n.
- The right of women to vote; exercise of the franchise by women.
- A movement to promote and secure such rights.
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| US Government Guide: woman suffrage |
The Constitution left the question of who should have the right to vote to the states. Initially, women who owned property could vote in New Jersey, but by 1808 this right had disappeared even there, and throughout the 19th century women could not vote. In 1848 delegates to the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, demanded that women have the right to vote. After the Civil War, the woman suffrage campaign spread, led by Susan B. Anthony. Woman suffragists held conventions in Washington, lobbied members of Congress, and testified before congressional committees. In 1913 women paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue and militant protestors began picketing the White House, even chaining themselves to its fence, to draw attention to their campaign. When President Woodrow Wilson delivered his State of the Union message to Congress in December 1916, women in the galleries unfurled a large banner that read, “Mr. President, What Will You Do For Woman Suffrage?” (Ever since that incident, visitors have been prohibited from leaning over the railings of the galleries.) Several states, mostly in the West, individually gave women the right to vote in both state and national elections, and in 1916 Montana elected suffrage leader Jeannette Rankin to the House of Representatives. World War I, fought to “make the world safe for democracy,” finally spurred Congress to pass the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the vote, in 1919, and the states ratified it in 1920.
See also Women in government
Sources
| Columbia Encyclopedia: woman suffrage |
In the United States
It was first seriously proposed in the United States at Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19, 1848, in a general declaration of the rights of women prepared by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and several others. The early leaders of the movement in the United States—Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, Angelina Grimké, Sarah Grimké, and others—were usually also advocates of temperance and of the abolition of slavery. When, however, after the close of the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) gave the franchise to newly emancipated African-American men but not to the women who had helped win it for them, the suffragists for the most part confined their efforts to the struggle for the vote.
The National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was formed in 1869 to agitate for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Another organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, was organized the same year to work through the state legislatures. These differing approaches—i.e., whether to seek a federal amendment or to work for state amendments—kept the woman-suffrage movement divided until 1890, when the two societies were united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Later leaders included Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt.
Several of the states and territories (with Wyoming first, 1869) granted suffrage to the women within their borders; when in 1913 there were 12 of these, the National Woman's party, under the leadership of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and others, resolved to use the voting power of the enfranchised women to force a suffrage resolution through Congress and secure ratification from the state legislatures. In 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granted nation-wide suffrage to women.
In Great Britain
The movement in Great Britain began with Chartism, but it was not until 1851 that a resolution in favor of female suffrage was presented in the House of Lords by the earl of Carlyle. John Stuart Mill was the most influential of the British advocates; his Subjection of Women (1869) is one of the earliest, as well as most famous, arguments for the right of women to vote. Among the leaders in the early British suffrage movement were Lydia Becker, Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies, and Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson; Jacob Bright presented a bill for woman suffrage in the House of Commons in 1870. In 1881 the Isle of Man granted the vote to women who owned property. Local British societies united in 1897 into the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, of which Millicent Garrett Fawcett was president until 1919.
In 1903 a militant suffrage movement emerged under the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters; their organization was the Women's Social and Political Union. The militant suffragists were determined to keep their objective prominent in the minds of both legislators and the public, which they did by heckling political speakers, by street meetings, and in many other ways. The leaders were frequently imprisoned for inciting riot; many of them used the hunger strike. When World War I broke out, the suffragists ceased all militant activity and devoted their powerful organization to the service of the government. After the war a limited suffrage was granted; in 1928 voting rights for men and women were equalized.
In Other Countries
On the European mainland, Finland (1906) and Norway (1913) were the first to grant woman suffrage; in France, women voted in the first election (1945) after World War II. Belgium granted suffrage to women in 1946. In Switzerland, however, women were denied the vote in federal elections until 1971. Among the Commonwealth nations, New Zealand granted suffrage in 1893, Australia in 1902, Canada in 1917 (except in Quebec, where it was postponed until 1940). In Latin American countries, woman suffrage was granted in Brazil (1934), Salvador (1939), the Dominican Republic (1942), Guatemala (1945), and Argentina and Mexico (1946). In the Philippines women have voted since 1937, in Japan since 1945, in mainland China since 1947, and in the former Soviet Union since 1917. Women have been enfranchised in most of the countries of the Middle East where men can vote, with the exception of Saudi Arabia. In Africa, women were often enfranchised at the same time as men—e.g., in Liberia (1947), in Uganda (1958), and in Nigeria (1960). One of the first aims of the United Nations was to extend suffrage rights to the women of member nations, and in 1952 the General Assembly adopted a resolution urging such action; by the 1970s, most member nations were in compliance with it.
