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Women's suffrage is theright of women tovote in elections. Historically, women rarely had the right to vote, even in ostensibly democratic systems of government.[1] This shifted in the late 19th century when women's suffrage was accomplished in Australasia, then Europe, and then the Americas.[2][1] By the middle of the 20th century, women's suffrage had been established as anorm of democratic governance.[1] Extended political campaigns by women and their male supporters played an important role in changing public attitude, altering norms, and achieving legislation or constitutional amendments for women's suffrage.[1]
The first wave of women's suffrage took place 1893–1930, covering English-speaking countries, Scandinavian states, and some other parts of Europe.[1] The experience of the First World War has been characterized as an important factor in shifting public support for women's suffrage.[3] The second wave, 1930-1970, covered nearly all Latin-American countries, much of Sub-Saharan Africa and some European laggards (France, Spain, Belgium).[1]
Pitcairn Island allowed women to vote for its councils in 1838.[4] Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage was in effect during theAge of Liberty (1718–1772), as well as inRevolutionary and early-independenceNew Jersey (1776–1807) in the US.[5][6] TheKingdom of Hawai'i, which originally had universal suffrage in 1840, rescinded this in 1852 and was subsequently annexed by the United States in 1898. In the years after 1869, a number of provinces held by theBritish andRussian empires conferred women's suffrage, and some of these became sovereign nations at a later point, like New Zealand, Australia, andFinland. Several states and territories of the United States, such as Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870), also granted women the right to vote. Women who owned property gained the right to vote in theIsle of Man in 1881, and in 1893, women in the then self-governing[7] Britishcolony of New Zealand were granted the right to vote. In Australia, the colony ofSouth Australia granted women the right to vote and stand for parliament in 1895[8][9] while theAustralian Federal Parliament conferred the right to vote and stand for election in 1902 (although it allowed for the exclusion of "aboriginal natives").[10][11] Prior to independence, in the RussianGrand Duchy of Finland, women gained equal suffrage, with both the right to vote and to stand as candidates in 1906.[12][13][14] National and international organizations formed to coordinate efforts towards women voting, especially theInternational Woman Suffrage Alliance (founded in 1904 inBerlin, Germany).[15]
Most major Western powers extended voting rights to women by the interwar period, including Canada (1917), Germany (1918), the United Kingdom (1918 for women over 30 who met certain property requirements,1928 for all women),Austria, theNetherlands (1919) and the United States (1920).[16] Notable exceptions in Europe were France, where women could not vote until 1944,Greece (equal voting rights for women did not exist there until 1952, although, since 1930, literate women were able to vote in local elections), andSwitzerland (where, since 1971, women could vote at the federal level, and between 1959 and 1990, women got the right to vote at the local canton level).
In many countries, limited suffrage for women was granted beforeuniversal suffrage for men; for instance, literate women or property owners were granted suffrage before all men received it. The United Nations encouraged women's suffrage in the years following World War II, and theConvention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) identifies it as a basic right with 189 countries currently being parties to this convention.
Anna II, Abbess of Quedlinburg. In the pre-modern era in some parts of Europe,abbesses were permitted to participate and vote in various European national assemblies by virtue of their rank within the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.
In ancientAthens, often cited as the birthplace of democracy, only adult male citizens who owned land were permitted to vote.[citation needed] Through subsequent centuries, Europe was ruled by monarchs, though various forms of parliament arose at different times. The high rank ascribed toabbesses within theCatholic Church permitted some women the right to sit and vote at national assemblies – as with various high-ranking abbesses in Medieval Germany, who were ranked among the independent princes of the empire. Their Protestant successors enjoyed the same privilege almost into modern times.[17]
Marie Guyart, a French nun who worked with theFirst Nations people of Canada during the 17th century, wrote in 1654 regarding the suffrage practices ofIroquois women: "These female chieftains are women of standing amongst the savages, and they have a deciding vote in the councils. They make decisions there like their male counterparts, and it is they who even delegated as first ambassadors to discuss peace."[18] The Iroquois, like many First Nations in North America,[citation needed] had amatrilinealkinship system. Property and descent were passed through the female line. Women elders voted on hereditary male chiefs and could depose them.
