Women given the vote earlier

Upon further reflection, a possible POD for an earlier women's right to vote would be if Salmon P. Chase either edges out Lincoln for the 1860 Republican nomination, or if he is Lincoln's VP and succeeds him, or if he dies later than he did. OTL Chase was sympathetic to the idea that women were likewise covered by the 14th Amendment

As Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Salmon Chase had appointed John Rock as the first African-American to argue cases before the court, as a pointed statement of equality. Chase also was the lone dissenter in that case mentioned where a woman brought a case to the court on 14th Amendment grounds, but he died shortly after the case and before he was able to offer his dissenting opinion (which probably would have undermined the legal case against women strongly).

An alt-timeline President Chase is likely to force the issue and make a good case at some point. He might well nominate some Radical Republican woman to a position and dare Congress to make an issue of it - that would seem to fit his pattern.
 
Wyoming was the first state to allow women to vote, but I don't think any elections were being held in Wyoming during the 1840s. If I recall correctly, the future State of Wyoming was at that time divided between two other Territorial entities. I believe the Territory of Wyoming gave women the right to vote around 1870. When Wyoming was admitted to the Union (in 1890), its proposed state constitution, which had to be ratified by the Congress (actually, I think just the Senate) as part of the process of gaining statehood, contained the provision that women would continue to vote under statehood. Only when Wyoming declared it would not be interested in statehood unless women were allowed to continue to vote, did the Senate relent on this issue, and approve their proposed state constitution.



The environmental and economic realities of the frontier made women the approximate social equals of men. Weak, stupid women died, or were otherwise ruined, just as readily as weak, stupid men, and likewise strong, clever women prospered alongside men of a similar ilk. Darwinian forces largely neutralized what would today be called "sexist" attitudes on the part of the men ie., everyone pretty much knew Big Nell was worthy of respect, else she wouldn't have accomplished what she did. Just as having a penis (or being a Vanderbilt, or having a fat bank account back in Omaha) wouldn't prevent one from freezing to death on the windy plains, having a vagina didn't prevent one from being a marksman, or whatnot. Results were what mattered in such an environment, so the women who could produce were shortly shown the same respect as the men who could do likewise.

Interesting points you made and I agree with them. Also I was reading an article a while back about societies that have existed in history with signifcant numerical gender imbalances. At that time Wyoming and most of the western US states and territories had very low numbers of women. It said in the article that one of the reasons for granting the vote to women so early in Wyoming was to attract women there; was this the case? It is interesting though how societies with low numbers of women have very liberal attitudes on gender.

Conversely, it was argued in what I was reading that societies with imbalances the other way (shortages of men) develop very conservative attitudes to women; the example here was traditional Arab tribal societies (lack of men due to constant warfare). For those who know of this than me would you say that this generalisation is correct?
 
They never should have been given it in the first place.

A list of things that have happened since men gained the vote:

-Mass immigration
-Collapse of traditional values
-Widespread drug use
-"Peacenik" states.
-Feminism, and assosciated propoganda.

Fixed it for you.:rolleyes:

(There's a fallacy in your argument that I'm trying to draw notice to. It has to do with correlation and causation...)
 
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