Women's suffrage
Encyclopedia
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
and political reform movement
Reform movement
A reform movement is a kind of social movement that aims to make gradual change, or change in certain aspects of society, rather than rapid or fundamental changes...
aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or marital status. The movement's modern origins can be attributed to late-18th century France, although full suffrage did not come to France or the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. Limited voting rights were gained by some women in Sweden, Britain, and some western U.S. states in the 1860s. In 1893, the British colony of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
became the first self-governing nation to extend the right to vote to all adult women, and the women of the nearby colony of South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
achieved the same right in 1895 but became the first to obtain also the right to stand (run) for Parliament (women did not win the right to run for the New Zealand legislature until 1919). The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Principality of Finland and that country, then a part of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
with autonomous powers, produced the world's first female members of parliament as a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections
Finnish parliamentary election, 1907
The Finnish parliamentary election in 1907, in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, was the first parliamentary election in which members of parliament were elected to the new Parliament of Finland by universal suffrage....
.
Women's suffrage has generally been recognized after political campaigns to obtain it were waged. In many countries it was granted before universal suffrage
Universal suffrage
Universal suffrage consists of the extension of the right to vote to adult citizens as a whole, though it may also mean extending said right to minors and non-citizens...
. Women’s suffrage is explicitly stated as a right under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women is an international convention adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly....
, adopted by the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in 1979.
History
In medieval France and several other European countries, voting for city and town assemblies and meetings was open to the heads of households. In Sweden, conditional woman suffrage was granted during the age of liberty between 1718 and 1771, when taxpaying women listed in the guilds as professionals were allowed to vote.Women were entitled to vote in the Corsican Republic
Corsican Republic
In November 1755, Pasquale Paoli proclaimed Corsica a sovereign nation, the Corsican Republic, independent from the Republic of Genoa. He created the Corsican Constitution, which was the first constitution written under Enlightenment principles, including the first implementation of female...
in 1755 whose Constitution
Corsican Constitution
The first Corsican Constitution was drawn up in 1755 for the short-lived Corsican Republic and remained in force until the annexation of Corsica by France in 1769...
stipulated a national representative assembly elected by all inhabitants over the age of 25, both women (if unmarried or widowed) and men. Women's suffrage was ended when France annexed the island in 1769. The modern movement for women's suffrage originated in France in the 1780s and 1790s, where Antoine Condorcet and Olympe de Gouges
Olympe de Gouges
Olympe de Gouges , born Marie Gouze, was a French playwright and political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings reached a large audience....
advocated women's suffrage in national elections.
In 1756, Lydia Chapin Taft became the first legal woman voter in colonial America. This occurred under British rule
British North America
British North America is a historical term. It consisted of the colonies and territories of the British Empire in continental North America after the end of the American Revolutionary War and the recognition of American independence in 1783.At the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775 the British...
in the Massachusetts Colony. This was in a New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
town meeting
Town meeting
A town meeting is a form of direct democratic rule, used primarily in portions of the United States since the 17th century, in which most or all the members of a community come together to legislate policy and budgets for local government....
and she voted on at least three occasions in Uxbridge, Massachusetts
Uxbridge, Massachusetts
Uxbridge is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It was first settled in 1662, incorporated in 1727 at Suffolk County, and named for the Earl of Uxbridge. Uxbridge is south-southeast of Worcester, north-northwest of Providence, and southwest of Boston. It is part of...
.
Women in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
could 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
Electoral fraud
Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
by simplifying the conditions for eligibility.
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Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
, all heads of household—one-third of whom were African women—could vote.
The female descendants of the Bounty mutineers
Mutiny on the Bounty
The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny that occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, and has been commemorated by several books, films, and popular songs, many of which take considerable liberties with the facts. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the...
who lived on Pitcairn Islands
Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands , officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union in the Pacific...
could vote from 1838, and this right transferred with their resettlement to Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...
(now an Australian external territory) in 1856. Various countries, colonies and states granted restricted women's suffrage in the latter half of the nineteenth century, starting with South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
in 1861.
The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, the conference that refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from America because of their sex. In 1851, Stanton met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women. In 1868 Anthony encouraged working women from the printing and sewing trades in New York, who were excluded from men's trade unions, to form Workingwomen's Associations. As a delegate to the National Labor Congress in 1868 Anthony persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work, although the men at the conference deleted the reference to the vote.
Women in the Wyoming Territory
Wyoming Territory
The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital...
voted as of (1869). Other possible contenders for first "country" to grant female suffrage include the Corsican Republic
Corsican Republic
In November 1755, Pasquale Paoli proclaimed Corsica a sovereign nation, the Corsican Republic, independent from the Republic of Genoa. He created the Corsican Constitution, which was the first constitution written under Enlightenment principles, including the first implementation of female...
, the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
(1881), the Pitcairn Islands
Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands , officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union in the Pacific...
, and Franceville
Franceville, New Hebrides
The municipality of Franceville on Efate or Sandwich island was established during the period when the New Hebrides were a neutral territory under the loose jurisdiction of a joint Anglo-French naval commission...
, but some of these had brief existences as independent states and others were not clearly independent.
The 1871 Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
recognized women's right to vote, but with its fall women were again deprived of the right, which would only be recognized again in July 1944 by Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
(at that time most of France—including Paris—was under Nazi occupation; Paris was liberated the following month). The Pacific
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
colony of Franceville
Franceville, New Hebrides
The municipality of Franceville on Efate or Sandwich island was established during the period when the New Hebrides were a neutral territory under the loose jurisdiction of a joint Anglo-French naval commission...
, declaring independence in 1889, became the first self-governing nation to adopt universal suffrage without distinction of sex or color; however, it soon came back under French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
colonial rule
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
.
In 1881 the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
, an internally self-governing dependent territory of the British Crown, enfranchised women property owners and delivered the first installment of women’s right to vote in parliamentary elections within the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
.
Of currently existing independent countries, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
was the first to acknowledge women's right to vote in 1893 when it was a self-governing British colony
New Zealand Constitution Act 1852
The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that granted self-government to the colony of New Zealand...
. Unrestricted women's suffrage in terms of voting rights (women were not initially permitted to stand for election) was adopted in New Zealand in 1893. Following a successful movement led by Kate Sheppard
Kate Sheppard
Katherine Wilson Sheppard Some sources, eg give a birth year of 1847; others eg give a birth year of 1848. was the most prominent member of New Zealand's women's suffrage movement, and is the country's most famous suffragette...
, the women's suffrage bill
Women's suffrage in New Zealand
Women's suffrage in New Zealand was an important political issue in the late 19th century. Of countries presently independent, New Zealand was the first to give women the vote in modern times....
was adopted mere weeks before the general election of that year
New Zealand general election, 1893
The New Zealand general election of 1893 was held on Tuesday, 28 November in the general electorates, and on Wednesday, 20 December in the Māori electorates to elect a total of 74 MPs to the 12th session of the New Zealand Parliament...
. The women of the British protectorate of Cook Islands
Cook Islands
The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...
obtained the same right soon after and beat New Zealand's women to the polls in 1893.
The self-governing British colony of South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
enacted universal suffrage and enabled women to stand for the colonial parliament in 1895. The Commonwealth of Australia federated in 1901, with women voting and standing for office in some states. The Australian Federal Parliament extended voting rights to all adult women for Federal elections from 1902 (with the exception of Aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
women in some states).
The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland
Grand Duchy of Finland
The Grand Duchy of Finland was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed 1809–1917 as part of the Russian Empire and was ruled by the Russian czar as Grand Prince.- History :...
. Amidst the administrative reforms following the 1905 uprising, Finnish women's demand for both the right to vote (universal and equal suffrage) and the right to stand for election were met in 1906. The world's first female members of parliament were also Finnish, when on 1907, 19 women took up their places in the Parliament of Finland
Parliament of Finland
The Eduskunta , is the parliament of Finland. The unicameral parliament has 200 members and meets in the Parliament House in Helsinki. The latest election to the parliament took place on April 17, 2011.- Constitution :...
as a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections
Finnish parliamentary election, 1907
The Finnish parliamentary election in 1907, in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, was the first parliamentary election in which members of parliament were elected to the new Parliament of Finland by universal suffrage....
.
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, women in Norway (1913) and Denmark (1915) also won the right to vote, as did women in the remaining Australian states. Near the end of the war, Canada, Soviet Russia, Germany and Poland also recognized women's right to participate in the elective franchise. British women over 30 had the vote in 1918, Dutch women in 1919, and American women won the vote in 1920. Women in Turkey won voting rights in 1926. In 1928, British women won suffrage on the same terms as men, that is, for persons 21 years old and older. One of the most recent jurisdictions to acknowledge women's full right to vote was Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
in 2008
Bhutanese general election, 2008
Bhutan held its first general election on March 24, 2008 for the National Assembly. Two parties were registered by the Election Commission of Bhutan to contest the election: the Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party , which was formed by the merger of the previously established Bhutan People's United...