The first independent country to introduce women's suffrage was arguably Sweden. In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage was in effect during theAge of Liberty (1718–1772).[5]
In ancient Athens, often cited as the birthplace of democracy, only adult male citizens who owned land were permitted to vote.[citation needed] Through subsequent centuries, Europe was ruled by monarchs, though various forms of parliament arose at different times. The high rank ascribed to abbesses within the Catholic Church permitted some women the right to sit and vote at national assemblies – as with various high-ranking abbesses in Medieval Germany, who were ranked among the independent princes of the empire. Their Protestant successors enjoyed the same privilege almost into modern times.[24]
Marie Guyart, a French nun who worked with theFirst Nations people of Canada during the 17th century, wrote in 1654 regarding the suffrage practices ofIroquois women: "These female chieftains are women of standing amongst the savages, and they have a deciding vote in the councils. They make decisions there like their male counterparts, and it is they who even delegated as first ambassadors to discuss peace."[25] The Iroquois, like many First Nations in North America,[citation needed] had amatrilineal kinship system. Property and descent were passed through the female line. Women elders voted on hereditary male chiefs and could depose them.
The first independent country to introduce women's suffrage was arguably Sweden. In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage was in effect during theAge of Liberty (1718–1772).[26]
In the 1792 elections inSierra Leone, then a new British colony, all heads of household could vote and one-third were ethnic African women.[30]
Before the 20th century, some countries granted women the right to vote partially or temporarily:
inRome, in 1591, during the short pontificate of PopeInnocent IX (November–December 1591), men and women over 14 years old had the right to vote;
inSweden, between 1718 and 1771, major single or widowed women (married women are excluded), owners, subject to tax and members of guilds are authorized to participate in local and national elections. These rights are annulled in 1758 for local elections and in 1772 for national elections. The right to vote in municipal elections is again granted to major single women, taxable and owners between 1862 and 1919;
theRepublic of Corsica in 1755, and until its fall in 1769, implicitly grants the right to vote to single or widowed women (the electoral majority being set at 25 years);
inFrance, under theAncien Régime, women legally declared heads of family (widows, single women, or in cases of the husband's absence) had the right to vote in municipal assemblies until 1789. From 1302 until 1789, noble women who owned fiefs and mother abbesses were summoned to theEstates General to elect their representatives. In the elections to the Estates General of 1789, members of religious communities were admitted to vote, as well as, for theThird Estate, heads of agricultural or business operations, and in the cities, members of trade bodies and communities. Women were then explicitly excluded from the electorate starting from the elections to theLegislative Assembly of 1791 and until 1945.
Territorial entities, subnational, non-state or not recognized, also preceded many countries:
the State ofNew Jersey (United States) from 1776 to 1807 under the condition, as for men, of being themselves owners;
Lower Canada (British colonial province corresponding partially to currentQuebec andLabrador), from 1791 and under the condition, as for men, of being themselves owners, restricted in 1834 and finally withdrawn after theRebellions of 1837–1838, in 1849;
the Mormon State ofDeseret (1847) (becameUtah in 1850);
the province ofVélez (Colombia) from 1853 to its integration into the federal State of Santander in 1857;
the territory ofWyoming (United States) in 1869 with right to eligibility. A few months later in 1870, a woman is elected justice of the peace inLaramie, the same year in the same city another is elected court bailiff (Court Bailiff);
the territory ofUtah (United States) in 1870. A federal Congress act will suppress it in 1887;
theIsle of Man (United Kingdom dependency) in 1881;
South Australia (autonomous British colony) from 1894. In 1895, South Australia becomes one of the first territories in the world to allow women to be candidates in legislative elections;
Utah (admission to the Union) andIdaho (United States) in 1896.
Other early instances of women's suffrage include theCorsican Republic (1755), the Pitcairn Islands (1838), the Isle of Man (1881), andFranceville (1889–1890), but some of these operated only briefly as independent states and others were not clearly independent.
