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Comment by wireprotocol | Hacker News Reader

True in the sense that it creates a "floor" for the depths to which people might sink. But this process can still sink pretty low.

Consider how women couldn't vote in the US until 1919 -- a half century after blacks.

And a more modern example that was on display for all to see: the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh. There were not a lot of facts available -- no date, no place, no witness that could remember. Yet millions were ready to brand him a rapist to the whole nation and pressure him out of political office.

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> Consider how women couldn't vote in the US until 1919 -- a half century after blacks.

Not letting women vote is arguably not necessarily a marker of sexism. It is more a marker of the relationship between a country's military leadership and institutions.

Originally originally (~400BC) voting was basically for the army to decide when and where it would fight; hence male-only because men are the physically big ones who can fight. I don't know exactly how it changed over time, but the linkages are probably quite sticky. This modern concept of a government heavily invested in daily life wouldn't have been practical before modern communication and transportation, so needs and viewpoints on what the government is would have been radically different.

1 - I'm doubtful of your claim there was nothing to vote on except where/whether the army fights.

2 - That's irrelevant anyway unless you're suggesting that it was still the case up to 1919.

3 - Even if it was, why does women not fighting imply they can't have opinions and thoughts on when and where the army fights? For sure it still affects them.

And yet 1919 is the closing year of WWI, which as I recall was the first major war where women's labour could be deployed directly as a proactive and systematic part of the war effort on foreign soil. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no military historian.

There is a massive link between being involved in the military and having political power, even without suffrage. There are 2,500 years of history and women got the vote around the time that the repeatable firearm was perfected.

The original bill was to be voted just as the war ended and it included a critical detail: female military draft. The world war 1 machine was running out of men to send to the war and the volunteer system for women did not turn out enough people to fill the ever increasing demand in the war factories. Something had to give.

Creating a female military draft raise some major concerns in 1918, one being that women had not voted to enter the war in the first place. It was seen as a bit unfair to then demand them to help fix the situation. Thus the right to vote.

Then the war suddenly ended and the bill got postponed. The female draft part was dropped but the idea of women vote continued with force and a year later it passed.

Most historians agree that the world war 1 was the catalyst for the women suffrage movement, through there are some disagreement. Some points to the fact that the movement existed before the war, but how significant their political influence was at that point is far from clear.

> Originally originally (~400BC) voting was basically for the army to decide when and where it would fight;

This simply isn't true, since other topics were definitely voted on. For example, rather famously, there were votes on whether a person should be exiled from the city in ancient Greece.

There was a lovely quote from that era that said "A city with a navy become democracy, with an army a tyranny". I can't find a reference, but what I can find is this choice quote from Wikipedia [0]:

"Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens."

I was a bit vague in my original comment, but the point I'm going for is that this looks lot like the army being in charge. The criteria wasn't "men because we like men". The criteria was questions like "are you going to be lining up to fight the Persians with me?" and "Can you build ships?". And a hint of nationalism/classism. If it were feasible to field women on the battlefield in 404BC they would have been voting too.

And indeed, as soon as we reach a level of technology where it is feasible for women to be policepersons and military contributors they start getting suffrage. It was still a battle, but the timing is highly suspicious.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Participati...

My understanding is that women didn't want to vote due to, amongst other things, not wanting to "mix the spheres" of domestic and public life, wanting the government to have no say in domestic life: https://herandrews.com/2015/03/01/women-against-suffrage/

Not voting doesn't have a huge effect on people's lives, which is why millions don't do so.

A number of witnesses came forwards?

The evidence that any particular accusation was accurate was very thin.

Perhaps more importantly, the accusations were impossible to defend against.

None of this means the events didn't happen. They might have. But the process was fundamentally unfair, and we need a better way to deal with uncertainty.

Lining up on party lines -- a kind of "vote for the truth" -- is ridiculously unfair to the accused. We need to agree on a process, including standards of evidence. When that process plays out, we should be able to basically come together on the outcome.

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