(its first national elections).
Voting rights for women were introduced into international law
International law
Public international law concerns the structure and conduct of sovereign states; analogous entities, such as the Holy See; and intergovernmental organizations. To a lesser degree, international law also may affect multinational corporations and individuals, an impact increasingly evolving beyond...
by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, whose elected chair was Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1948, the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
, that the Commission wrote. 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."
Suffrage movements
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
s, led by iconic English political activist Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...
, who in 1903 formed the more militant Women's Social and Political Union
Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...
. Pankhurst would not be satisfied with anything but action on the question of women's enfranchisement, with "deeds, not words" the organisation's motto. 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 civilizing effect on politics and would tend to support controls on alcohol, for example. Societies 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.
Table of international women's suffrage
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 |
|---|---|---|
 Kingdom of AfghanistanKingdom of Afghanistan The Kingdom of Afghanistan was an Islamic monarchy in south Central Asia established in 1926 as a successor state to the Emirate of Afghanistan, following the ascension to the throne by Amanullah Khan and his proclaming Afghanistan a kingdom in 1926, after 7 years on the throne... |
1963 | 18 years |
 Principality of AlbaniaPrincipality of Albania The Principality of Albania refers to the short-lived monarchy in Albania, headed by William, Prince of Albania and to the state after the First World War, until the abolition of the monarchy in 1925, when Albania was declared a republic.-Principality:The Principality was established on February... |
1920 | 18 years |
 Algeria |
1962 | 18 years |
 Andorra |
1970 | 18 years |
 People's Republic of AngolaPeople's Republic of Angola The People's Republic of Angola was a self-declared socialist state that was established in 1975 after it was granted independence from Portugal, akin to the situation in Mozambique. The newly-founded nation enjoyed friendly relations with the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the People's Republic of... |
1975 | 18 years |
| British Leeward Islands British Leeward Islands The British Leeward Islands was a British colony existing between 1833 and 1960, and consisting of Antigua, Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Saint Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla and Dominica.... (Today: Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda is a twin-island nation lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major inhabited islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and a number of smaller islands... , British Virgin Islands British Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands, often called the British Virgin Islands , is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, the remaining islands constituting the U.S... , Montserrat Montserrat Montserrat is a British overseas territory located in the Leeward Islands, part of the chain of islands called the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies. This island measures approximately long and wide, giving of coastline... , Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Kitts and Nevis The Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis , located in the Leeward Islands, is a federal two-island nation in the West Indies. It is the smallest sovereign state in the Americas, in both area and population.... , Anguilla Anguilla Anguilla is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin... ) |
1951 | 18 years |
 Argentina |
1947 | 18 years |
 Armenia |
1917 (by application of the Russian legislation) 1919 March (by adoption of its own legislation) |
18 years (currently) 20 years (initially) |
 Aruba |
a | 18 years |
 Australia |
1902 | 18 years |
 German AustriaGerman Austria Republic of German Austria was created following World War I as the initial rump state for areas with a predominantly German-speaking population within what had been the Austro-Hungarian Empire, without the Kingdom of Hungary, which in 1918 had become the Hungarian Democratic Republic.German... |
1919 | 16 years (since 2007) 20 years (initially) |
 Azerbaijan Democratic RepublicAzerbaijan Democratic Republic The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was the first successful attempt to establish a democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world . The ADR was founded on May 28, 1918 after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917 by Azerbaijani National Council in... |
1918 | 18 years |
 The Bahamas |
1960 | 18 years |
 Bahrain |
2002 | 18 years |
 Bangladesh |
1972 (since independence) | 18 years |
 Barbados |
1950 | 18 years |
| British Windward Islands British Windward Islands The British Windward Islands was a British colony existing between 1833 and 1960 and consisting of the islands of Grenada, St Lucia, Saint Vincent, the Grenadines, Barbados , Tobago , and Dominica, previously included in the... (Today: Grenada Grenada Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea... , St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica Dominica Dominica , officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth... |
1951 | 18 years |
 Belarusian People's Republic |
1919 | 18 years |
 Belgium |
1919/1948(b) | 18 years |
 British Honduras (Today: BelizeBelize Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official... ) |
1954 | 18 years |
 DahomeyRepublic of Dahomey The Republic of Dahomey was established on December 11, 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Prior to attaining autonomy it had been French Dahomey, part of the French Union... (Today: Benin Benin Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located... ) |
1956 | 18 years |
 Bermuda |
1944 | 18 years |
 Bhutan |
1953 | 18 years |
 Bolivia |
1938 | 18 years |
 Botswana |
1965 | 18 years |
 Brazil |
1931 | 16 years |
 Brunei |
1959 | 18 years (village elections only) |
 Kingdom of Bulgaria |
1938 | 18 years |
 Republic of Upper Volta (Today: Burkina FasoBurkina Faso Burkina Faso – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest.Its size is with an estimated... ) |
1958 | 18 years |
| Burma British rule in Burma British rule in Burma lasted from 1824 to 1948, from the Anglo-Burmese Wars through the creation of Burma as a province of British India to the establishment of an independently administered colony, and finally independence... |
1922 | 18 years |
 Burundi |
1961 | 18 years |
 Kingdom of Cambodia |
1955 | 18 years |
| British Cameroons (Today: Cameroon Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the... ) |
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 |
1934 | 18 years (currently) 25 years initially, able to read and write (local elections only) |
 Mainland China |
1947 | 18 years |
 Colombia |
1954 | 18 years |
 Comoros |
1956 | 18 years |
 Zaire (Today: Democratic Republic of the CongoDemocratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world... ) |
1967 | 18 years |
 Republic of the Congo |
1963 | 18 years |
 Cook Islands |
1893 | 18 years |
 Costa Rica |
1949 | 18 years |
 Côte d'Ivoire |
1952 | 19 years |
 Cuba |
1934 | 16 years |
 Cyprus |
1960 | 18 years |
 Czechoslovakia (Today: Czech RepublicCzech Republic The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest.... , Slovakia Slovakia The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south... ) |
1920 | 18 years |
 Denmark (Then including IcelandIceland Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population... ) |
1915 | 18 years |
 Djibouti |
1946 | 18 years |
 Dominican Republic |
1942 | 18 years |
 Ecuador |
1929 | 18 years |
 Egypt |
1956 | 18 years |
 El Salvador |
1939 | 18 years |
 Equatorial Guinea |
1963 | 18 years |
 Estonia |
1917 | 18 years |
 Ethiopian Empire (Then including EritreaEritrea Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast... ) |
1955 | 18 years |
 Falkland Islands |
a | 18 years |
 Fiji |
1963 | 21 years |
 Finland |
1906 | 18 years |
 Early Modern France |
1944 | 18 years |
 French Polynesia |
a | 18 years |
 Gabon |
1956 | 21 years |
| 1960 | 18 years | |
 Democratic Republic of GeorgiaDemocratic Republic of Georgia The Democratic Republic of Georgia , 1918–1921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917... |
1918 | 18 years |
 Weimar Republic |
1918 | 18 years |
 Ghana |
1954 | 18 years |
 Gibraltar |
a | 18 years |
 Greece |
1930 (Local Elections, Literate Only), 1952 (Unconditional) | 18 years (since 1952), 30 years (in 1930) |
 Greenland |
a | 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 |
 Honduras |
1955 | 18 years |
 Hong Kong |
1949 | 18 years |
 Hungarian Democratic RepublicHungarian Democratic Republic The Hungarian People's Republic was an independent republic proclaimed after the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918... |
1918 | 18 years |
 IndiaIndia India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... |
1947 (Since the state's inception) | 18 years |
 Indonesia |
1937 (for Europeans only), 1945 | 17 years (married persons regardless of age) |
 Iran |
1963 | 18 years, was 15 |
 Iraq |
1980 | 18 years |
| 1918 | 18 years | |
 Isle of Man |
1881 | 16 years |
 Israel |
1948 (Since the state's inception) | 18 years |