South Australian suffragistCatherine Helen Spence stood for office in 1897. In a first for the modern world, South Australia granted women the right to stand for Parliament in 1895.[31]
The female descendants of theBounty mutineers who lived onPitcairn Islands could vote from 1838. This right was transferred after they resettled in 1856 toNorfolk Island (now an Australian external territory).[32]
The emergence of modern democracy generally began with male citizens obtaining the right to vote in advance of female citizens, except in theKingdom of Hawai'i, where universal suffrage was introduced in 1840 without mention of sex; however, a constitutional amendment in 1852 rescinded female voting and put property qualifications on male voting.[33]
The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention in the United States inSeneca Falls, New York, was planted in 1840, whenElizabeth Cady Stanton metLucretia Mott at theWorld Anti-Slavery Convention in London. The conference refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from the U.S. because of their sex. In 1851, Stanton met temperance workerSusan B. Anthony, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women in the U.S. 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 Working Women'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. The men at the conference deleted the reference to the vote.[34] In the US, women in theWyoming Territory were permitted to both vote and stand for office in 1869.[35] Subsequent American suffrage groups often disagreed on tactics, with theNational American Woman Suffrage Association arguing for a state-by-state campaign and theNational Woman's Party focusing on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[36][37][38]
The1840 constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii established a House of Representatives, but did not specify who was eligible to participate in the election of it. Some academics have argued that this omission enabled women to vote in the first elections, in which votes were cast by means of signatures onpetitions; but this interpretation remains controversial.[39] Thesecond constitution of 1852 specified that suffrage was restricted to males over twenty years-old.[33]
In 1849, theGrand Duchy of Tuscany, in Italy, was the first European state to have a law that provided for the vote of women, for administrative elections, taking up a tradition that was already informally sometimes present in Italy.
The 1853 Constitution of the province ofVélez in theRepublic of New Granada, modern dayColombia, allowed for married women, or women older than the age of 21, the right to vote within the province. However, this law was subsequently annulled by theSupreme Court of the Republic, arguing that the citizens of the province could not have more rights than those already guaranteed to the citizens of the other provinces of the country, thus eliminating female suffrage from this province in 1856.[40][41][42]
In 1881 theIsle of Man, an internally self-governing dependent territory of the British Crown, enfranchised women property owners. With this it provided the first action for women's suffrage within theBritish Isles.[32]
ThePacific commune ofFranceville (nowPort Vila, Vanuatu), maintained independence from 1889 to 1890, becoming the firstself-governing nation to adopt universal suffrage without distinction of sex or color, although only white males were permitted to hold office.[43]
For countries that have their origins in self-governing colonies but later became independent nations in the 20th century, theColony of New Zealand was the first to acknowledge women's right to vote in 1893, largely due to a movement led byKate Sheppard. The British protectorate ofCook Islands rendered the same right in 1893 as well.[44] Another British colony,South Australia, followed in 1895,enacting laws which not only extended voting to women, but also made women eligible to stand for election to its parliament.[8][9][46]
The first place in Europe to introduce women's suffrage was theGrand Duchy of Finland in 1906, and it also became the first place in continental Europe to implement racially-equal suffrage for women.[12][13] As a result of the1907 parliamentary elections, Finland's voters elected 19 women as the first female members of a representative parliament. This was one of many self-governing actions in the Russian autonomous province that led to conflict with the Russian governor of Finland, ultimately leading to thecreation of the Finnish nation in 1917.
In the years beforeWorld War I, women in Norway also won the right to vote. During WWI, Denmark, Russia, Germany, and Poland also recognized women's right to vote.
Canada gave right to vote to some women in 1917; women getting vote on same basis as men in 1920, that is, men and women of certain races or status being excluded from voting until 1960, when universal adult suffrage was achieved.[48]
TheRepresentation of the People Act 1918 saw British women over 30 gain the vote. Dutch women won the passive vote (allowed to run for parliament) after a revision of the Dutch Constitution in 1917 and the active vote (electing representatives) in 1919, and American women on August 26, 1920, with the passage of the19th Amendment (theVoting Rights Act of 1965 secured voting rights for racial minorities). Irish women won the same voting rights as men in theIrish Free State constitution, 1922. In 1928, British women won suffrage on the same terms as men, that is, for ages 21 and older. The suffrage of Turkish women was introduced in 1930 for local elections and in 1934 for national elections.
By the time French women were granted the suffrage in July 1944 byCharles de Gaulle's government in exile, by a vote of 51 for, 16 against,[49] France had been for about a decade the only Western country that did not at least allow women's suffrage at municipal elections.[50]
Voting rights for women were introduced intointernational law by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, whose elected chair wasEleanor Roosevelt. In 1948 the United Nations adopted theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights; Article 21 stated: "(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."
