This Little Book from 1917 Has a List of Every Reason Why Women Shouldn't Vote and It's Just as Relevant Today

There is a book that exists claiming to contain all the reasons why women shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Literally titled, This Little Book Contains Every Reason Why Women Should Not Vote, the book was published by a dubious publishing company N.W.S Pub. Co. INC., in 1917, and you wouldn't believe what's written on page 13: nothing, absolutely nothing.

In fact, there's nothing written on the first page of the book or the last page or the pages in between. This Little Book Contains Every Reason Why Women Should Not Vote is actually completely blank. Probably because—even in 1917—there were no valid reasons why women should have been eligible to vote.

While the ultimate troll, the idea for the book blossomed from the need for change and was just one of the many ways New York's National Women's Suffrage Publishing Company elevated their agenda in advocating for women's rights.

Along with Why Women Should Not Vote, the group published a variety of fundamental literature for spreading their message including Headquarters News Letter, an A-B-C of Organization, which served as a how-to guide for fundraising along with various other letters educating women on the Constitution and amendments that were made over the years, according to the Public Domain Review.

Many of the N.W.S.' brochures, documents and leaflets are on display at the Virginia Commonwealth University.

Naturally, the "little book" sparked outrage from anti-women suffragists who opened it hoping to read countless patriarchal and misogynists ideologies about women and why they should not have the luxury of exercising civic duties. New York Representative Sherman Berry was particularly infuriated by the book.

"I also find on my desk this morning a little pamphlet, entitled, This Little Book Contains Every Reason Why Women Should Not Vote. We open the book and find blank pages within. It is only another sample of what many of you have seen, and, I might almost say, of the detestable and cheap politics practiced in this State," Berry said during a House meeting in February 1917. Gentlemen, that little book carries no more weight with it than does the picketing of the White House in this time of crisis and peril to this nation and the heckling of our President...."

Despite the cries of many, white women were given the right to vote two years later when the 19th Amendment made it illegal for states to deny people the right to vote because of their sex.