Bibliography
See The History of Woman's Suffrage (ed. by E. C. Stanton et al., 6 vol., 1881–1922); E. Pankhurst, My Own Story (1914, repr. 1970); M. Fawcett, What I Remember (1925); A. Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920 (1965, repr. 1971); W. Severn, Free but Not Equal (1967); D. Morgan, Suffragists and Democrats (1972); B. Beeton, The Woman Suffrage Movement, 1869–1896 (1986); R. Darcy et al., Women, Elections and Representation (1987); L. Scharf and J. M. Jensen, ed., Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920–40 (1987).
| Wikipedia: Women's suffrage |
The term women's suffrage refers to the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending suffrage — the right to vote — to women. The movement's modern origins lie in France in the 18th century. Of currently existing independent countries, New Zealand was the first to give women the right to vote in 1893.[1] Similarly, the colony of South Australia enacted legislation giving women the vote in 1894. Places with similar status which granted women the vote include Wyoming Territory (1869). Other possible contenders for first "country" to grant female suffrage include the Corsican Republic, the Isle of Man (1881), the Pitcairn Islands, Franceville, and Tavolara, but some of these had brief existences as independent states and others were not clearly independent. Australia extended this right in 1901 to some women, and then in 1902 to all non-aboriginal women. A contestant for being the first independent nation to grant the right to vote for women would be Sweden, where some women were in fact allowed to vote during the age of liberty (1718-1771), although this right was far from applying to women in general.
Voting rights for women were introduced into international law in 1948 when the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As stated in Article 21 “(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”
Women’s suffrage is also explicitly stated as a right under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the United Nations in 1979.
Contents |
Women's suffrage has been granted at various times in various countries throughout the world. In many countries women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women from certain races and social classes were still unable to vote.
In medieval France and several other European countries, voting for city and town assemblies and meetings was open to the heads of households, regardless of sex. Women's suffrage was granted by the Corsican Republic of 1755 whose Constitution stipulated a national representative assembly elected by all inhabitants over the age of 25, both women (if unmarried or widowed) and men.[citation needed] Women's suffrage was ended when France annexed the island in 1769. The origins of the modern movement for female suffrage are to be found in France in the 1780s and 1790s in the writings of Antoine Condorcet and Olympe de Gouges, who advocated this as a right in national elections.
In 1756, Lydia Chapin Taft, also known as Lydia Taft, became the first legal woman voter in America.[2] She voted on at least three occasions in an open New England Town Meeting, at Uxbridge, Massachusetts, with the consent of the electorate. This was between 1756 and 1768, during America's colonial period.[3] New Jersey granted women the vote (with the same property qualifications as for men, although, since married women did not own property in their own right, only unmarried women and widows qualified) under the state constitution of 1776, where the word "inhabitants" was used without qualification of sex or race. New Jersey women, along with "aliens...persons of color, or negroes," lost the vote in 1807, when the franchise was restricted to white males, ostensibly, to combat electoral fraud by simplifying the conditions for eligibility.
The Pitcairn Islands granted women's suffrage in 1838. Various countries, colonies and states granted restricted women's suffrage in the latter half of the nineteenth century, starting with South Australia in 1861. The 1871 Paris Commune granted voting rights to women, but they were taken away with the fall of the Commune and would only be granted again in July 1944 by Charles de Gaulle. In 1886 the small island kingdom of Tavolara became a republic and introduced women's suffrage.[4][5] However, in 1899 the monarchy was reinstated, and the kingdom was some years later on annexed by Italy. The Pacific colony of Franceville, declaring independence in 1889, became the first self-governing nation to practice universal suffrage without distinction of sex or color;[6] however, it soon came back under French and British colonial rule.
Unrestricted women's suffrage in terms of voting rights (women were not initially permitted to stand for election) in a self-governing colony was granted in New Zealand in the early 1890s. Following a movement led by Kate Sheppard, the women's suffrage bill was adopted mere weeks before the general election of 1893.