One of the most recent jurisdictions to acknowledge women's full right to vote wasBhutan in 2008 (its first national elections).[51] Most recently, KingAbdullah of Saudi Arabia, after both national and international condemnation and activism by feminist groups, granted Saudi women the vote and right to run for office for the first time in the2015 local elections.[52][53]
After selling her home, British activistEmmeline Pankhurst travelled constantly, giving speeches throughout Britain and the United States. One of her most famous speeches,Freedom or death, was delivered in Connecticut in 1913.
The suffrage movement was a broad one, made up of women and men with a wide range of views. In terms of diversity, the greatest achievement of the 20th-century woman suffrage movement was its extremely broad class base.[54] One major division, especially in Britain, was between suffragists, who sought to create change constitutionally, andsuffragettes, led by English political activistEmmeline Pankhurst, who in 1903 formed the more militantWomen's Social and Political Union.[55] Pankhurst would not be satisfied with anything but action on the question of women's enfranchisement, with "deeds, not words" the organization's motto.[56][57]
Elizabeth Cady Stanton andLucretia Mott were the first two women in America to organize the women's rights convention in July 1848.Susan B. Anthony later joined the movement and helped form theNational Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in May 1869. Their goal was to change the 15th Amendment because it did not mention nor include women which is why the NWSA protested against it. Around the same time, there was also another group of women who supported the 15th amendment and they called themselvesAmerican Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The American Woman Suffrage Association was founded byLucy Stone,Julia Ward Howe, andThomas Wentworth Higginson, who were more focused on gaining access at a local level.[58] The two groups united became one and called themselves the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).[58]
Throughout the world, theWomen's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was established in the United States in 1873, campaigned for women's suffrage, in addition to ameliorating the condition of prostitutes.[59][60] Under the leadership ofFrances Willard, "the WCTU became the largest women's organization of its day and is now the oldest continuing women's organization in the United States."[61]
There was also a diversity of views on a "woman's place". Suffragist themes often included the notions that women were naturally kinder and more concerned about children and the elderly. As Kraditor shows, it was often assumed that women voters would have a civilizing effect on politics, opposing domestic violence, liquor, and emphasizing cleanliness and community. An opposing theme, Kraditor argues, held that women had the same moral standards. They should be equal in every way and that there was no such thing as a woman's "natural role".[62][63]
For Black women in the United States, achieving suffrage was a way to counter the disfranchisement of the men of their race.[64] Despite this discouragement, black suffragists continued to insist on their equal political rights. Starting in the 1890s, African American women began to assert their political rights aggressively from within their own clubs and suffrage societies.[65] "If white American women, with all their natural and acquired advantages, need the ballot," arguedAdella Hunt Logan of Tuskegee, Alabama, "how much more do black Americans, male and female, need the strong defense of a vote to help secure their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?"[64]
Scholars have proposed different theories for variations in the timing of women's suffrage across countries. These explanations include the activism of social movements, cultural diffusion and normative change, the electoral calculations of political parties, and the occurrence of major wars.[66][67] According to Adam Przeworski, women's suffrage tends to be extended in the aftermath of major wars.[66]
1917 (by application of the Russian legislation) 1919 March (by adoption of its own legislation)[76]
On June 21 and 23, 1919, first direct parliamentary elections were held in Armenia under universal suffrage – every person over the age of 20 had the right to vote regardless of gender, ethnicity or religious beliefs. The 80-seat legislature contained three women deputies:Katarine Zalyan-Manukyan,Perchuhi Partizpanyan-Barseghyan andVarvara Sahakyan.[77][78]
1902 (Voting granted at Federal level except for "natives of Australia, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Islands (other than New Zealand)")
1962 (full)
Female vote won at the colony/state level:Colony of South Australia 1895,Colony of Western Australia 1899 (with racial restrictions), New South Wales 1902, Tasmania 1903, Queensland 1905 (with racial restrictions) and Victoria 1908. Indigenous Australians were not given the right to vote in all states until 1966.[79][80]
