“The Women’s Parliament:” Political Oratory, Humor, and Social Change
“Do you not know of the disgraceful happenings in countries cursed by manhood suffrage? [. . .] Although it is quite true, as you say, the polls are only open once in four years—when men once get the habit—who knows where it will end [. . .] Politics has a blighting, demoralizing influence on men. It dominates them, hypnotizes them pursues them even after their earthly career is over. Time and again it has been proven that men came back and voted—even after they were dead” –Pearl Watson in Purple Springs by Nellie McClung, (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1921): 285.
1In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many citizens of North America and Europe were working to secure voting rights for women, driven by the recognition that without them, women were unable to participate fully as citizens: they had no recourse to change bad laws to which they were subject. Women’s desire for the vote grew out of social activist work that many undertook in response to social conditions they found abhorrent. In the U.S., the recognition that women were relatively powerless in the social and political sphere grew out of the abolitionist movement, when speeches and rallies failed to persuade male voters to support either the cause of abolition or candidates who supported it. In Canada and Britain, women were moved to argue for full participation in society in response to the poor working conditions of women in low-paid service jobs, the unequal treatment of women before the law, and their inability to effect change to improve women’s lives generally. Isabelle Bassett describes the situation:
Based partly on a belief that women possessed a higher moral sense than men, a form of feminism developed that aimed to harness this morality and apply it to the good of society in general. However, when reform-minded women tried to institute social changes, they discovered that they had little hope of making any progress without the effective power of the vote. (129)
By the second decade of the 20th century, the suffrage movements in North America and Britain had taken divergent paths towards achieving their goal. In the U.S., organizations worked to secure the required number of signatures on petitions in the early steps of having the American constitution amended to give women the right to vote. In Britain, suffragists had engaged violent protest to attract attention. In Canada, the suffrage movement focused its efforts at the provincial level, with activists—both male and female—speaking at rallies in support of their cause. Nellie McClung, president of the Political Equity League in Manitoba, directed the campaign for women’s enfranchisement in that province. Of her leadership, Grant MacEwan notes,
Mrs. McClung, with no less zeal [than the British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst], believed it was not necessary to go on window-breaking sprees in order to gain attention. Her oratory and logic were the best of all instruments[,] and she and her friends resolved to carry their cause directly to the Premier of Manitoba with an orderly show of strength. (163)
McClung felt that persuasive argument was the best tactic for achieving their goal. As a popular speaker, she believed the power of rational argument would be most effective in showing the provincial leadership the advantages of extending the franchise to women.
2But what happens when logical argument fails? In Britain, suffragists turned to violent demonstration. In Canada, suffragists turned to humor. Rebuffed by a patronizing and ideologically entrenched provincial government, McClung and the Political Equity League of Manitoba staged a public burlesque or satiric stage performance called “The Women’s Parliament,” in which a delegation of men petitioned the all-female legislature for voting rights. When the same arguments used against women were refashioned to apply to men, the audience was hugely entertained by the absurdity. Even more remarkable, they changed their minds. What is the persuasive effect of humor? Why was the parody of the Premier of Manitoba in 1914 effective in swaying public opinion on the issue of votes for women when logical argument went nowhere?
3In response to an earlier version of this paper, Jamie MacKinnon argued that the Mock Parliament was an instance of “those with little power refusing to take seriously the huffing and puffing and posturing of those with (or who are mouthpieces for) real power.” Several rhetorical theorists would seem to support MacKinnon’s contention that humor is the tool of the powerless, and this may be true with rhetoric generally but humor’s relationship to politics and political rhetoric, I would argue, is different. As Nellie McClung and the delegates to the Manitoba Legislature were to discover, logic is not effective for changing political belief because it is ideological, part of a system of belief. Humor, a disarming emotional appeal, may be effective against ideology in a way that logic cannot be because it approaches the topic in a non-threatening way, cajoling listeners into considering alternative viewpoints that they are likely to reject out-right if presented logically. If people can be made to laugh at a parody of their beliefs, they start see how those beliefs may need amendment: certainly many of the spectators at the performances of the Women’s Parliament would have been sympathetic to Premier Roblin’s beliefs at that time, but within two years of the performances many fewer of those spectators still shared his beliefs.
4In this article, I analyze this historical event—the staging of a “Women’s Parliament” in Winnipeg, MB—to try to account for the persuasive power of humor in the suffragist movement in Canada in the early 20th century. Historical accounts credit the staging of “The Women’s Parliament” as a tactic that contributed directly to women in Manitoba being among the first in the Western World to vote. First, I draw on two historical theories of rhetoric—those of Cicero and George Campbell (both of whom tried to account for the persuasive power of humor)—to identify what made the perspectives of opponents to the suffragist movement in Manitoba in 1914 a suitable target for humor. Then, using the concepts of dissociation and reversal as defined by Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, I analyze several examples of humor from the Women’s Parliament to account for the shift in societal attitudes in favor of the enfranchisement of women as an eventual result of this parody. Finally, I examine how the Women’s Parliament constitutes a form of subversive political humor based on the level of authority that it targeted.
5 But before the suffragist movement in Manitoba resorted to humor, supporters took their best shot at persuading the government of the day based on logic and persuasive oratory. In January 1914 Nellie McClung lead a delegation of several hundred women and men before the Manitoba legislature to present arguments as to why then-premier, Rodmond Roblin, and his majority Conservative government should support a bill being introduced to grant provincial voting rights to women. The delegates had five speakers, including McClung (the president of the Political Equity League); the president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.); the secretary of the Grain Growers’ Association of Manitoba; and several prominent activists, one identified as Rev. R.W. Martinson. These speakers were selected to demonstrate to the Premier and the government that this legislation had support from a diverse cross-section of the populace.