The self-governing colony of South Australia granted both universal suffrage and allowed women to stand for the colonial parliament in 1895.[7] The Commonwealth of Australia provided this for women in Federal elections from 1902 (except Aboriginal women). The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland. The administrative reforms following the 1905 uprising granted Finnish women the right both to vote (universal and equal suffrage) and to stand for election in 1906. The world's first female members of parliament were also in Finland, when on 1907, 19 women took up their places in the Parliament of Finland as a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections.
In the years before World War I, Norway (1913) and Denmark also gave women the right to vote, and it was extended throughout the remaining Australian states. Near the end of the war, various states gave women the right to vote, including Canada, Soviet Russia, Germany and Poland. British women over 30 had the vote in 1918, Dutch women in 1919, and American women in states that had previously denied them suffrage were allowed the vote in 1920. Women in Turkey were granted voting rights in 1926. In 1928, suffrage was extended to all British women on the same terms as men, that is, for persons 21 years old and older. One of the most recent jurisdictions to grant women full equal voting rights was Bhutan in 2008.
The suffrage movement was a very broad one which encompassed women and men with a very broad range of views. One major division, especially in Britain, was between suffragists, who sought to create change constitutionally, and suffragettes, led by Iconic English political activist Emmeline Pankhurst, who in 1903 formed the Women's Social and Political Union.[8] who were more militant. There was also a diversity of views on a 'woman's place'. Some who campaigned for women's suffrage felt that women were naturally kinder, gentler, and more concerned about weaker members of society, especially children. It was often assumed that women voters would have a civilising effect on politics and would tend to support controls on alcohol, for example. They believed that although a woman's place was in the home, she should be able to influence laws which impacted upon that home. Other campaigners felt that men and women should be equal in every way and that there was no such thing as a woman's 'natural role'. There were also differences in opinion about other voters. Some campaigners felt that all adults were entitled to a vote, whether rich or poor, male or female, and regardless of race. Others saw women's suffrage as a way of canceling out the votes of lower class or non-white men.
The most current ongoing movement for women’s suffrage is in Saudi Arabia. The issue branches into the complicated role of modern Saudi women. (See Women's rights in Saudi Arabia and Human rights in Saudi Arabia)
Date listed is the first date women were allowed to participate (by voting) in elections, not the date that women were granted universal suffrage without restrictions.
Note: The table can be sorted alphabetically or chronologically using the
icon.
| Country | Year | Voting Age |
|---|---|---|
|
Afghanistan |
1963 |
18 years |
|
Albania |
1920 |
18 years |
|
Algeria |
1962 |
18 years |
|
American Samoa |
1990 |
18 years |
|
Andorra |
1970 |
18 years |
|
Angola |
1975 |
18 years |
|
Anguilla |
1951 |
18 years |
|
Antigua and Barbuda |
1951 |
18 years |
|
Argentina |
1947 |
18 years |
|
Armenia |
1921 |
18 years |
|
Aruba |
a |
18 years |
|
Australia |
1902 |
18 years |
|
Austria |
1918 |
16 years |
|
Azerbaijan |
1921 |
18 years |
|
Bahamas, The |
1960 |
18 years |
|
Bahrain |
1973 |
18 years |
|
Bangladesh |
1972 |
18 years |
|
Barbados |
1950 |
18 years |
|
Belarus |
1919 |