Married women (and by default widowed women) gained the right to vote on January 18, 1937, in local elections, but could not run for office. Single women were excluded from voting. Full voting rights were bestowed by the communist regime in September 1944 and reaffirmed by an electoral law reform on June 15, 1945.[85]
1917–1919 for most of Canada; Prince Edward Island in 1922; Newfoundland in 1925; Quebec in 1940; 1960 for Aboriginal People without requiring them to give up their status as before
To help win amandate for conscription during World War I, the federalConservative government ofRobert Borden granted the vote in 1917 to war widows, women serving overseas, and the female relatives of men serving overseas. However, the same legislation, theWartime Elections Act, disenfranchised those who became naturalized Canadian citizens after 1902. Women over 21 who were "not alien-born" and who met certain property qualifications were allowed to vote in federal elections in 1918. Women first won the vote provincially in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta in 1916; British Columbia and Ontario in 1917; Nova Scotia in 1918; New Brunswick in 1919 (women could not run for New Brunswick provincial office until 1934); Prince Edward Island in 1922; Newfoundland in 1925 (which did not join Confederation until 1949); and Quebec in 1940.[86]
Aboriginal men and women were not given the right to vote until 1960; previously, they could only vote if they gave up their treaty status. It was not until 1948, when Canada signed the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that it was forced to examine the issue of discrimination against Aboriginal people.[87]
Despite that Ecuador granted women suffrage in 1929, which was earlier than most independent countries in Latin America (except for Uruguay, which granted women suffrage in 1917), differences between men's and women's suffrage in Ecuador were only removed in 1967 (before 1967 women's vote was optional, while that of men was compulsory; since 1967 it is compulsory for both sexes).[84][89]
Women obtained in 1939 suffrage with restrictions requiring literacy and a higher age. All restrictions were lifted in 1950 allowing women to vote, but women obtained the right to stand for elections only in 1961.[90]
Universal suffrage was declared by theRussian Provisional Government (in control of the then governorate of Estonia) on 15 March 1917 and applied in the elections of theConstituent Assembly. After becoming independent in 1918, Estonia continued its universal suffrage.
Universal suffrage was established in 1840, which meant that women could vote. Opposition resulted in a specific denial of women's suffrage in the 1852 constitution.
After 1919 men could vote from the age of 24 while women only gained the right to vote from the age of 30. There were also educational and economical criteria set for both genders, but all criteria were higher for women. After 1945 both men and women gained universal suffrage from the age of 20.
From 1918, with the rest of the United Kingdom, women could vote at 30 with property qualifications or in university constituencies, while men could vote at 21 with no qualification. From separation in 1922, theIrish Free State gave equal voting rights to men and women.[97]
Women's suffrage was granted with thedeclaration of independence. But prior to that in the Jewish settlement in Palestine, suffrage was granted in 1920.
Suffrage for both men and women were given at same date, same year right after the first constitutional law had been announced. Up to 1910, it was Korean Empire with despotic monarchy, so no one had the suffrage, and from 1910 to 1945, Korea was a colony of Japan, so again no one had suffrage for the Japanese Empire. From 1945 to 1948, South part of Korea was ruled by United States Army Military Government in Korea, so still no one had any suffrage for the government. From the first constitutional law of Korea, Korea adopted egalitarianism, giving the suffrage for both men and women at the same time.
In 1952, after a 30-year long battle for suffrage, the bill allowing Lebanese women to vote passed.[104] In 1957, a requirement for women (but not men) to have elementary education before voting was dropped, as was voting being compulsory for men.[105]
As part of theKingdom of Romania, women who met certain qualifications were allowed to vote in local elections, starting in 1929. After theConstitution of 1938, voting rights were extended to women for general elections by the Electoral Law 1939.[107] In 1940, after the formation of theMoldavian SSR, equal voting rights were granted to men and women.
While, technically,elections take place in Oman, this is only to elect a consultative assembly with no power, as Oman is anabsolute monarchy. Municipal suffrage introduced in Muscat in 1994, municipal suffrage in all Oman in 1996, and national suffrage in 2002.[108]
Women (and men) first voted in local elections in theWest Bank in 1972. Women (and men) first elected a Palestinian parliament in1996. However, the last general election was in2006; there was supposed to be another in 2014 but elections have been delayed indefinitely.
