WOMEN VOTERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 281, 22 July 1932, Page 6

WOMEN VOTERS

FRENCH SENATE OPPOSES BILL GRANTING FRANCHISE. ARE GIRLS BRAINLESS? LONDON, June 15. Women of France are so different from those of other countries that they do not need the franchise. They control their husbands' votes. Such, at any rate, was the astute appeal to feminine vanity used in the fortnight's debate, wliich led to the Senate shelving the Women's Suffrage Bill, according to the Paris correspondent of "The Times." But exceptional precautions were taken during the debate to prevent feminist demonstrations. Opponents of the bill scorned the example of foreign countries. In addition to infiuencing their husbands' votes, they said, the French women enjoyed such a commanding position that they even begged exemption from public affairs, contending that otherwise the sanctity of family life would be ruined by poliLcal dissensions. Tumbriis Again. Some Senators recalled that women voted for p-rohibition in America — a strong card to piay in a wine-export-ing country. Others contended that the French women's convent education v/ould aid clerical reactionaries and destroy the liberties which the Republic had secured. Inconsistently with this argument, it was predicted that Radical demagogues would ride to revolution on the votes of brainless girls. Apparently women who control husbands' votes become either religious ecstatics or Communists if the vofce is given to themselves, retorted the supporters of the measure. When the venerable M. Jenouvrier,. the doyen of the Senate, recalled the services of women in the war, opponents retorted that though their devotion helped to save France, their laxity in the factories during the war was the main cause of the present decay in morality.