Postcard, No Votes Thank You, The Appeal of Womanhood

This postcard, captioned 'The Appeal of Womanhood', was designed by Harold Bird to announce an anti-suffrage meeting at the Royal Albert Hall organised by the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage. The central figure represents a 'womanly woman' wearing a feminine dress and flowers in her hair as she politely refuses the vote. Behind her a suffragette is depicted as the 'hysteric' or the 'shrieking sister', inelegantly leaping towards parliament brandishing a hammer. The postcard was sent to Lillian M Slade in 1912. The suffrage artist Louis Jacobs's later designed a riposte to Bird's representation. Her poster, also entitled 'The Appeal of Womanhood' and published by the Suffrage Atelier, shows a similar figure to Bird's 'womanly woman' apealling for the vote.