Why was it so hard for women to vote in the 19th century?

Answer 1

Because in those days it was thought that women where feeble minded and not mentally capable of judging who to vote for. It was also thought that if they got the vote they would not concentrate on their chores and looking after the childeren.
it took woman so long to vote because no one had enought courge to stand up for them self but one day some one had more then enouge courge to have a boycott

Answer 2

The right for women to vote was difficult to secure because of the history of society. Gender roles had generally limited women to household, child bearing and raising roles. Women were not as involved in wars or property conflicts. Men typically were in charge of property issues, financial issues, working, providing a living, and other legal issues.

Men did not treat women as equals. Many women did not even consider being able to vote as an option. Most women did not take an interest in politics.

Education BarrierIn ancient ages, there were few female political leaders. Women did not go to the same schools as men did; they did not become philosophers or teachers. As a result, they were seen as less educated than men.

Gradually, women were accepted to more and more schools, starting from younger ages first, gradually working up to older children. It was many hundreds of years before women were even able to go to university. Not until 1678 in Italy, was a woman first awarded a degree (doctorate of philosophy). This was a rare exception, as the next woman (afaik) to be awarded a degree received it in 1732. It took many hundreds of years before women were regularly able to attend universities and colleges. Even when women gained the right to go to school with men, they were faced with sexism inherited from previous generations. Further, there were few female scholars to act as role-models. Women to this day continued to be saddled with the antiquated notion of mental inferiority, even though there are now more females going to post-secondary institutions than ever before. In some regions, more females than men go to post-secondary!

Working BarrierWomen had previously been relegated to the household but began to take more and more responsibility. Particularly during wars where there were labour shortages, women begin to fill men's shoes in the workplace. Women were now doing the same work as men, so they demanded that they should only have the same rights as men for doing the same work. Further, people recognized their dependence on women as their contributions to society were brought to the forefront. Many of the women suffrage movements worldwide came almost immediately after wars in the region. Fear of ChangeMany older people were not used to having women in new places, and were stuck in the 'Women were this in my ages, they should stick to doing that," attitude. Many religions were and still are notorious for this line of thinking, particularly if such a statement is written in their holy book, or a 'rephrasing' of their scripture appears to warn against such things. The reshifting of mental paradigms was uncomfortable to many of the older generations (men and women), so the mental shift to accept women in different ways took generations of time. Politics & BiasBefore women were granted the right to vote, those elected got there based on how men voted. Some of those in power feared that if women were granted the right to vote, they might lose power because of women voting differently than men. Their fears seem to have some basis in fact since there have been many elections since then where the female vote swung the victory from one candidate to their opponent. In some cases there have been fears that women would support a politically unpopular view or oppose a politically popular one. As an example: when the Utah territory applied for statehood, they were required to revoke the right to vote that women then enjoyed in the Utah territory (women had the right to vote in the Utah territory). The fear was that since polygamy had been a common practice among the LDS people in Utah (and political poison elsewhere) and most of the LDS women of the territory supported it and were active in politics, they would swing the vote disproportionately towards the LDS view and against the non-LDS residents of the future state. By disenfranchising the LDS women, the federal government of the USA was demonstrating bias against a particular religious group where women were active in politics but were outside the majority view of the nation at large.

Answer 3

Women didn’t have the right to vote until the 19th amendment in 1920.