaplan, 31) In the United States, in fact, anti-suffragists, finding comfort
in psychology, concluded that suffragists all bordered hysteria and, thus,
their arguments could not be taken seriously. While some Freudians,
particularly, Karen Horney, were sensitive to the social and cultural factors
which impinged upon women, shaping their personalities, by the-mid-twentieth
century "any questioning of women's place was readily equated with neurosis by
the Freudian psychologists and their popularizers." Two women, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were the founders of the women's suffrage movement.
This project will give a brief summary of their lives, their work, and the
meeting in Seneca Falls. It will also give a detailed account of the
ideologies of anti-suffragists that these women were up against.
This page was written by Meredith Goldstein-LeVande