 Italy |
1946 | 18 years (except in senatorial elections, where minimum age is 25) |
 Jamaica |
1944 | 18 years |
 Japan |
1947 | 20 years |
 Jersey |
a | 16 years |
 Jordan |
1974 | 18 years |
 Kazakh SSR |
1924 | 18 years |
 Kenya |
1963 | 18 years |
 Kiribati |
1967 | 18 years |
 North Korea |
1946 | 17 years |
 South Korea |
1948 | 19 years |
 Kuwait |
2005 | 21 years |
| 1918 | 18 years | |
 Kingdom of LaosKingdom of Laos The Kingdom of Laos was a sovereign state from 1953 until December 1975, when Pathet Lao overthrew the government and created the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Given self-rule in 1949 as part of a federation with the rest of French Indochina, the 1953 Franco-Lao Treaty finally established a... |
1958 | 18 years |
 Latvia |
1917 | 18 years |
 Lebanon |
1943 (with proof of elementary education). 1952 (proof not necessary) | 21 years |
 Lesotho |
1965 | 18 years |
 Liberia |
1946 | 18 years |
 Kingdom of LibyaKingdom of Libya The Kingdom of Libya, originally called the United Libyan Kingdom came into existence upon independence on 24 December 1951 and lasted until a coup d'état led by Muammar Gaddafi on 1 September 1969 overthrew King Idris of Libya and established the Libyan Arab Republic.- Constitution :Under the... |
1964 | 18 years |
 Liechtenstein |
1984 | 18 years |
 Lithuania |
1917 | 18 years |
 Luxembourg |
1919 | 18 years |
 Macau |
a | 18 years |
 Madagascar |
1959 | 18 years |
 Malawi |
1961 | 18 years |
 Federation of MalayaFederation of Malaya The Federation of Malaya is the name given to a federation of 11 states that existed from 31 January 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957... (Today: Malaysia) |
1957 | 21 years |
| Maldives Maldives The Maldives , , officially Republic of Maldives , also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls oriented north-south off India's Lakshadweep islands, between Minicoy Island and... |
1932 | 21 years |
 Mali |
1956 | 18 years |
 Malta |
1947 | 18 years |
 Marshall Islands |
1979 | 18 years |
 Mauritania |
1961 | 18 years |
 Mauritius |
1956 | 18 years |
 Mexico |
1947 | 18 years |
| 1979 | 18 years | |
 Moldova |
1918 | 18 years |
 Monaco |
1962 | 18 years |
 Mongolian People's Republic |
1924 | 18 years |
 Morocco |
1963 | 18 years |
 People's Republic of MozambiquePeople's Republic of Mozambique The People's Republic of Mozambique , was a self-declared socialist state that lasted from June 25, 1975 through December 1, 1990, becoming the present day Republic of Mozambique.After gaining independence from Portugal in 1975, the People's Republic of Mozambique was established shortly... |
1975 | 18 years |
 Namibia |
1989 | 18 years |
 Nauru |
1968 | 20 years |
 Nepal |
1951 | 18 years |
 Netherlands |
1919 | 18 years |
 New Zealand |
1893 | 18 years |
 Nicaragua |
1955 | 16 years |
 Niger |
1948 | 18 years |
 Nigeria |
1958 | 18 years |
 Norway |
1913 | 18 years |
 Oman |
2003 | 21 years |
 Pakistan |
1947 (Since the state's inception) | 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 |
1917 | 18 years |
 Portugal |
1931 | 18 years |
 Puerto Rico |
1929 | 18 years |
 Qatar |
1997 | 18 years |
 Kingdom of Romania |
1938 | 18 years |
 Russian Provisional GovernmentRussian Provisional Government The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was... |
1917 | 18 years (currently) 20 years (initially, for city dumas) 21 year (initially, for RCA Russian Constituent Assembly The All Russian Constituent Assembly was a constitutional body convened in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917. It is generally reckoned as the first democratically elected legislative body of any kind in Russian history. It met for 13 hours, from 4 p.m... ) |
 Rwanda |
1961 | 18 years |
 Saint Helena |
a | a |
 Samoa |
a | 21 years |
 San Marino |
1959 | 18 years |
 São Tomé and Príncipe |
1975 | 18 years |
 Saudi Arabia |
2015 (expected) | 21 years |
 Senegal |
1945 | 18 years |
 Seychelles |
1948 | 17 years |
 Sierra Leone |
1961 | 18 years |
 Singapore |
1947 | 21 years |
 Solomon Islands |
1974 | 21 years |
 Somalia |
1956 | 18 years |
 South Africa |
1930 (White); 1968 (Coloured); 1984 (Indian); 1994 (Black) | 18 years (21 years initially until lowered in 1960) |
 Spain |
1931 | 18 years |
| (Today: Sri Lanka Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the... ) |
1931 | 18 years |
 Sudan |
1964 | 17 years |
 Dutch Guiana (Today: SurinameSuriname Suriname , officially the Republic of Suriname , is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean. Suriname was a former colony of the British and of the Dutch, and was previously known as... ) |
1948 | 18 years |
 Swaziland |
1968 | 18 years |
 Sweden |
1921 | 18 years |
 Switzerland |
1971 | 18 years |
 Syria |
1949 | 18 years |
 Republic of China |
1947 | 20 years |
 Tajik SSR |
1924 | 18 years |
 Tanzania |
1959 | 18 years |
 Thailand |
1932 | 18 years |
 East Timor |
1976 | 17 years |
 Togo |
1945 | 18 years |
 Tonga |
1960 | 21 years |
 Trinidad and Tobago |
1946 | 18 years |
 Tunisia |
1959 | 18 years |
 Turkey |
1930 (for local elections), 1934 (for national elections) | 18 years |
 Turkmen SSR |
1924 | 18 years |
 Tuvalu |
1967 | 18 years |
 Uganda |
1962 | 18 years |
 Ukrainian SSR |
1919 | 18 years |
 United Arab Emirates |
2006 | a |
 United Kingdom (Then including IrelandIreland Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth... ) |
1918 and 1928 | 18 years, was 30 and then 21 years |
 United States |
1920 | 18 years |
 Uruguay |
1927 | 18 years |
 Uzbek SSR |
1938 | 18 years |
 Vanuatu |
1975 | 18 years |
 Venezuela |
1946 | 18 years |
 Vietnam |
1946 | 18 years |
 South Yemen |
1967 | 18 years |
 Zambia |
1962 | 18 years |
 Southern Rhodesia (Today: ZimbabweZimbabwe Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three... ) |
1919 | 21 years |
 Kingdom of Yugoslavia (Today: SerbiaSerbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... , Montenegro Montenegro Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the... , Croatia Croatia Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ... , Slovenia Slovenia Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of... , Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia Republic of Macedonia Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991... ) |
1945 | 18 years |
Note: Data unavailable Was granted in the constitution in 1919, for communal voting. Suffrage for the provincial councils and the national parliament only came in 1948.
Women's suffrage by country
Indonesia
In the first half of the twentieth century, IndonesiaIndonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
(pre-independence era) 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
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
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 the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
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
Volksraad
The Volksraad was the parliament of the former South African Republic , which existed from 1857 to 1902 in part of what is now the South Africa. The body ceased to exist after the British victory in the Second Anglo-Boer War. The Volksraad sat in session in Ou Raadsaal in Church Square, Pretoria...
, 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
Local government
Local government refers collectively to administrative authorities over areas that are smaller than a state.The term is used to contrast with offices at nation-state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government...
. 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). There are a lot of women that supports the rights for women. The famous one is Raden Ajeng Kartini. She is also famous for her quote, "Habis Gelap, Terbitlah Terang" or in English, "After Dark, Comes the Light". It means that after bad days or dark days, there will always be hope everything including the success of the Women's Suffrage. Raden Ajeng Kartini did succeed. The other women that also fights for women's right also succeed. Raden Ajeng Kartini is so famous, Indonesians made a special date just for her, Hari Kartini, or Kartini's Day on the 21st of April, which is Kartini's birthday.
Iran
In 1963, a referendum overwhelmingly approved by voters gave women the right to vote, a right previously denied to them under the Iranian Constitution of 1906 pursuant to Chapter 2, Article 3.Japan
Although women were allowed to vote in some counties in 1880,women's suffrage was enacted at a national level in 1945.
Kuwait
Women's suffrage in Kuwait was recognized in an amendment to electoral law on May 17, 2005.Saudi Arabia
In late September, 2011, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud declared that women would be able to vote and run for office starting in 2015. The franchise will apply to the only (semi-)elected bodies in the kingdom, the municipal councils. Half of the seats on municipal councils are elective, and the councils have few powers. The council elections have been held since 2005 (the first time they were held before that was the 1960s). for the first time since the 1960s. The King also declared that women would be eligible to be appointed to the Shura CouncilShura Council
The Shura Council is the upper house of Egyptian bicameral Parliament. Its name roughly translates into English as "the Consultative Council". The lower house of parliament is the People's Assembly....
, an unelected body that issues advisory opinions on national policy. '"This is great news," said Saudi writer and women's rights activist Wajeha al-Huwaider
Wajeha al-Huwaider
Wajeha al-Huwaider is a female Saudi activist and writer. She is a co-founder of The Association for the Protection and Defense of Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia....
