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About Are Women People?

Are women people? With that deceptively simple question, Alice Duer Miller delivers a witty, fearless assault on the contradictions used to deny women the right to vote. Written during the American women’s suffrage movement, this lively collection of satirical poems, parodies, dialogues, and political observations turns the arguments of anti-suffragists against themselves. Miller exposes the absurdity of claiming that women are too delicate for politics yet strong enough to endure exhausting labor, too easily influenced to vote independently yet powerful enough to corrupt the entire political system. No contradiction escapes her attention. From legislators who praise women while refusing them basic rights to social customs that confine women to the home only when their labor is not needed elsewhere, Miller dismantles discrimination with playful rhymes, sharp logic, and devastating humor. The title itself responds to President Woodrow Wilson’s call to return government to “the people”—while women remained excluded from the ballot. First published in 1915, *Are Women People?* is both an important work of American suffrage literature and a remarkably entertaining example of political satire. Clever, irreverent, and still strikingly relevant, it demonstrates how humor can challenge injustice, expose hypocrisy, and help change public opinion. Narrated by Mary Ellin Kurtz.