I'm not sure how long ago this was written, but is shows how indefensibly slow progress towards meaninful equality has been.
""She is quite right. The professions are not
sufficiently open to women. They are still far too much
circumscribed in their employments. They are a feeble
folk, the women who have to work for their bread--poor,
unorganized, timid, taking as a favor what they might
demand as a right. That is why their case is not more
constantly before the public, for if their cry for
redress was as great as their grievance it would fill the
world to the exclusion of all others."

My mother was so much smarter than I was, I couldn't make it as a male chauvinist.

The hand that rocks the cradle, yes?

I wonder about the etymology of suffrage...

Living in the South as I do, I come across frequent instances of men who automatically assume their complete superiority based on their sex. It is maddening to realize that such men exist, and upon realizing I'm dealing with such a man, I completely write him off in terms of trusting his judgement regarding what people are capable of. This lack of regard for female leadership capacity is particularly upsetting when I realize it in a principal of a school.

You're not the only one to wonder. It obviously comes from the Latin suffragium -- a vote. Beyond that nobody knows for sure. See Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities:

The etymology is uncertain, for the opinions of those who connect it with fra/zesqai or fragor do not deserve notice. Wunder thinks that it may possibly be allied with suffrago, and signified originally an ankle-bone or knuckle-bone.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?N11F254E6

Bingley

How about the Biblical "Suffer the little children....."