. "Women's voices will finally be heard. Now it is time to remove other barriers like not allowing women to drive cars and not being able to function, to live a normal life without male guardians."' Robert Lacey
Robert Lacey
Robert Lacey is a British historian and biographer. He is the author of a number of bestselling biographies, including those of Henry Ford and Queen Elizabeth II, as well as works of popular history....
, author of two books about the kingdom, said, "This is the first positive, progressive speech out of the government since the Arab Spring
2010–2011 Middle East and North Africa protests
The Arab Spring , otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010...
.... First the warnings, then the payments, now the beginnings of solid reform." The king made the announcement in a five-minute speech to the Shura Council.
Sri Lanka
Sri LankaSri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
(at that time Ceylon) was one of the first Asian countries 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 Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
n 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
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike was a Sri Lankan politician and the world's first female head of government...
. Her daughter, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga
Chandrika Kumaratunga
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga born June 29, 1945) was the 4th Executive president of Sri Lanka, serving from November 12, 1994 to November 19, 2005. The daughter of two former Prime Ministers, she was also the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party until end of 2005...
also became the Prime Minister later in 1994, and the same year she was elected as the Executive President
Executive president
An executive president is a president who exercises active executive power in a certain systems of government. Executive presidents are active in day-to-day governance of a nation, and are usually popularly elected....
of Sri Lanka, making her the fourth woman in the world to hold the portfolio.
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesian women won the vote in 1919 and Ethel Tawse Jollie (1875–1950) was elected to the Southern Rhodesia legislature 1920-1928, the first woman to sit in any national Commonwealth Parliament outwith Westminster. The influx of women settlers from the United Kingdom and the British Dominions proved a decisive factor in the 1922 referendum that rejected annexation by a South Africa increasingly under the sway of traditionalist Afrikaner Nationalists in favour of Rhodesian Home Rule or 'responsible government'. Only 51 black Rhodesians qualified for the vote in 1923 (based upon property, assets, income and literacy) and it is unclear when the first black woman qualified for the vote.Austria
After the revolution in 1848Revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas
From March 1848 through July 1849, the Habsburg Austrian Empire was threatened by revolutionary movements. Much of the revolutionary activity was of a nationalist character: the empire, ruled from Vienna, included Austrian Germans, Hungarians, Slovenes, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians,...
, the right to vote was bound to the ownership of property and thus paying of taxes. While it was also bound to being male, a small number of privileged women who owned property were actually allowed to vote as a result. In 1889 this "loophole" was closed in Lower Austria
Lower Austria
Lower Austria is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria since 1986 is Sankt Pölten, the most recently designated capital town in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria had formerly been Vienna, even though Vienna is not officially part of Lower Austria...
, which led some to mobilise for the struggle for political rights and the right to vote for women.
It was only after the breakdown of the Habsburg monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
, that the new Austria would grant the general, equal, direct and secret right to vote to all citizens, regardless of sex in 1919.
Belgium
After a revision of the constitution in 1921 the general right to vote was introduced according to the "one man, one vote" principle. Women obtained voting rights at the municipal level. As an exception, widows of World War I were allowed to vote at the national level as well. The introduction of women's suffrage was already put onto the agenda at the time, by means of including an article in the constitution that allowed approval of women's suffrage by special law. This happened no sooner than after World War II, in 1948. In Belgium, people are obliged to appear at the polling station, however voting in itself is not mandatory.Czech Republic
In the former BohemiaBohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, taxpaying women and women in "learned profession" where allowed to vote by proxy and made eligible to the legislative body in 1864. The general public obtained the right to vote and be elected, based on age but regardless of sex, when Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
was established in 1918.
Denmark
In Denmark women were given the right to vote in municipal elections on April 20, 1909. However it was not until June 5, 1915 that they were allowed to vote in RigsdagRigsdag
Rigsdagen was the name of the Parliament of Denmark from 1849 to 1953.Rigsdagen was Denmark's first parliament, and it was incorporated in the Constitution of 1849. It was a bicameral legislature, consisting of two houses, the Folketing and the Landsting. The distinction between the two houses was...
elections.
Finland
Finland was a Swedish province until 1809, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish age of liberty (1718–1771), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guildGuild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
s
The predecessor state of modern Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, The Grand Principality of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
. In 1863, taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the country side, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities
The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland
Parliament of Finland
The Eduskunta , is the parliament of Finland. The unicameral parliament has 200 members and meets in the Parliament House in Helsinki. The latest election to the parliament took place on April 17, 2011.- Constitution :...
and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpää
Miina Sillanpää
Miina Sillanpää was Finland's first female minister and a key figure in the workers' movement....
, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926.
Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen
Tarja Halonen
Tarja Kaarina Halonen is the incumbent President of Finland. The first female to hold the office, Halonen had previously been a member of the parliament from 1979 to 2000 when she resigned after her election to the presidency...
was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42,5%. In 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki
Anneli Jäätteenmäki
Anneli Tuulikki Jäätteenmäki, Master of Laws was the first female Prime Minister of Finland, in office from 17 April 2003 to 24 June 2003....
became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet
Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet
Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet was the 70th cabinet of Finland. The cabinet was a centre-right/green coalition, consisting of four parties: the Centre Party Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet (April 2007 - June 2010 ) was the 70th cabinet of Finland. The cabinet was a centre-right/green coalition,...
made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8).
France
Suffrage was extended to women in FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
by the 21 April 1944 ordinance of the French provisional government
Provisional Government of the French Republic
The Provisional Government of the French Republic was an interim government which governed France from 1944 to 1946, following the fall of Vichy France and prior to the Fourth French Republic....
. The first elections with female participation were the municipal elections of 29 April 1945 and the parliamentary elections
French legislative election, 1945
A legislative election was held in France on 21 October 1945 to elect a constituent assembly to draft a constitution for a Fourth French Republic. 79.83% of voters participated. Women and soldiers were allowed to vote...
of 21 October 1945. "Indigenous Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
" women in French Algeria
French Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...
had to wait until a 3 July 1958 decree.
Germany
In Germany, women's suffrage was granted in the new constitution of the Weimar republic in 1919.Italy
In ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, women's suffrage was not introduced following the First World War, but upheld by Socialist and Fascist activists and partly introduced by Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's government in 1925. Following the war, in the 1946 election
Italian general election, 1946
The Italian general election of 2 June 1946 was the first Italian election after World War II and elected 556 deputies to a Constituent Assembly...
, all Italians simultaneously voted for the Constituent Assembly and for a referendum about keeping Italy a monarchy or creating a republic instead. The elections weren't held in the Julian March
Julian March
The Julian March is a former political region of southeastern Europe on what are now the borders between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy...
and South Tyrol
South Tyrol
South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...
because they were under UN occupation.
Liechtenstein
In LiechtensteinLiechtenstein
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan...
, women's suffrage was granted via referendum in 1984
Liechtenstein women's suffrage referendum, 1984
A referendum on the introduction of women's suffrage in national elections was held in Liechtenstein on 1 July 1984. Following the introduction of female suffrage in neighbouring Switzerland after a referendum in 1971, Liechtenstein had been the only remaining European country to deny women the...
. Previously, referendums on the issue of women's suffrage had been held in 1968
Liechtenstein women's suffrage referendum, 1968
A consultative referendum on the introduction of women's suffrage was held in Liechtenstein in 1968. Separate votes were held for men and women, with the men voting against, and women split almost equally. A formal referendum on the topic was held in 1971 in which only men were allowed to vote. It...
, 1971
Liechtenstein women's suffrage referendum, 1971
A referendum on the introduction of women's suffrage was held in Liechtenstein on 28 February 1971. Voting was restricted to men, and resulted in a majority against its introduction...
and 1973.
Netherlands
The group working for women’s suffrage in the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
was the Dutch Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (Women’s Suffrage Association), 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.
Norway
Middle classMiddle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper 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).
Poland
Poland in its first days after regaining of independence (1918) after the 123 year period of the Partitions of Poland (before 1795 tax-paying females were allowed to take part in political life), allowed voting rights to women, as well as rights to be elected, without any restrictions. Roza Pomerantz-MeltzerRoza Pomerantz-Meltzer
Róża Pomerantz-Meltzer, also Róża Melcerowa of Lvov, was the first woman elected to the Sejm, the Parliament of Poland. She was elected in 1919 as a member of a Zionist party....
was the first woman elected to the Sejm
Sejm
The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
in 1919 as a member of a Zionist party.
