When Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, became the first women elected to the House of Representatives in 1917, her fellow legislators lauded what she brought to Washington: "Her tact, her gentle feminine persuasion" and her devotion to her chief causes of pacifism and nonviolence. That same year, the National American Woman Suffrage Association proclaimed most women holding local offices were wives and mothers, whose "mother capacity" would allow them to dedicate themselves to softer issues, "withstand(ing) all political, social and economic innovations."
The whole point of electing women, some moderate advocates argued, was that they could be a tempering feminine counterbalance to easily inflamed men.