With restrictions in 1911, later made illegal again until 1931 when it was reinstated with restrictions,[109] restrictions other than age requirements lifted in 1976.[109][110]
Starting in 1929, women who met certain qualifications were allowed to vote in local elections. After theConstitution from 1938, the voting rights were extended to women for general elections by the Electoral Law 1939. Women could vote on equal terms with men, but both men and women had restrictions, and in practice the restrictions affected women more than men. In 1946, full equal voting rights were granted to men and women.[107]
Women briefly held the right to vote from 1924 to 1926, but an absence of elections meant they never had the opportunity to go to the polls until 1933, after earning the right to vote in the 1931 Constitution passed after the elections.[114][117][118] The government fell after only two elections in which women could vote, and no one would vote again until after the death ofFrancisco Franco.[117]
In 1945, the island of Taiwan was returned from Japan to China. In 1947, women won the suffrage under theConstitution of the Republic of China. In 1949, the Government of the Republic of China (ROC) lost mainland China and moved to Taiwan.
Suffrage was granted for the first time in 1925 to either sex, to men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30, as in the United Kingdom (the "Mother Country", since Trinidad and Tobago was still a colony at the time)[121] In 1945, full suffrage was granted to women.[122]
From 1918 to 1928, women could vote at 30 with property qualifications or as graduates of UK universities, while men could vote at 21 with no qualification. From 1928 women had equal suffrage with men.
Before the ratification of theNineteenth Amendment in 1920, individual states had passed legislation that allowed women to vote in different types of elections; some only allowed women to vote in school or municipal elections, some required women to own property if they wanted to vote, and some territories extended full suffrage to women, only to take it away once they became states.[126] Many states allowed women to hold a few office positions before gaining the right to vote.[127] Although legally entitled to vote, black people (including black women) were effectivelydenied voting rights in numerous Southern states until 1965.
Uruguay was the first country in all of the Americas – and one of the first in the world – to grant women fully equal civil rights and universal suffrage (in its Constitution of 1917), though this suffrage was first exercised in 1927, in the1927 Cerro Chato referendum,[128] and was put into national law through a decree in 1932.[129] The first national election in which women voted was the1938 Uruguayan general election.[130]
ThePope, elected by the all-maleCollege of Cardinals through a secret ballot, is the leader of the Catholic Church, and exercises ex officio supreme legislative, executive, and judicial power over the State of the Vatican City.[131]
Women's suffrage was in place in Algeria from 1962.
Women's suffrage was introduced in Algeria by the French colonial authorities after a long struggle, and confirmed after Algeria became an independent nation in 1962.Women's suffrage was introduced in France in 1944. This right automatically included French women residing in French Algeria; but it did not include Muslim Algerian women, since indigenous Algerians was not governed by French law, but indigenous Islamic law.[133]
The advocates of women's suffrage raised the question of an extension of suffrage to Muslim women in Algeria to the French National Assembly in 1947;[134] in September 1947 the Organic Statute was passed which granted citizenship to Muslim women in Algeria, but Article 4 of the statue gave the Algerian Assembly free choice to decide when to exercise and introduce that reform.[134] In 1949 the Justrabo Proposal put forvard in the Algerian Assembly suggested to extend suffrage to educated Muslim women, which was a very small minority, but the suggestion did not pass.[135]
When the UN created theCommission on the Status of Women (CSW) the French UN-delegateMarie-Hélène Lefaucheux worked to have France ratify it in order to force them to introduce suffrage in Algeria.[136] She succeeded on 20 December 1952 when General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Political Rights of Women.[137]After this, there was great pressure on France to introduce this reform in the Algerian colony. The French colonial authorities finally passed women's suffrage in 1958.[138]
Algeria became an independent nation in 1962, and the Algerian Constitution of 1962 confirmed the existing equal political rights to vote and be elected to all citizens.[139]
The struggle for women's suffrage in Egypt first sparked from the nationalist1919 Revolution in which women of all classes took to the streets in protest against the British occupation. The struggle was led by severalEgyptian women's rights pioneers in the first half of the 20th century through protest, journalism, and lobbying, and through women's organizations, primarily theEgyptian Feminist Union (EFU). PresidentGamal Abdel-Nasser consolidated women's suffrage in 1956 after they were denied the vote in elections for the Egyptian government under the British, who suppressed popular movement and interfered with democratic processes in parliament under the Egyptian monarchy.[140]
InKingdom of Libya (1951–1969) the 1951 Constitution did secure women basic rights, since they were not excluded from the rights granted to all citizens under the constitution. A women's movement was organized by a minority of educated urban elite women who wished to secure women equal rights, starting with the first women's association in Benghazi 1955, followed by one in Tripoli in 1957.[143]
The municipal suffrage was granted in 1951.[106] The Constitution of 1963 extended the suffrage to women.[144]
Women's suffrage was introduced in Morocco in 1963.[96]
The right to vote was technically granted for both the local and national levels on 1 September 1959.[145] This right was however not enforced until 18 June 1963.