Portugal
Carolina Beatriz Ângelo was the first PortuguesePortugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
woman to vote, in 1911, for the Republican Constitutional Parliament
Portuguese First Republic
The Portuguese First Republic spans a complex 16 year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy marked by the 5 October 1910 revolution and the 28 May coup d'état of 1926...
. She argued that she was entitled to do so as 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
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the 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
Right
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
for men and women", but a few electoral rights were reserved for men. After the Carnation Revolution
Carnation Revolution
The Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
, in 1974, women were granted full and equal electoral rights.
Spain
In the Basque provinces of BiscayBiscay
Biscay is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lord of Biscay. Its capital city is Bilbao...
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 1931 not without the opposition of Margarita Nelken and Victoria Kent
Victoria Kent
Victoria Kent was a Spanish lawyer and republican politician.Born in Málaga, she was affiliated to the Radical Socialist Republican Party and came to fame in 1930 for defending - at a court martial - Álvaro de Albornoz, who would shortly afterwards go on to become minister of justice and later the...
, two female MPs (both members of the Republican Radical-Socialist Party), 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 women that were considered heads of household were allowed to vote; in the "organic democracy" type of elections called "referendums" (Franco's regime was dictatorial) women were allowed to vote. From 1976, during the Spanish transition to democracy
Spanish transition to democracy
The Spanish transition to democracy was the era when Spain moved from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to a liberal democratic state. The transition is usually said to have begun with Franco’s death on 20 November 1975, while its completion has been variously said to be marked by the Spanish...
women fully exercised the right to vote and be elected to office.
Sweden
During the age of liberty (1718–1771), tax-paying female members of guildGuild
A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade. The earliest types of guild were formed as confraternities of workers. They were organized in a manner something between a trade union, a cartel, and a secret society...
s (most often widows), were allowed to vote for over 50 years. Between 1726 and 1742, women took part in 30 percent of elections. New tax regulations made the participation of women in the elections even more extensive from 1743 onward.
The vote was sometimes given through a male representative, which was one of the most prominent reasons cited by those in opposition to female suffrage. In 1758, women were excluded from mayoral and local elections, but continued to vote in national elections. In 1771, women's suffrage was abolished through the new constitution.
In 1862, tax-paying women of legal majority (unmarried women and widows) were again allowed to vote in municipal elections. Thereby, Sweden became the first nation in the world to grant women the right to vote The right to vote in municipal elections applied only to people of legal majority, which excluded married women, as they were juridically under the guardianship of their husbands. In 1884, the suggestion to grant women the right to vote in national elections was initially voted down in Parliament. In 1902, the Swedish Society for Woman Suffrage
Swedish Society for Woman Suffrage
The Swedish Society for Woman Suffrage , or LKPR, was a part of the general Suffrage movement and the national society for woman suffrage in Sweden. It was developed from Sveriges allmänna rösträttsförbund , the Suffrage Movement of Sweden, which was active mainly in acquiring full suffrage for males...
was founded. A few years later in 1906, the suggestion of women's suffrage was voted down in parliament again. However, the same year, in 1906, also married women were given municipal suffrage. In 1909, women were granted eligibility to municipal councils, and in the following 1910–11 municipal elections, 40 women were elected to different municipal councils, Hanna Lindberg
Hanna Lindberg
Hanna Lindberg was a Swedish Municipal Politician , feminist and milliner. She was the first woman in the Örebro city municipal council...
one of them.
Women were active in modern political organisations from the start. Several women reached notable political positions before the suffrage of 1919/21, such as Kata Dahlström, first woman in the Social Democratic executive committee in 1900, as well as Anna Sterky
Anna Sterky
Ane Catherine "Anna" Sterky, née Nielsen Danish-Swedish politician , trade union organiser, feminist and editor.Sterky worked as a seamstress in Denmark, were she was active in the Danish trade union movement...
, chairman of the Women's Trade Union
Women's Trade Union
The Women's Trade Union was a trade union in Sweden organizing female workers between 1902 and 1909. Its members were generally seamstresses, but the union also had a presence in other women-dominated sectors. In the year of its foundation, the union had 642 members...
1902–1907. In 1914, Emilia Broomé
Emilia Broomé
Emilia Augusta Clementina Broomé, née Lothigius , was a Swedish politician , feminist and peace activist. She was the first woman in the Swedish legislative assembly ....
became the first woman in the legislative assembly.
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. In the election of 1921 more women than men had the right to vote because women got the right just by turning 18 years old wile men had to undergo military service for the right to vote. In a decision 1921 men received the same right as women and this was practiced in the election of 1924.
After the 1921 election, the first women were elected to Swedish Parliament after the suffrage, Kerstin Hesselgren
Kerstin Hesselgren
Kerstin Hesselgren was a Swedish politician.Kerstin Hesselgren became the first woman to be elected in to the Swedish parliament after the female suffrage in 1921. She was elected by suggestion of the Liberals with support from the Social democrats.- Biography :Hesselgren was born at Torsåker,...
among them. In 1958, Ulla Lindström
Ulla Lindström
Ulla Gunilla Lindström, née Wohlin , was a Swedish journalist and Politician . She was Minister of Family- Consumption- Aid and Immigration...
became the first acting Prime Minister.
Switzerland
The SwissSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
referendum on women's suffrage was held on 1 February 1959. The majority of Switzerland's men voted "no", but in some canton
Cantons of Switzerland
The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own borders, army and currency from the Treaty of Westphalia until the establishment of the Swiss federal state in 1848...
s women obtained the vote. The first Swiss woman to hold political office, Trudy Späth-Schweizer
Trudy Späth-Schweizer
Gertrud Späth-Schweizer was the first woman to hold a political office in Switzerland after she was elected to the Bürgerrat, the executive council of the Bürgergemeinde, of Riehen in 1958....
, was elected to the municipal government of Riehen
Riehen
Riehen is a municipality in the canton of Basel-Stadt in Switzerland. Together with the city of Basel and Bettingen, Riehen is one of three municipalities in the canton....
in 1958.
Switzerland was the last Western republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
to grant women's suffrage; although women could not vote in the Principality of Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan...
(governed under a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
) until 1984. Women did not gain the right to vote in federal elections until 1971. In 1991, following a decision by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland
Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland
The Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland is the supreme court of Switzerland. It is located in Lausanne.According to the Constitution of Switzerland, the court has jurisdiction over violations of:*federal law;*public international law;*intercantonal law;...
, Appenzell Innerrhoden became the last Swiss canton to grant women the vote on local issues.
Turkey
In Turkey women were given the right to vote in municipal elections on March 20, 1930. Women's suffrage was achieved for parliament elections on December 5, 1934 by the constitutional amendment. Turkish women who participated for the parliament elections as a first time on February 8, 1935 obtained 18 seats.United Kingdom
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
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
. John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
, elected to Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
in 1865 and an open advocate of female suffrage (about to publish The Subjection of Women
The Subjection of Women
The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes...
), campaigned for an amendment to the Reform Act
Reform Act
In the United Kingdom, Reform Act is a generic term used for legislation concerning electoral matters. It is most commonly used for laws passed to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the British House of Commons...
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 later 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
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies , also known as the Suffragists was an organisation of women's suffrage societies in the United Kingdom.-Formation and campaigning:...
(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
Mud March (Suffragists)
The Mud March of 7 February 1907 was the first large procession organized by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies . Over 3,000 women trudged through the cold and the rutty streets of London from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall to advocate for women’s suffrage.Millicent Fawcett, the renowned...
as over 3,000 women trudged through the cold and the rutty streets of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
from Hyde Park
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...
to Exeter Hall
Exeter Hall
Exeter Hall was a hall on the north side of The Strand, London, England. It was erected between 1829 and 1831 on the site of Exeter Exchange, to designs by John Peter Gandy, the brother of the visionary architect Joseph Michael Gandy...
to advocate for women’s suffrage.
In 1903, a number of members of the NUWSS broke away and, led by Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...
, formed the Women's Social and Political Union
Women's Social and Political Union
The Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...
(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
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
, the arson of David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
's country home (despite his support for women's suffrage). In 1909 Lady Constance Lytton
Constance Lytton
Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton was an influential British suffragette activist, writer, speaker and campaigner for prison reform, votes for women, and birth control.Although she was raised as member of the privileged, ruling class elite within British Society, she rejected this...
was imprisoned, but immediately released when her identity was discovered, so in 1910 she disguised herself as a working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
seamstress called Jane Warton and endured inhumane treatment which included force feeding. In 1913, Emily Davison
Emily Davison
Emily Wilding Davison was a militant women's suffrage activist who, on 4 June 1913, after a series of actions that were either self-destructive or violent, stepped in front of a horse running in the Epsom Derby, sustaining injuries that resulted in her death four days later.-Biography:Davison was...
