Theodore Roosevelt: A Republican Who Advocated for Women's Equality
Nineteen-twelve was when Theodore Roosevelt came out for women's suffrage and became the great champion of women's rights. And I think one of the least understood, but more important aspects, of Theodore Roosevelt is that he was the great male feminist of his period in terms of the important office holders and politicians. But that goes back to the beginning.
When he's a senior at Harvard, he writes a thesis in which he advocates equal rights for women, including the fact that they shouldn't change their names when they get married. Then when he's in the New York State Assembly, he introduces a bill for corporal punishment for wife beaters, in other words, an equality of blows. Then, when he is police commissioner of New York, he introduces women in executive and other positions in the New York City Police Department. Then in 1912 he comes out for women's suffrage. Now the National American Women's Suffrage Association doesn't start fighting for a Constitutional amendment until really -- 'til 1913. And the National Women's Party, which is the left wing of the women's movement, isn't founded until 1913. So the push for a federal amendment to the Constitution starts really in 1913 among, the mainstream of feminists, whereas TR really starts it in 1912.
Now in the Bull Moose Party -- there's a paradox for you -- the Bull Moose Party, women are given equal rights in a political party in a big way. And his nomination is seconded in 1912 at the Bull Moose Convention by Jane Addams. And the former president of Harvard, Charles W. Eliot, says, "It was a spectacular proceeding, but in exceedingly bad taste, because a woman has no place in a political convention." This from the liberal president of Harvard who was backing Woodrow Wilson. So that shows you where women were at that point.
The Progressive Party ensured that women would be represented on the national committee. It's the first time women ever literally vote for a President because states which had the right to vote had women electors for the first time and they voted for Theodore Roosevelt in that election. In 1913, Illinois gives women suffrage, because the Bull Moose Party has the balance of power in the legislature, and that's the first time a state east of the Mississippi grants women's suffrage. Going into 1912, only nine states had women's suffrage and you need three-quarters of the states to amend the Constitution.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tr-gable/
Theodore Roosevelt Was a Feminist
“Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/588893-women-should-have-free-access-to-every-field-of-labor
“I contend that, even as the world is now, it is not only feasible but advisable to make women equal before the law … especially as regards the laws relating to marriage there should be the most absolute equality preserved between the two sexes. I do not think the woman should assume the man’s name. The man should have no more right over the person or property of his wife than she has over the person or property of her husband … I would have the word “obey” used no more by the wife than by the husband.”
https://www.glamour.com/story/the-surprising-feminist-life-of-president-theodore-roosevelt
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