“Ignorance is always dangerous.”
Lavinia Goodell, May 1871
In the second installment of her series of Woman’s Journal articles rebutting commonly touted reasons why women should not vote (read the about the first installment here), Lavinia Goodell focused on the claim that voting would disrupt the tranquility of the home and take women away from their traditional duties. Rubbish! declared Lavinia.

Lavinia queried how much of a woman’s time would be spent in voting and what important duties would she be neglecting while doing so? She pointed out that no one seemed bothered that men, too, had to step away from their jobs to vote. “The mechanic, in voting, does not neglect his workshop, the merchant his counting room, nor the farmer his fields. Neither would woman forsake the kitchen and the nursery. The duties of a husband and father in providing for his family are as numerous as those of the wife and mother in her position as housekeeper. Yet experience teaches that the exercise of his duties as a citizen do not interfere with them. Neither would woman’s interfere with her home duties.”
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