, a suffragette, protested by interfering with a horse owned by King George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
during the running of the Epsom Derby
Epsom Derby
The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...
; she 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
War effort
In politics and military planning, a war effort refers to a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force...
. Similarly, the NUWSS announced that they would cease political activity but continued to lobby discreetly throughout the First World War.
British historians no longer emphasize the granting of woman suffrage as a reward for women's participation in war work. Pugh (1974) argues that enfranchising soldiers primarily and women secondarily was decided by senior politicians in 1916. In the absence of major women's groups demanding for equal suffrage, the government's conference recommended limited, age-restricted women's suffrage. Specifically, the 1918 Qualification of Women Act enfranchised only women who were over the age of 30; providing they were householders, married to a householder or if they held a university degree. The suffragettes had been weakened, Pugh argues, by repeated failures before 1914 and by the disorganizing effects of war mobilization; therefore they quietly accepted these restrictions, which were approved in 1918 by a majority of the War Ministry and each political party in Parliament. More generally, Searle (2004) argues that the British debate was essentially over by the 1890s, and that granting the suffrage in 1918 was mostly a byproduct of giving the vote to male soldiers. Not until 1928 with Representation of the People Act 1928
Representation of the People Act 1928
The Representation of the People Act 1928 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This act expanded on the Representation of the People Act 1918 which had given some women the vote in Parliamentary elections for the first time after World War I. It widened suffrage by giving women...
were women granted the right to vote on the same terms as men.
In 1999 Time Magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
in naming Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...
as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century
Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century
Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century is a compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, published in Time magazine in 1999....
, 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".
Canada
Widows and unmarried women were granted the right to vote in municipal elections in OntarioOntario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
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
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
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
Parliament of Canada
The Parliament of Canada is the federal legislative branch of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in the national capital, Ottawa. Formally, the body consists of the Canadian monarch—represented by her governor general—the Senate, and the House of Commons, each element having its own officers and...
website, the Military Voters Act
Military Voters Act
The Military Voters Act was a World War I piece of Canadian legislation, giving the right to vote to all Canadian soldiers.With the Conscription Crisis of 1917 in full swing, Prime Minister Robert Borden was anxious to produce a solution to the manpower problem that Canada had been experiencing as...
established that "women who are British subjects and have close relatives in the armed forces
Armed forces
The armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external aggressors. In some countries paramilitary...
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
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, which did not do so until 1940. Agnes Macphail
Agnes Macphail
Agnes Campbell Macphail was the first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons, and one of the first two women elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario...
became the first woman elected to Parliament in 1921.
United States
Lydia Chapin Taft was an early forerunner in Colonial AmericaColonial America
The colonial history of the United States covers the history from the start of European settlement and especially the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain until they declared independence in 1776. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major...
who was allowed to vote in three New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
town meetings, beginning in 1756, at Uxbridge, Massachusetts
Uxbridge, Massachusetts
Uxbridge is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It was first settled in 1662, incorporated in 1727 at Suffolk County, and named for the Earl of Uxbridge. Uxbridge is south-southeast of Worcester, north-northwest of Providence, and southwest of Boston. It is part of...
.
Following the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, women were allowed to vote in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, but no other state, from 1790 until 1807, provided they met property requirements then in place. In 1807, women were again forbidden from voting in the state.
In June 1848, Gerrit Smith
Gerrit Smith
Gerrit Smith was a leading United States social reformer, abolitionist, politician, and philanthropist...
made women's suffrage a plank in the Liberty Party
Liberty Party (1840s)
The Liberty Party was a minor political party in the United States in the 1840s . The party was an early advocate of the abolitionist cause...
platform
Party platform
A party platform, or platform sometimes also referred to as a manifesto, is a list of the actions which a political party, individual candidate, or other organization supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said peoples' candidates voted into political office or...
. In July, at the Seneca Falls Convention
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely...
in Upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
, activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
and Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Coffin Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer, and proponent of women's rights.- Early life and education:...
began a seventy-year struggle by women to secure the right to vote. Attendees signed a document known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, of which Stanton was the primary author. Equal rights became the rallying cry of the early movement for women's rights, and equal rights meant claiming access to all the prevailing definitions of freedom. In 1850, Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone was a prominent American abolitionist and suffragist, and a vocal advocate and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery at a time when women were discouraged...
organized a larger assembly with a wider focus, the National Women's Rights Convention
National Women's Rights Convention
The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both male and female leadership, and...
in Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
. Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
, a native of Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, 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
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
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
Wyoming Territory
The Territory of Wyoming was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 25, 1868, until July 10, 1890, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Wyoming. Cheyenne was the territorial capital...
(1869) and Utah
Utah Territory
The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah....
(1870), although Utah women were disenfranchised by provisions of the federal Edmunds–Tucker Act enacted by the U.S. Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
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
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
women would dispose of polygamy
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
. It was only after Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor of polygamy that the U.S. Congress disenfranchised Utah women. By the end of the nineteenth century, Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, and Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
had enfranchised women after effort by the suffrage associations at the state level.
Carrie Chapman Catt
Carrie Chapman Catt was a women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920...
then Alice Paul
Alice Paul
Alice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...
became the first "cause" to picket outside the White House. With this manner of protest, suffragists were subject to arrests and many were jailed.
The key vote came on June 4, 1919, when the Senate approved the amendment by 56 to 25 after four hours of debate, during which Democratic Senators opposed to the amendment filibustered to prevent a roll call until their absent Senators could be protected by pairs. The Ayes included 36 (82%) Republicans and 20 (54%) Democrats. The Nays comprised 8 (18%) Republicans and 17 (46%) Democrats. It was ratified by sufficient states in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920....
, which prohibited state or federal gender-based restrictions on voting.
Australia
The female descendants of the Bounty mutineers
Mutiny on the Bounty
The mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny that occurred aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789, and has been commemorated by several books, films, and popular songs, many of which take considerable liberties with the facts. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against the...
who lived on Pitcairn Islands
Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands , officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union in the Pacific...
could vote from 1838, and this right transferred with their resettlement to Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...
(now an Australian external territory
States and territories of Australia
The Commonwealth of Australia is a union of six states and various territories. The Australian mainland is made up of five states and three territories, with the sixth state of Tasmania being made up of islands. In addition there are six island territories, known as external territories, and a...
) in 1856.
Propertied women in the colony of South Australia were granted the vote in local elections (but not parliamentary elections) in 1861. Henrietta Dugdale
Henrietta Dugdale
Henrietta Augusta Dugdale was a pioneer suffragist and radical in the Australian state of Victoria.She was born in London. Married at age 14 to a man named Davies, she and her husband moved to Melbourne. Following his death in 1859, she married William Dugdale and they had three children. Austin,...
formed the first Australian women's suffrage society in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Victoria in 1884. Women became eligible to vote for the Parliament of South Australia
Parliament of South Australia
The Parliament of South Australia is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of South Australia. It consists of the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly. It follows a Westminster system of parliamentary government....
in 1894 and in 1897, Catherine Helen Spence
Catherine Helen Spence
Catherine Helen Spence was a Scottish-born Australian author, teacher, journalist, politician and leading suffragette. In 1897 she became Australia's first female political candidate after standing for the Federal Convention held in Adelaide...
became the first female political candidate for political office, unsuccessfully standing for election as a delegate to Federal Convention on Australian Federation. Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
granted voting rights to women in 1899.
The first election for the Parliament of the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 was based on the electoral provisions of the six pre-existing colonies, so that women who had the vote and the right to stand for Parliament at state level had the same rights for the 1901 Australian Federal election. In 1902, the Commonwealth Parliament passed the Commonwealth Franchise Act, which enabled all women to vote and stand for election for the Federal Parliament. Four women stood for election in 1903. The Act did, however, specifically exclude 'natives' from Commonwealth franchise unless already enrolled in a state. In 1949, The right to vote in federal elections was extended to all Indigenous people who had served in the armed forces, or were enrolled to vote in state elections (Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory still excluded indigenous women from voting rights). Remaining restrictions were abolished in 1962 by the Commonwealth Electoral Act.
Edith Cowan
Edith Cowan
Edith Dircksey Cowan , MBE was an Australian politician, social campaigner and the first woman elected to an Australian parliament....
was elected to the West Australian Legislative Assembly in 1921, the first woman elected to any Australian Parliament. Dame Enid Lyons
Enid Lyons
Dame Enid Muriel Lyons, AD, GBE was an Australian politician and the first woman to be elected to the Australian House of Representatives as well as the first woman appointed to the federal Cabinet...