18 years |
|
Belgium |
1919/1948(c) |
18 years |
|
Belize |
1954 |
18 years |
|
Benin |
1956 |
18 years |
|
Bermuda |
1944 |
18 years |
|
Bhutan |
1953 |
18 years |
|
Bolivia |
1938 |
18 years |
|
Bosnia and Herzegovina |
1949 |
18 years |
|
Botswana |
1965 |
18 years |
|
Brazil |
1931 |
16 years |
|
British Virgin Islands |
a |
18 years |
|
Brunei |
1959 |
18 years (village elections only) |
|
Bulgaria |
1944 |
18 years |
|
Burkina Faso |
1958 |
18 years |
|
Burma |
1922 |
18 years |
|
Burundi |
1961 |
a |
|
Cambodia |
1955 |
18 years |
|
Cameroon |
1946 |
20 years |
|
Canada |
1917 |
18 years |
|
Cape Verde |
1975 |
18 years |
|
Cayman Islands |
a |
18 years |
|
Central African Republic |
1986 |
21 years |
|
Chad |
1958 |
18 years |
|
Chile |
1931 |
18 years |
|
China |
1949 |
18 years |
|
Cocos (Keeling) Islands |
a |
a |
|
Colombia |
1954 |
18 years |
|
Comoros |
1956 |
18 years |
|
Congo, Democratic Republic of the |
1967 |
18 years |
|
Congo, Republic of the |
1963 |
18 years |
|
Cook Islands |
1893 |
a |
|
Costa Rica |
1949 |
18 years |
|
Cote d'Ivoire |
1952 |
19 years |
|
Croatia |
1945 |
18 years |
|
Cuba |
1934 |
16 years |
|
Cyprus |
1960 |
18 years |
|
Czech Republic |
1920 |
18 years |
|
Denmark |
1915 |
18 years |
|
Djibouti |
1946 |
18 years |
|
Dominica |
1951 |
18 years |
|
Dominican Republic |
1942 |
18 years |
|
Ecuador |
1924 |
18 years |
|
Egypt |
1956 |
18 years |
|
El Salvador |
1939 |
18 years |
|
Equatorial Guinea |
1963 |
18 years |
|
Eritrea |
1955 |
18 years |
|
Estonia |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Ethiopia |
1955 |
18 years |
|
Falkland Islands |
a |
18 years |
|
Faroe Islands |
a |
18 years |
|
Fiji |
1963 |
21 years |
|
Finland |
1906 |
18 years |
|
France |
1944 |
18 years |
|
French Polynesia |
a |
18 years |
|
Gabon |
1956 |
21 years |
|
Gambia, The |
1960 |
18 years |
|
Georgia |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Germany |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Ghana |
1954 |
18 years |
|
Gibraltar |
a |
18 years |
|
Greece |
1952 |
18 years |
|
Greenland |
a |
18 years |
|
Grenada |
1951 |
18 years |
|
Guam |
a |
18 years |
|
Guatemala |
1946 |
18 years |
|
Guernsey |
a |
18 years |
|
Guinea |
1958 |
18 years |
|
Guinea-Bissau |
1977 |
18 years |
|
Guyana |
1953 |
18 years |
|
Haiti |
1950 |
18 years |
|
Holy See (Vatican City) |
No Suffrage for Women, b |
limited to cardinals less than 80 years old (male only) |
|
Honduras |
1955 |
18 years |
|
Hong Kong |
1949 |
18 years |
|
Hungary |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Iceland |
1915 |
18 years |
|
India |
1947 |
18 years |
|
Indonesia |
1945 |
17 years (married persons regardless of age) |
|
Iran |
1963 |
16 years |
|
Iraq |
1980 |
18 years |
|
Ireland |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Isle of Man |
1881 |
16 years |
|
Israel |
1948 |
18 years |
|
Italy |
1946 |
18 years (except in senatorial elections, where minimum age is 25) |
|
Jamaica |
1944 |
18 years |
|
Japan |
1945 |
20 years |
|
Jersey |
a |
16 years |
|
Jordan |
1974 |
18 years |
|
Kazakhstan |
1924 |
18 years |
|
Kenya |
1963 |
18 years |
|
Kiribati |
1967 |
18 years |
|
Korea, North |
1946 |
17 years |
|
Korea, South |
1948 |
19 years |
|
Kosovo |
a |
18 years |
|
Kuwait |
2005 |
21 years |
|
Kyrgyzstan |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Laos |
1958 |
18 years |
|
Latvia |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Lebanon |
1952 |
21 years (women at age 21 with elementary education) |
|
Lesotho |
1965 |
18 years |
|
Liberia |
1946 |
18 years |
|
Libya |
1964 |
18 years |
|
Liechtenstein |
1984 |
18 years |
|
Lithuania |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Luxembourg |
1919 |
18 years |
|
Macau |
a |
18 years |
|
Macedonia |
1946 |
18 years |
|
Madagascar |