The first woman was elected to Parliament in 1993, thirty years after women first participated in the election as voters.
One of the first occasions when women were able to vote was in the elections of theNova Scotian settlers atFreetown. In the 1792 elections, all heads of household could vote and one-third were ethnic African women.[146]Women won the right to vote in Sierra Leone in 1930.[147]
The franchise was extended towhite women 21 years or older by theWomen's Enfranchisement Act, 1930. The first general election at which women could vote was the1933 election. At that electionLeila Reitz (wife ofDeneys Reitz) was elected as the first female MP, representingParktown for theSouth African Party. The limited voting rights available to non-white men in theCape Province andNatal (Transvaal and theOrange Free State practically denied all non-whites the right to vote, and had also done so to white foreign nationals when independent in the 1800s) were not extended to women, and were themselves progressively eliminated between 1936 and 1968.
The right to vote for the Transkei Legislative Assembly, established in 1963 for theTranskeibantustan, was granted to all adult citizens of the Transkei, including women. Similar provision was made for the Legislative Assemblies created for other bantustans. All adultcoloured citizens were eligible to vote for theColoured Persons Representative Council, which was established in 1968 with limited legislative powers; the council was however abolished in 1980. Similarly, all adultIndian citizens were eligible to vote for theSouth African Indian Council in 1981. In 1984 theTricameral Parliament was established, and the right to vote for theHouse of Representatives andHouse of Delegates was granted to all adult Coloured and Indian citizens, respectively.
In 1994 the bantustans and the Tricameral Parliament were abolished and the right to vote for theNational Assembly was granted to all adult citizens.
Southern Rhodesian white women won the vote in 1919 andEthel Tawse Jollie (1875–1950) was elected to the Southern Rhodesia legislature 1920–1928, the first woman to sit in any national Commonwealth Parliament outside Westminster. The influx of women settlers from Britain proved a decisive factor in the 1922 referendum that rejected annexation by a South Africa increasingly under the sway of traditionalistAfrikaner Nationalists in favor of Rhodesian Home Rule or "responsible government". Black Rhodesian males qualified for the vote in 1923 (based only upon property, assets, income, and literacy). It is unclear when the first black woman qualified for the vote.
Women's suffrage was introduced in Tunisia in 1957.
The context of the introduction of women's suffrage in Tunisia was a part of a big reform program in women's rights. Tunisia became an independent nation in 1956 and saw a number of progressive reforms in favor of women's rights under the Secular PresidentHabib Bourguiba, whose Code of Personal Statue (CSP) replaced the Islamicsharia law with a secular family law: raised the age of marriage, abolished arranged marriages and polygamy and introduced equal divorce law, as well as breaking Islamic sex segregation and encouraged women to appear unveiled.[149] This progressive policy was completed by the introduction of women's suffrage the same year. Women were granted the right to vote in 1957, and became eligible for political office in 1959.[150]
Women were granted suffrage in 1919 but elections were abolished in 1929.[151] Women were again granted suffrage in 1964,[152][153][154] and have been able to vote inAfghanistan since 1965 (except during Taliban rule, 1996–2001, when no elections were held).[155] As of 2009[update], women have been casting fewer ballots in part due to being unaware of their voting rights.[156] In the 2014 election, Afghanistan's elected president pledged to bring women equal rights.[157]
In early 2021, there were 69 women elected as Members of Parliament in Afghanistan; however, after theFall of Kabul in late 2021, 60 of them fled the country.[158] Legally, women are allowed to vote.[159] However, there have been no government elections in the country since 2021, and all political parties have been banned since 2023.[160][161]
TheBahrain formally introduced women's suffrage in 2002, when Article 1, Paragraph E, of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bahrain, explicitly included women in the citizens eligible to vote.[162]
Bangladesh was (mostly) the province of Bengal inBritish India until 1947 when it became part ofPakistan. It became an independent nation in 1971. Women have had equal suffrage since 1947, and they have reserved seats in parliament. Bangladesh is notable in that since 1991, two women, namelySheikh Hasina andBegum Khaleda Zia, have served terms as the country's Prime Minister continuously. Women have traditionally played a minimal role in politics beyond the anomaly of the two leaders; few used to run against men; few have been ministers. Recently, however, women have become more active in politics, with several prominent ministerial posts given to women and women participating in national, district and municipal elections against men and winning on several occasions.Choudhury andHasanuzzaman argue that the strong patriarchal traditions of Bangladesh explain why women are so reluctant to stand up in politics.[163]
The fight for women's suffrage inChina was organized whenTang Qunying founded the women's suffrage organizationNüzi chanzheng tongmenghui, to ensure that women's suffrage would be included in the first Constitution drafted after the abolition of theChinese monarchy in 1911–1912.[164] A short but intense period of campaigning was ended with failure in 1914.
