Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/211



of the opposition to woman suffrage on the part of wage-earning and professional men is born of the instinctive fear that it threatens in some mysterious way their means of living. Numerous inventions of labour-saving machinery of every variety have reduced the number of workers, the competition of the dispossessed has caused wages to fall, and life has become so hazardous for the workers that many of them, quite naturally, shrink from increasing the risks and difficulties of their position by encouraging an increase in the number of women competitors for their work. If it is true that woman suffrage will have the effect of robbing large numbers of men of their employment, and replacing them with women, one must look sympathetically at the opposition which arises from the fact. It is the firm belief of woman suffragists that the direct opposite of this will be the case, and that men will gain rather than lose from the improvement in the wages and general labour conditions which they hope to see as a result of the political enfranchisement of women.