1959 |
18 years |
|
Malawi |
1961 |
18 years |
|
Malaysia |
1957 |
21 years |
|
Maldives |
1932 |
21 years |
|
Mali |
1956 |
18 years |
|
Malta |
1947 |
18 years |
|
Marshall Islands |
1979 |
18 years |
|
Mauritania |
1961 |
18 years |
|
Mauritius |
1956 |
18 years |
|
Mayotte |
a |
18 years |
|
Mexico |
1947 |
18 years |
|
Micronesia, Federated States of |
1979 |
18 years |
|
Moldova |
1978 |
18 years |
|
Monaco |
1962 |
18 years |
|
Mongolia |
1924 |
18 years |
|
Montenegro |
a |
18 years |
|
Montserrat |
a |
18 years |
|
Morocco |
1963 |
18 years |
|
Mozambique |
1975 |
18 years |
|
Namibia |
1989 |
18 years |
|
Nauru |
1968 |
20 years |
|
Nepal |
1951 |
18 years |
|
Netherlands |
1919 |
18 years |
|
Netherlands Antilles |
a |
18 years |
|
New Caledonia |
a |
18 years |
|
New Zealand |
1893 |
18 years |
|
Nicaragua |
1955 |
16 years |
|
Niger |
1948 |
18 years |
|
Nigeria |
1958 |
18 years |
|
Niue |
a |
18 years |
|
Norfolk Island |
a |
18 years |
|
Northern Mariana Islands |
a |
18 years |
|
Norway |
1913 |
18 years |
|
Oman |
2003 |
21 years |
|
Pakistan |
1947 |
18 years |
|
Palau |
1979 |
18 years |
|
Panama |
1941 |
18 years |
|
Papua New Guinea |
1964 |
18 years |
|
Paraguay |
1961 |
18 years |
|
Peru |
1955 |
18 years |
|
Philippines |
1937 |
18 years |
|
Pitcairn Islands |
1838 |
18 years |
|
Poland |
1918 |
18 years |
|
Portugal |
1931 |
18 years |
|
Puerto Rico |
1929 |
18 years |
|
Qatar |
1997 |
18 years |
|
Romania |
1929 |
18 years |
|
Russia |
1917 |
21 years |
|
Rwanda |
1961 |
18 years |
|
Saint Barthelemy |
a |
18 years |
|
Saint Helena |
a |
a |
|
Saint Kitts and Nevis |
1951 |
18 years |
|
Saint Lucia |
1924 |
18 years |
|
Saint Martin |
a |
18 years |
|
Saint Pierre and Miquelon |
a |
18 years |
|
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines |
1951 |
18 years |
|
Samoa |
1990 |
21 years |
|
San Marino |
1959 |
18 years |
|
São Tomé and Príncipe |
1975 |
18 years |
|
Saudi Arabia |
No Suffrage for Women |
21 years (male only) |
|
Senegal |
1945 |
18 years |
|
Serbia |
1945 |
18 years |
|
Seychelles |
1948 |
17 years |
|
Sierra Leone |
1961 |
18 years |
|
Singapore |
1947 |
21 years |
|
Slovakia |
1920 |
18 years |
|
Slovenia |
1945 |
18 years (16 years, if employed) |
|
Solomon Islands |
1974 |
21 years |
|
Somalia |
1956 |
18 years |
|
South Africa |
1930 (white women) 1994 (black women) |
18 years |
|
Spain |
1931 |
18 years |
|
Sri Lanka |
1931 |
18 years |
|
Sudan |
1964 |
17 years |
|
Suriname |
1948 |
18 years |
|
Swaziland |
1968 |
18 years |
|
Sweden |
1919 |
18 years |
|
Switzerland |
1971 |
18 years |
|
Syria |
1949 |
18 years |
|
Taiwan |
1947 |
20 years |
|
Tajikistan |
1924 |
18 years |
|
Tanzania |
1959 |
18 years |
|
Thailand |
1932 |
18 years |
|
Timor-Leste |
a |
17 years |
|
Togo |
1945 |
a |
|
Tokelau |
a |
21 years |
|
Tonga |
1960 |
21 years |
|
Trinidad and Tobago |
1946 |
18 years |
|
Tunisia |
1959 |
18 years |
|
Turkey |
1930 |
18 years |
|
Turkmenistan |
1924 |
18 years |
|
Turks and Caicos Islands |
a |
18 years |
|
Tuvalu |
1967 |
18 years |
|
Uganda |
1962 |
18 years |
|
Ukraine |
1919 |
18 years |
|
United Arab Emirates |
2006 |
a |
|
United Kingdom |
1918 |
18 years |
|
United States |
1920 |
18 years |
|
Uruguay |
1932 |
18 years |
|
Uzbekistan |
1938 |
18 years |
|
Vanuatu |
1975 |
18 years |
|
Venezuela |
1946 |
18 years |
|
Vietnam |
1946 |
18 years |
|
Virgin Islands |
a |
18 years |
|
Wallis and Futuna |
a |
18 years |
|
Yemen |
1967 |
18 years |
|
Zambia |
1962 |
18 years |
|
Zimbabwe |
1957 |
18 years |
Note: (a) Data unavailable (b) Voting is restricted to Cardinals, women are forbidden from being Cardinals. (c) Was granted in the constitution in 1919, for communal voting. Suffrage for the provincial councils and the national parliament only came in 1948.