, in the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
and Senator Dorothy Tangney
Dorothy Tangney
Dame Dorothy Margaret Tangney DBE was an Australian politician and the first woman member of the Australian Senate.Dorothy Tangney started her career as a school teacher in Western Australia...
became the fist women in the Federal Parliament in 1943. Lyons went on to be the first woman to hold a Cabinet
Cabinet of Australia
The Cabinet of Australia is the council of senior ministers of the Crown, responsible to parliament. The Cabinet is appointed by the Governor-General, on the advice of the Prime Minister the Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, and serves at the former's pleasure. The strictly private...
post in the 1949 ministry of Robert Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
. Edith Cowan
Edith Cowan
Edith Dircksey Cowan , MBE was an Australian politician, social campaigner and the first woman elected to an Australian parliament....
was elected to the West Australian Legislative Assembly in 1921, the first woman elected to any Australian Parliament. Dame Enid Lyons
Enid Lyons
Dame Enid Muriel Lyons, AD, GBE was an Australian politician and the first woman to be elected to the Australian House of Representatives as well as the first woman appointed to the federal Cabinet...
, in the Australian House of Representatives
Australian House of Representatives
The House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Parliament of Australia; it is the lower house; the upper house is the Senate. Members of Parliament serve for terms of approximately three years....
and Senator Dorothy Tangney
Dorothy Tangney
Dame Dorothy Margaret Tangney DBE was an Australian politician and the first woman member of the Australian Senate.Dorothy Tangney started her career as a school teacher in Western Australia...
became the fist women in the Federal Parliament in 1943. Lyons went on to be the first woman to hold a Cabinet post in the 1949 ministry of Robert Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
. Rosemary Follett
Rosemary Follett
Rosemary Follett AO , Australian politician, was the first Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory. She was the first woman to become head of government in an Australian state or territory....
was elected Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory
Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory
The Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory is the head of government of the Australian Capital Territory. The leader of party with the largest representation of seats in the unicameral Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly usually takes on the role...
in 1989, becoming the first woman elected to lead a state or territory. By 2010, the people of Australia's oldest city, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
had female leaders occupying every major political office above them, with Clover Moore
Clover Moore
Clover Moore , is an Australian politician, the Lord Mayor of the City of Sydney and an independent member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, representing the electorate of Sydney. Moore is the first publicly elected female Lord Mayor of Sydney. Prior to the 2007 NSW state election, she...
as Lord Mayor, Kristina Keneally
Kristina Keneally
Kristina Kerscher Keneally MP, is an Australian politician and was the 42nd Premier of New South Wales. She was elected leader of the Australian Labor Party in New South Wales and thus Premier in 2009, but went on to lose government to the Liberal/National Coalition at the March 2011 state election...
as Premier of New South Wales, Marie Bashir
Marie Bashir
Marie Roslyn Bashir AC, CVO is the present Governor of New South Wales since 2001 and also the Chancellor of the University of Sydney since 2007. Born in Narrandera, New South Wales, Bashir graduated from the University of Sydney in 1956 and held various medical positions, with a particular...
as Governor of New South Wales, Julia Gillard
Julia Gillard
Julia Eileen Gillard is the 27th and current Prime Minister of Australia, in office since June 2010.Gillard was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales and migrated with her family to Adelaide, Australia in 1966, attending Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School. In 1982 Gillard moved...
as Prime Minister, Quentin Bryce
Quentin Bryce
Quentin Bryce, AC, CVO is the 25th and current Governor-General of Australia and former Governor of Queensland....
as Governor General of Australia and Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia.
Cook Islands
Women in RarotongaRarotonga
Rarotonga is the most populous island of the Cook Islands, with a population of 14,153 , out of the country's total population of 19,569.The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings and international airport are on Rarotonga...
were given the right to vote in 1893, shortly after New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
.
New Zealand
New Zealand's Electoral Act of 19 September 1893 made this isolated outpost of the British EmpireBritish Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.
Women who owned property and paid rates (usually widows or 'spinsters') were allowed to vote in local government elections in Otago
Otago
Otago is a region of New Zealand in the south of the South Island. The region covers an area of approximately making it the country's second largest region. The population of Otago is...
and Nelson from the year 1867 and this right was extended to the other provinces in 1876. Women in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
were inspired to fight for universal voting rights by the equal-rights
Equal rights
Equal rights can refer to:*Equality before the law, when all people have the same rights*Human rights, when such rights are held in common by all people*Civil rights, when such rights are held in common by all citizens of a nation...
philosopher John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
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 - and their efforts were supported by a number of important male politicians including John Hall, Robert Stout
Robert Stout
Sir Robert Stout, KCMG was the 13th Premier of New Zealand on two occasions in the late 19th century, and later Chief Justice of New Zealand. He was the only person to hold both these offices...
, Julius Vogel
Julius Vogel
Sir Julius Vogel, KCMG was the eighth Premier of New Zealand. His administration is best remembered for the issuing of bonds to fund railway construction and other public works...
, and William Fox
William Fox
William Fox may refer to:* William Fox , Irish international footballer active in the 1880s.* William Fox , Paymaster of the Forces of England* William Johnson Fox , British politician* William F...
. 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
First Liberal Government of New Zealand
The First Liberal Government of New Zealand was the first responsible government in New Zealand politics organised along party lines. The Government formed following the founding of the Liberal Party and took office on the 24 January 1891, and governed New Zealand for over 21 years until 10 July...
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
Parliament of New Zealand
The Parliament of New Zealand consists of the Queen of New Zealand and the New Zealand House of Representatives and, until 1951, the New Zealand Legislative Council. The House of Representatives is often referred to as "Parliament".The House of Representatives usually consists of 120 Members of...
elected were female. Women recently have also occupied powerful and symbolic offices such as those of Prime Minister
Prime Minister of New Zealand
The Prime Minister of New Zealand is New Zealand's head of government consequent on being the leader of the party or coalition with majority support in the Parliament of New Zealand...
, Governor-General
Governor-General of New Zealand
The Governor-General of New Zealand is the representative of the monarch of New Zealand . The Governor-General acts as the Queen's vice-regal representative in New Zealand and is often viewed as the de facto head of state....
, Speaker of the House of Representatives
Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives
In New Zealand the Speaker of the House of Representatives is the individual who chairs the country's legislative body, the New Zealand House of Representatives...
, and between 2005, and 2006, all three of these posts were held by women. New Zealand's first chief justice, Sian Elias
Sian Elias
Dame Sian Seerpoohi Elias, GNZM, PC, QC is the Chief Justice of New Zealand, and is therefore the most senior member of the country's judiciary. She is the presiding judge of the Supreme Court of New Zealand...
is also a woman.
Catholicism
The PopePope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
is only elected by the College of Cardinals
College of Cardinals
The College of Cardinals is the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church.A function of the college is to advise the pope about church matters when he summons them to an ordinary consistory. It also convenes on the death or abdication of a pope as a papal conclave to elect a successor...
. Women are not appointed as cardinals, so women cannot vote for the Pope.
Hinduism
Within HinduismHinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, ISKCON's founder A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was a Gaudiya Vaishnava teacher and the founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, commonly known as the "Hare Krishna Movement"...
openly appreciated, encouraged, and supported his female followers in their diverse roles within ISKCON on par with men, and even recommended two women to be named founding members of ISKCON's highest international ecclesiastical and managerial body, the Governing Body Commission
Governing Body Commission
The Governing Body Commission is the managerial authority of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness . ISKCON's founder, A.C...
(GBC). Prabhupada also defended the active involvement of his female followers in ISKCON's spiritual and managerial activities from critics, which included some traditional Gaudiya Matha members and other orthodox followers of Hinduism in India.
Towards the end of the 1970s, however, the growth in number and influence of sannyasis (male lifelong celibates) in ISKCON's spiritual and managerial affairs led to greater male domination of the organization, and the consequent segregation, disempowerment, and denigration of women, who were denied access to prominent roles in ISKCON. In late 1980s, criticism of the treatment of women within ISKCON and the discrimination against them in the institution's key activities began to take shape in the form of printed articles and women conventions.
In the mid-1990s, Malati Dasi
Malati Dasi
Malati Dasi is a senior spiritual leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness . Born in Vallejo, California, she was part of the hippie movement before becoming an initiated disciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in 1967...
played a leading role in efforts to ensure equality for women in the organization and helped form ISKCON Women's Ministry in 1997, headed by Sudharma Dasi. Malati became a vocal suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
within ISKCON, which led to her "fiercely debated but historic appointment" as the first female member of the Governing Body Commission of ISKCON in 1998. Her and Sudharma's presence on the GBC raised the issue of women in the organization for serious discussion at the GBC's annual meeting in Mayapur
Mayapur
Mayapur is located on the banks of the Ganges river, at the point of its confluence with the Jalangi, near Navadvip, West Bengal, India, 130 km north of Kolkata...
