Ku prawdziwej demokracji? Taktyka amerykańskiego ruchu sufrażystowskiego w czasie I wojny światowej

Abstract

The article concerns the strategies and activism of two suffrage organizations: National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and National Woman's Party (NWP), during the years of World War I. Aiming to guarantee the voting rights to American women, the suffragists aptly made use of the socio-political conditions of the wartime. NAWSA encouraged American women to join the war effort. It alluded to the active engagement of women at the Home Front as the proof of their political maturity and readiness for equal suffrage. Militant and pacifist NWP chose a more radical and controversial strategy (as picketing the White House or going on hunger strike). They argued that democratic rhetoric used by the American government during the wartime was contradictory to their denial of suffrage to American women. NAWSA, as well, mentioned democracy and freedom in its claim for the voting rights for women. At the same time, American suffragists used racist argument in order to win their cause. Black women, presented as not civilized enough to cherish the rights and privileges of American democracy, were excluded from suffragists' demand for the voting rights.