The first election for the Parliament of the newly-formed Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 was based on the electoral provisions of the six states, so that women who had the vote and the right to stand for Parliament at state level (in South Australia and Western Australia) had the same rights for the 1901 Federal election. In 1902, the Commonwealth Parliament passed its own electoral act that extended these rights to women in all states on the same basis as men. However, the Commonwealth legislation excluded all Aboriginal men and women from the Commonwealth franchise, which in theory some of them had enjoyed in 1901 (state Parliaments generally had property qualifications for the franchise, which in practice few Aboriginals met). This was not corrected until 1962[9], through an amendment to the Commonwealth Electoral Act (it was not an outcome of the 1967 referendum that gave the Commonwealth Parliament the power to legislate specifically on Aboriginal matters).
Widows and unmarried women were granted the right to vote in municipal elections in Ontario in 1884. Such limited franchises were extended in other provinces at the end of the 19th century, but bills to enfranchise women in provincial elections failed to pass in any province until Manitoba finally succeeded in 1916. At the federal level it was a two step process. On Sept. 20, 1917, women gained a limited right to vote: According to the Parliament of Canada website, the Military Voters Act established that "women who are British subjects and have close relatives in the armed forces can vote on behalf of their male relatives, in federal elections." About a year and a quarter later, at the beginning of 1919, the right to vote was extended to all women in the Act to confer the Electoral Franchise upon Women. The remaining provinces quickly followed suit, except for Quebec, which did not do so until 1940. Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to Parliament in 1921.
Women in Rarotonga were given the right to vote in 1893, shortly after New Zealand.[10]
In Denmark women were given the right to vote in municipal elections April 20 1909. However it was not until June 5 1915 that they were allowed to vote in Rigsdag-elections.[11]
Suffrage was extended to women in France by the 5 October 1944 Ordinance of the French Provisional government.[12] The first elections with female participation were the municipal elections of 29 April 1945 and the parliamentary elections of 21 October 1945. Muslim women in French Algeria had to wait until a 3 July 1958 decree.[13][14]
The municipal elections of 11 February 1934 were the first held with women voting. However, the right to vote was granted only to women that were literate and aged 30 or older. It was not until 28 May 1952 that suffrage was unconditionally extended to all adult women in Greece, with them voting for the first time in the parliamentary elections of 19 February 1956.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Indonesia was one of the slowest moving countries to gain women’s suffrage. They began their fight in 1905 by introducing municipal councils that included some members elected by a restricted district. Voting rights only went to males that could read and write, which excluded many non-European males. At the time, the literacy rate for males was 11% and for females 2%. The main group who pressured the Indonesian government for women’s suffrage was the Dutch Vereeninging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (VVV-Women’s Suffrage Association) which was founded in Holland in 1894. They tried to attract Indonesian membership, but had very limited success because the leaders of the organization had little skill in relating to even the educated class of the Indonesians. When they eventually did connect somewhat with women, they failed to sympathize with them and thus ended up alienating many well-educated Indonesians. In 1918 the colony gained its first national representative body called the Volksraad, which still excluded women in voting. In 1935, the colonial administration used its power of nomination to appoint a European woman to the Volksraad. In 1938, the administration introduced the right of women to be elected to urban representative institution, which resulted in some Indonesian and European women entering municipal councils. Eventually, the law became that only European women and municipal councils could vote, which excluded all other women and local councils. September 1941 was when this law was amended and the law extended to women of all races by the Volksraad. Finally, in November 1941, the right to vote for municipal councils was granted to all women on a similar basis to men (with property and educational qualifications).[15]
Although women were allowed to vote in some counties in 1880, women's suffrage was enacted at a national level in 1945.[citation needed]
The group working for women’s suffrage in The Netherlands was the Dutch "Vereniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht" or VVV (Women’s Suffrage Association) which was founded in 1894. In 1917 Dutch women became electable in national elections, which led to the election of Suze Groeneweg of the SDAP party in the general elections of 1918. On the 15th of May 1919 a new law was drafted to allow Women's suffrage without any limitations. The law was passed and the right to vote could be exercised for the first time in the general elections of 1922.
