Φόβος της Θεούσας Ψήφου

Με αφορμή το βίντεο του Εδουάρδο Γκαλεάνο για τις γυναίκες —και ιδιαίτερα την Ολέμπ ντε Γκουζ στον αντιφεμινισμό της Γαλλικής Επανάστασης και την Ουρουγουανή Δελμίρα Αγουστίνι, η ποίηση της οποίας άνθισε σε ένα παρόμοιο ριζοσπαστικό περιβάλλον—εντόπισα ένα παράδοξο, παραπεταμένο απ' την πεπατημένη αφήγηση της Ιστορίας: Μεταξύ 1789 και 1945, αρκετοί κοσμικοί, φιλελεύθεροι, αριστεροί και φεμινίστριες, κυρίως στις καθολικές χώρες, ενώ θεωρητικά είναι υπέρ του εκλέγειν και εκλέγεσθαι για όλους, αρνούνται ή αναβάλλουν το δικαίωμα ψήφου στις γυναίκες υπό το φόβο πως θα ψηφίσουν συντηρητικά. Και ενώ μέχρι τότε οι συντηρητικοί ήταν κατά, σταδιακά αλλάζουν γνώμη για τον ίδιο ακριβώς λόγο.

Κατά της γυναικείας ψήφου επίσης η αναρχοφεμινίστρια Emma Goldman—διόλου περίεργο αφού οι αναρχικοί είναι κατά των εκλογών—αλλά και σοσιαλιστές, όπως η Clara Zetkin, διακήρυχναν πως η απελευθέρωση της γυναίκας περνάει μέσα από την ταξική πάλη και στηλίτευαν την εμμονή του αστικού φεμινισμού στο δικαίωμα ψήφου. 

Με λίγα λόγια, η γυναίκα έπρεπε πρώτα να μορφωθεί και να ψηφίσει.

Ένας παρόμοιος φόβος για θεολογική, οπισθοδρομική ψήφο αναπτύχθηκε μετά το 1950 για τις ισλαμικές κοινωνίες. Κατά περίπτωση, τόσο η αστική Δύση όσο και η εργατική Ανατολή υποστήριξαν εκεί δικτάτορες υπό τον φόβο της ισλαμικής ψήφου. 

Στην ίδια κατηγορία με τις καθολικές γυναίκες και τους μουσουλμάνους πιστούς, μπορεί να μπουν οι απόδημοι Έλληνες που προβλημάτισαν την κεντρο-αριστερά το 2009 (αλλοίωση της βούλησης του ελληνικού λαού με τεχνητή διόγκωση του εκλογικού σώματος από ανθρώπους που δεν έχουν καμία επαφή με τη χώρα) αλλά και τις μέρες τούτες του κεκοιμημένου εκβιαστικού δημοψηφίσματος, και ο εγχώριος ελληνικός λαός αφού ως γνωστόν "οι εκλογές, καταστροφή για τον τόπο". 

Πρώτα θα μορφωθούμε και μετά θα ψηφίσουμε .

elaborated text out of

(Constructing Spanish Womanhood: Female Identity in Modern Spain 

(p.331-335) by Pamela Beth Radcliff)

The third model of suffrage reform applied predominantly to Latin countries where the struggle between the Catholic church and the Secularists provided a central element of the national political culture. Latin-style liberalism comprised two basic elements dated from the French Revolution. The first was the standard liberal belief that the legitimacy of the modern state must rest on the consent of the governed citizens. As a consequence, liberals were committed to expanding the basis of citizenship to incorporate certain previously excluded groups, which in theory included women. The other element, perhaps the hallmark of 19th century Latin liberalism was a deeply ingrained anticlericalism. On the basis of their real lived experience, liberals viewed the Catholic church as an entrenched obstacle to social, political and educational reform. In a choice of action in which the two elements of liberalism were at odds, as they were in the case of women's suffrage, the strength of liberal anticlericalism usually overrode any commitment to expanding the electoral bases of the state. As a consequence, liberals more often than not blocked female access to political and civil equality because it was assumed that female religiosity and proclericalism posed a threat to the secular state. According to Michela de Giorgio, as the century proceeded the construction of the liberal discourse became increasingly masculine, leaving to women the discourse of Catholicism, the ritual and ethics of which became more and more feminized.

There are numerous interwar examples of the Latin model operating to block women's suffrage. In France in 1919, 1925, 1932 and 1935, bills granting the vote to women passed the chamber of deputies only to be defeated in the Senate by Radicals, like Émile Combes, who feared that French women would vote at the dictate of their priests. (Paul Smith, Feminism and the Third Republic). In Uruguay women's right of citizenship was recognized in the socialist-inspired, anticlerical constitution on 25th November 1917, but fear of female religiosity in the dominant Batllist faction headed off the women's vote until 1932. Similarly in Mexico where there was a theoretical commitment to reform the electoral basis of government and a great many feminists and women activists had been stalwart supporters of the national revolution, the fear that the church would exercize undue influence over Mexican women defeated every effort at female suffrage before 1953.

In Belgium it was the Catholics who picked up the issue of women's suffrage, their conservative wing hoping for what the Liberals feared, that women would vote catholic; as a result, the suffrage was delayed until 1948. In Spain, the Liberals were also caught in the tension between an impulse for democratic reform and the fear of female clericalism. 

Three women were elected in 1931.

Clara Campoamor, a seamstress and teacher, was the first woman to address the assembly of Spain in a speech warning the male members that their continued exclusion of women from voting was a violation of natural law. When her own party decided to oppose women's suffrage, she left it and continued to advocate for suffrage independently.

Victoria Kent, a lawyer from Malaga, was against giving women the right to vote immediately, arguing that, as Spanish women lacked at that moment social and political education enough to vote responsibly, they would be very much influenced by the Catholic priests, damaging left wing parties. This caused her certain unpopularity and, when women were given right to vote, she lost her seat – as she had predicted – to the conservative majority in 1933.

Margarita Nelken was the highly talented daughter of a Jewish German father and a French mother. Born in Madrid in 1896 and educated in Paris and Berlin, she excelled in music and arts. As a young woman she wrote extensively on art criticism and cultural matters in Spanish, French, Italian, English and German periodicals and for several years gave painting classes at the Prado. During the Second Spanish Republic she was appointed to the board of the Madrid Museum of Modern Art.

In 1919 Nelken had set up a school in Madrid for poor children but it was closed under pressure from religious groups opposed to the school's laic policies. In the twenties she joined the Socialist Party and in 1931 was elected with very large majority on the socialist ticket for Badajoz.

Nelken was a radical supporter of working women, outspoken in detailing their misery; however, like most socialists she eschewed feminism as an ideology suited only to bourgeois women. Socialists saw class as the real source of female oppression and class struggle as solution to it. Although she became the chairman of the Socialist Party's Committee on Women's Affairs in 1931 she vehemently rejected the party's policy of supporting immediate votes for women because "there was not a single practicing Catholic woman in Spain who had note been interrogated by her confessor about her political ideas and inclinations. In light of this, Nelken argued that it would be better for Spain to follow the example of Uruguay where the constitution ''the most advanced in existence" recognized equal rights of citizenship between the sexes but postoponed female suffrage.