1271 Temperance Ladies

There’s no clearer example of the power that women have in America than the “Temperance Ladies,” the ones who championed and pushed through the 18th Amendment, the prohibition against selling alcohol. What makes this so astonishing is that it was a men’s issue that women decided, yet this was even before they could vote, which didn’t come until the 19th Amendment. The Temperance Ladies are unstoppable because who was going to stop them? Certainly not men who are held in their thrall, and have been throughout history. For all the indignant claims of ours being a patriarchal society, men only do what women let them. In fact, from a democratic point of view, it’s a matriarchal society. Women’s issues are society’s issues: security, child rearing, education & conformity primarily benefit women. Work used to be a men’s issue but even that is becoming a women’s issue. Everything except war is a women’s issue now. The Temperance Ladies control men because they control the thing most important to men: sex.