Voting was made mandatory from 1918, which was not lifted until 1970.
Women in New Zealand were inspired to fight for their voting rights by the equal-rights philosopher John Stuart Mill and the British feminists’ aggressiveness. In addition, the missionary efforts of the American-based Women’s Christian Temperance Union gave them the motivation to fight. There were, in fact, a few male politicians that supported women’s rights, such as John Hall, Robert Stout, Julius Vogel, and William Fox. In 1878, 1879, and 1887 amendments extending the vote to women failed by a hair each time. In 1893 the reformers at last succeeded in extending the franchise to women.
Although the Liberal government which passed the bill generally advocated social and political reform, the electoral bill was only passed because of a combination of personality issues and political accident. The bill granted the vote to women of all races. New Zealand women were not given the right to stand for parliament, however, until 1919. In 2005, almost a third of the Members of Parliament elected were female. Women recently have also occupied powerful and symbolic offices such as those of Prime Minister, Governor-General, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Chief Justice.
Middle class women could vote for the first time in 1907 (i.e. women coming from families with a certain level of prosperity). Women in general were allowed to vote in local elections from 1910 on, and in 1913 a motion on general suffrage for women was carried unanimously in the Norwegian parliament (Stortinget).
Roza Pomerantz-Meltzer was the first woman elected to the Sejm in 1919 as a member of a Zionist party. [16] [17]
Carolina Beatriz Ângelo was the first Portuguese woman to vote, in 1911, for the Republican Constitutional Parliament. She argued that she was the head of a household. The law was changed some time later, stating that only male heads of households could vote. In 1931, during the Estado Novo regime, women were allowed to vote for the first time, but only if they had a high school or university degree, while men had only to be able to read and write. In 1946, a new electoral law enlarged the possibility of female vote, but still with some differences regarding men. A law from 1968 claimed to establish "equality of political rights for men and women", but a few electoral rights were reserved for men. After the Carnation Revolution, in 1974, women were granted full and equal electoral rights.
In the Basque provinces of Biscay and Guipúzcoa women who paid a special election tax were allowed to vote and get elected to office till the abolition of the Basque Fueros. Nonetheless the possibility of being elected without the right to vote persisted, hence María Isabel de Ayala was elected mayor in Ikastegieta in 1865. Woman suffrage was officially adopted in 1933 not without the opposition of Margarita Nelken and Victoria Kent, two female deputees, who argued that women in Spain and at that time, were far too immature and ignorant to vote responsibly, thus putting at risk the existence of the Second Republic. During the Franco regime only male heads of household were allowed to vote. From 1976, during the Spanish transition to democracy women regained the right to vote and be elected to office.
Sri Lanka (at that time Ceylon) was the first Asian country to allow voting rights to women over the age of 21 without any restrictions. Since then, women have enjoyed a significant presence in the Sri Lankan political arena. The zenith of this favourable condition to women has been the 1960 July General Elections, in which Ceylon elected the world's first woman Prime Minister, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Her daughter, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga also became the Prime Minister later in 1994, and the same year she was elected as the Executive President of Sri Lanka, making her the fourth woman in the world to hold the portfolio.
During the Swedish age of liberty (1718-1771), tax-paying female members of guilds, (most often widows), were allowed to vote, and stand for election, until 1771. Between 1726 and 1742, women took part in 30 percent of the elections. New regulations made the participation of women in the elections even more extensive in the period of 1743-58.
The vote was sometimes given through a male representative, which was a usual reason given by the opposition to female suffrage. In 1758, women were excluded from the mayor- and local elections, but continued to vote in the national elections. In 1771, this suffrage was abolished through the new constitution.
In 1862, tax-paying women of legal majority were again allowed to vote in the local elections. The right to vote in national elections was not returned to women until 1919, and was practiced again in the election of 1921, for the first time in 150 years.