(West Bengal
West Bengal
West Bengal is a state in the eastern region of India and is the nation's fourth-most populous. It is also the seventh-most populous sub-national entity in the world, with over 91 million inhabitants. A major agricultural producer, West Bengal is the sixth-largest contributor to India's GDP...
, India) in 2000, and called for "an apology for the mistakes of the past, recognition of the importance of women for the health of the movement, and the reinstatement of women's participatory rights." The resultant resolution of the GBC acknowledged the importance of the issue and asserted the priority of providing "equal facilities, full encouragement, and genuine care and protection for the women members of ISKCON."
Judaism
Women are denied the vote and the ability to be elected to positions of authority in many Orthodox Jewish synagogues and religious organizations.Women's suffrage denied or conditioned
—Women and men have been revoked the right to vote or to stand for a national legislative election since 1962Bruneian general election, 1962
District council elections were held for the first time in Brunei on 30 and 31 August 1962. A total of 55 seats on the four district councils were contested by the Brunei People's Party , the Brunei National Organisation , the Brunei United Party and eighteen independents...
. Only in local elections are they permitted.—Proof of elementary education
Primary education
A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...
is required for women but not for men, while voting is compulsory
Compulsory voting
Compulsory voting is a system in which electors are obliged to vote in elections or attend a polling place on voting day. If an eligible voter does not attend a polling place, he or she may be subject to punitive measures such as fines, community service, or perhaps imprisonment if fines are unpaid...
for men but optional for women.—Women were not given the right to vote or to stand for the local election in 2005, although suffrage was slated to possibly be granted by 2009, then set for later in 2011
Saudi Arabian municipal elections, 2011
Municipal elections in Saudi Arabian towns and cities, initially planned for 31 October 2009, are to be held on 29 September 2011 . Women may not participate in the elections...
, but suffrage was not granted either of those times. In late September, 2011, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, declared that women would be able to vote and run for office starting in 2015.—Limited suffrage (for both men and women), but it gradually expanded in the recent election held in 2011./Holy See
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
(See above under Women's suffrage#Catholicism)
See also
- Anti-suffragismAnti-suffragismAnti-suffragism was a political movement composed mainly of women, begun in the late 19th century in order to campaign against women's suffrage in the United States and United Kingdom...
- Izola ForresterIzola forresterIzola Forrester was an American author who was born Izola Louise Wallingford.Forrester was a pioneer journalist in the heyday of magazine and newspaper publishing in the early part of the 20th century...
- List of the first female holders of political office in Europe
- Open Christmas LetterOpen Christmas LetterThe Open Christmas Letter was a public message for peace addressed "To the Women of Germany and Austria", signed by a group of 101 British women suffragists at the end of 1914 as the first Christmas of World War I approached...
- SuffrageSuffrageSuffrage, political franchise, or simply the franchise, distinct from mere voting rights, is the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process...
- Timeline of first women's suffrage in majority-Muslim countriesTimeline of first women's suffrage in majority-Muslim countriesThis timeline lists the dates of the first women's suffrage in majority-Muslim countries....
- Timeline of women's rights (other than voting)
- Timeline of women's suffrageTimeline of women's suffrageWomen's suffrage has been achieved at various times in various countries throughout the world. In many countries women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women from certain classes or races were still unable to vote, while some granted it to both sexes at the same time.The...
- SuffragetteSuffragette"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
- Women's workWomen's workWomen's work or woman's work is a term used particularly in the West to indicate work that is believed to be exclusively the domain of women and associates particular tasks with the female gender. It is particularly used with regards to work that a mother or wife will perform within a family and...
Further reading
- DuBois, Ellen Carol, Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage (New Haven and London: Yale University PressYale University PressYale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, 1997) ISBN 0-300-06562-0 - Flexner, EleanorEleanor FlexnerEleanor Flexner was a distinguished independent scholar and pioneer in what was to become the field of women’s studies...
, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, enlarged edition with Foreword by Ellen Fitzpatrick (1959, 1975; Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1996) ISBN 0-674-10653-9 - Kenney, AnnieAnnie KenneyAnnie Kenney was an English working class suffragette who became a leading figure in the Women's Social and Political Union...
, Memories of a Militant (London: Edwin Arnold, 1924) - Lloyd, TrevorTrevor LloydTrevor Lloyd is a former international rugby union player.Lloyd hailed from Port Talbot, where he started playing club rugby with the Aberavon Quins RFC, he made his debut for Wales on 14 March 1953 versus Ireland and was selected for the 1955 British Lions tour to South Africa...
, Suffragettes International: The Worldwide Campaign for Women's Rights (New York: American HeritageAmerican Heritage (magazine)American Heritage is a quarterly magazine dedicated to covering the history of the United States for a mainstream readership. Until 2007, the magazine was published by Forbes. Since that time, Edwin S...
Press, 1971). - Lowry, D. (1997) ‘White woman’s’ country: Ethel Tawse Jollie and the Making of White Rhodesia, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23(2), pp. 259–281.
- Mackenzie, MidgeMidge MackenzieMidge MacKenzie was a Dublin-born writer and filmmaker who first become notable with her multimedia production Astarte, with the Joffrey Ballet, and with Women Talking, a documentary with interviews of Kate Millett, Betty Friedan and other leading figures in the US women’s liberation...
, Shoulder to Shoulder: A Documentary (New York: Alfred A. KnopfAlfred A. KnopfAlfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
, 1975). ISBN 0-394-73070-4 - Raeburn, Antonia, Militant Suffragettes (London: New English LibraryNew English LibraryThe New English Library was a United Kingdom book publishing company, which became an imprint of Hodder Headline.- History :New English Library was created in 1961 by the Times Mirror Company of Los Angeles, with the takeover of two small British paperback companies, Ace Books Ltd and Four Square...
, 1973) - Stevens, DorisDoris StevensDoris Stevens was an American suffragist and author of Jailed for Freedom.Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Doris Stevens graduated from Oberlin College in 1911. She worked as a teacher and social worker in Ohio and Michigan before she became a regional organizer with the National American Woman Suffrage...
, edited by Carol O'Hare, Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote (1920; Troutdale, OR: NewSage Press, 1995). ISBN 0-939165-25-2 - Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill, editor, One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement (Troutdale, OR: NewSage Press, 1995) ISBN 0-939165-26-0
External links
- UNCG Special Collections and University Archives selections of American Suffragette manuscripts
- Parstscape.org, Read a detailed historical record about The Office of the Manchester National Society For Women's Suffrage
- Photo Essay on Women's Suffrage by the International Museum of Women
- Suffrage in Canada
- World Chronology (outdated, but useful)
- Inter-Parliamentary Union: Women's Suffrage
- CIA Yearbook: Suffrage
- Press release with respect to Qatar and Yemen
- "Winning the Vote", international woman suffrage timeline
- FemBio Biographies of Notable Women International
- Legal Status Of Women In Iowa (1894) by Jennie Lansley Wilson, at Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
. - "Monster Petition" of the Australian state of Victoria
- Photographs of U.S. suffragettes, marches, and demonstrations
- Ada James papers and correspondence (1915–1918) – a digital collection presented by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center. Ada James (1876–1952)Ada JamesAda Lois James was a suffragist, social worker, and reformer. Born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, she graduated from high school in 1894, taught school for several years, and soon became active in the woman's suffrage movement in which both her parents were playing prominent roles.In 1911 she...
was a leading a social reformer, humanitarian, and pacifist from Richland CenterRichland Center, WisconsinRichland Center is a city in Richland County, Wisconsin, United States, which also serves as the county seat. The population was 5,184 at the 2010 census.-History:Richland Center was founded in 1851 by Ira Sherwin Hazeltine, a native of Andover, Vermont...
, Wisconsin and daughter of state senatorState SenatorA state senator is a member of a state's Senate, the upper house in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a legislator in Nebraska's one house State Legislature.There are typically fewer state senators than there are members of a state's lower house...
David G. James. The Ada James papers document the grass roots organizing and politics required to promote and guarantee the passage of women's suffrage in Wisconsin and beyond. - Women´s suffrage in Germany – 19 January 1919 – first suffrage (active and passive) for women in Germany
- Suffragettes versus Suffragists – website comparing aims and methods of Women’s Social and Political Union (Suffragettes) to National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (Suffragists)
- Suffragists vs. Suffragettes – brief article outlining origins of term "suffragette", usage of term and links to other sources.
- Women in Congress – Information about women who have served in the U.S. Congress including historical essays that cover suffrage.
- Culture Victoria – historical images and videos for the Centenary of Women’s Suffrage
- Woman suffragist, Mary Ellen Ewing vs the Houston School Board - Collection at the University of Houston Digital Library.