---
title: '"Women are too sentimental for jury duty" -- Anti-Suffrage argument (Puck cartoon)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/women-too-sentimental-jury-duty-puck-1915/
description: Under the caption quoting an anti-suffrage argument, a jury box of men weeps into handkerchiefs and holds up a 'Not Guilty' sign while a man at the right…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Cartoon quoting an anti-suffrage argument about women's emotional fitness for jury duty, answered by showing weeping male jurors. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[!["Women are too sentimental for jury duty" -- Anti-Suffrage argument (Puck cartoon)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/women-too-sentimental-jury-duty-puck-1915.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/women-too-sentimental-jury-duty-puck-1915.jpg)

# "Women are too sentimental for jury duty" -- Anti-Suffrage argument (Puck cartoon)

Under the caption quoting an anti-suffrage argument, a jury box of men weeps into handkerchiefs and holds up a 'Not Guilty' sign while a man at the right embraces a woman. The cartoon answers the claim by pointing to the same trait in the men who make it, rather than by testing whether sentiment affects verdicts.

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
"Women are too sentimental for jury duty."
-- Anti-Suffrage argument.
[sign held up in the picture: NOT GUILTY]
[signature top right: Chamberlain]
```

[← Have You Any Women-Folk Worth Defending? Remember the Women of Belgium. Join To-Day](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/women-folk-worth-defending-1915/) [La Libre Belgique, no. 7, March 1915: "Bulletin de propagande patriotique" (clandestine, Brussels) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/la-libre-belgique-no-7-bulletin-de-propagande-patriotique-1915/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Berliner Tageblatt, evening edition, 22 September 1914: "Der Brand der Kathedrale von Reims"](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/berliner-tageblatt-reims-cathedral-1914/) (German Empire · Sep 22, 1914 · Whataboutism, Card stacking)
- [The Woman's Dreadnought, 15 May 1915, p. 246: "Let Us Not Be Cowards" and "Whose Fiendish Devices?"](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/womans-dreadnought-lusitania-fiendish-devices-1915/) (United Kingdom · May 15, 1915 · Whataboutism). Content note: 1915 suffragette-paper text describing anti-German riot violence after the Lusitania sinking and the forcible feeding of imprisoned suffragettes.
- [Veröffentlichungen des deutschen General-Gouvernements (Cavell notice, Brussels)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/general-gouvernement-cavell-notice-brussels-1915/) (German Empire · Dec 2, 1915 · Whataboutism)
- [Sind wir die Barbaren? (Are We the Barbarians?)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sind-wir-die-barbaren-1916/) (German Empire · 1916 · Whataboutism, Card stacking)
- [TASS statement on the 'unidentified intruder' (Korean Air Lines Flight 007), FBIS Daily Report, 6 September 1983](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tass-statement-unidentified-intruder-kal007-1983/) (Soviet Union · Sep 6, 1983 · Card stacking, Whataboutism). Content note: Soviet state-agency statement on a civilian airliner shot down with 269 people aboard; the text calls the flight a 'pre-planned act' and omits its destruction.
- [Radio Moscow World Service on the Chernobyl accident and U.S. reports, FBIS Daily Report, 1 May 1986](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radio-moscow-chernobyl-us-reports-1986/) (Soviet Union · May 1, 1986 · Limited hangout, Whataboutism). Content note: Soviet radio commentary on the Chernobyl disaster that reports two deaths and attributes Western coverage to an 'order'; later assessments recorded far larger casualties.