The Swiss referendum on women's suffrage was held on 1 February 1959. The majority of Switzerland's men voted no, however in some cantons the vote was given to women.[18] Switzerland was the last Western democracies (however, women could not vote in Liechtenstein until 1984) to allow women to vote. Women did not gain the right to vote in federal elections until 1973.
The campaign for women's suffrage gained momentum throughout the early part of the nineteenth century as women became increasingly politically active, particularly during the campaigns to reform suffrage in the United Kingdom. John Stuart Mill, elected to Parliament in 1865 and an open advocate of female suffrage (having written The Subjection of Women), campaigned for an amendment to the Reform Act to include female suffrage. Roundly defeated in an all male parliament under a Conservative government, the issue of women's suffrage came to the fore.
During the latter half of the 19th century, a number of campaign groups were formed in an attempt to lobby Members of Parliament and gain support. In 1897, seventeen of these groups came together to form the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), who held public meetings, wrote letters to politicians and published various texts. In 1907, the NUWSS organized its first large procession. This march became known as the Mud March as over 3000 women trudged through the cold and the rutty streets of London from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall to advocate for women’s suffrage.
In 1903, a number of members of the NUWSS broke away and, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, formed the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). As the national media lost interest in the suffrage campaign, the WSPU decided it would use other methods to create publicity. This began in 1905 at a meeting where Sir Edward Grey, a member of the newly elected Liberal government, was speaking. As he was talking, two members of the WSPU constantly shouted out, 'Will the Liberal Government give votes to women?' When they refused to cease calling out, police were called to evict them and the two suffragettes (as members of the WSPU became known after this incident) were involved in a struggle which ended with them being arrested and charged for assault. When they refused to pay their fine, they were sent to prison. The British public were shocked and took notice at this use of violence to win the vote for women.
After this media success, the WSPU's tactics became increasingly violent. This included an attempt in 1908 to storm the House of Commons, the arson of David Lloyd George's country home (despite his support for women's suffrage). In 1909 Lady Constance Lytton was imprisoned, but immediately released when her identity was discovered, so in 1910 she disguised herself as a working class seamstress called Jane Warton and endured inhumane treatment which included force feeding. An incident in 1913 in which Emily Davison, a suffragette, interfered with a horse owned by King George V during the running of the Epsom Derby and was trampled and died four days later. The WSPU ceased their militant activities during the First World War and agreed to assist with the war effort. Similarly, the NUWSS announced that they would cease political activity but continued to lobby discreetly throughout the First World War. In 1918, with the war over, Parliament agreed to enfranchise women who were over the age of 30. It was not until 1928 with the Representation of the People Act 1928 that women were granted the right to vote on the same terms as men. Time magazine in naming Emmeline Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, states.."she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back".[19]
Lydia Chapin Taft was an early forerunner in Colonial America who was allowed to vote in three New England town meetings, beginning in 1756.
In June 1848, Gerrit Smith made woman suffrage a plank in the Liberty Party platform. In July, at the Seneca Falls Convention in Upstate New York, activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott began a seventy year struggle by women to secure the right to vote. In 1850, Lucy Stone organized a larger assembly with a wider focus, the National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. Susan B. Anthony, a native of Rochester, New York, joined the cause in 1852 after reading Stone's 1850 speech. Women's suffrage activists pointed out that blacks had been granted the franchise and had not been included in the language of the United States Constitution's Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments (which gave people equal protection under the law and the right to vote regardless of their race, respectively). This, they contended, had been unjust. Early victories were won in the territories of Wyoming (1869)[20] and Utah (1870), although Utah women were disenfranchised by provisions of the federal Edmunds-Tucker Act enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1887. The push to grant Utah women's suffrage was at least partially fueled by the belief that, given the right to vote, Utah women would dispose of polygamy. It was only after Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor of polygamy that the U.S. Congress disenfranchised Utah women.[21] By the end of the nineteenth century, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming had enfranchised women after effort by the suffrage associations at the state level.
During the beginning of the twentieth century, as women's suffrage gained in popularity, suffragists were subject to arrests and many were jailed. Finally, President Woodrow Wilson urged Congress to pass what became, when it was ratified in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment which prohibited state and federal agencies from gender-based restrictions on voting.
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