In the following period, local governments in China introduced women's suffrage in their own territories, such asHunan andGuangdong in 1921 andSichuan in 1923.[165]
Women's suffrage was included by theKuomintang Government in the Constitution of 1936,[166] but because of the war, the reform could not be enacted until after the war and was finally introduced in 1947.[166]
Women in India were allowed to vote right from the first general elections after the independence of India in 1947 unlike during the British rule who resisted allowing women to vote.[167] TheWomen's Indian Association (WIA) was founded in 1917. It sought votes for women and the right to hold legislative office on the same basis as men. These positions were endorsed by the main political groupings, theIndian National Congress.[168] British andIndian feminists combined in 1918 to publish a magazineStri Dharma that featured international news from a feminist perspective.[169] In 1919 in theMontagu–Chelmsford Reforms, the British set up provincial legislatures which had the power to grant women's suffrage. Madras in 1921 granted votes to wealthy and educated women, under the same terms that applied to men. The other provinces followed, but not the princely states (which did not have votes for men either, being monarchies).[168] InBengal province, the provincial assembly rejected it in 1921 but Southard shows an intense campaign produced victory in 1921. Success in Bengal depended on middle class Indian women, who emerged from a fast-growing urban elite. The women leaders in Bengal linked their crusade to a moderate nationalist agenda, by showing how they could participate more fully in nation-building by having voting power. They carefully avoided attacking traditional gender roles by arguing that traditions could coexist with political modernization.[170]
Whereas wealthy and educated women in Madras were granted voting right in 1921, in Punjab theSikhs granted women equal voting rights in 1925, irrespective of their educational qualifications or being wealthy or poor. This happened when the Gurdwara Act of 1925 was approved. The original draft of the Gurdwara Act sent by the British to theSharomani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC) did not include Sikh women, but the Sikhs inserted the clause without the women having to ask for it. Equality of women with men is enshrined in theGuru Granth Sahib, thesacred scripture of the Sikh faith.
In theGovernment of India Act 1935 theBritish Raj set up a system of separate electorates and separate seats for women. Most women's leaders opposed segregated electorates and demanded adult franchise. In 1931 the Congress promised universal adult franchise when it came to power. It enacted equal voting rights for both men and women in 1947.[168]
Indonesia granted women voting rights for municipal councils in 1905. Only men who could read and write could vote, which excluded many non-European males. At the time, theliteracy rate for males was 11% and for females 2%. The main group that pressed for women's suffrage in Indonesia was the DutchVereeninging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (VVV-Women's Suffrage Association), founded in theNetherlands in 1894. VVV tried to attract Indonesian members, but had very limited success because the leaders of the organization had little skill in relating to even the educated class of Indonesians. When they eventually did connect somewhat with women, they failed to sympathize with them and ended up alienating many well-educated Indonesians. In 1918, the first national representative body, theVolksraad, was formed which still excluded women from voting. Indigenous women did not organize until thePerikatan Perempuan Indonesia (PPI, Indonesian Women Association) in 1928. In 1935, the colonial administration used its power of nomination to appoint a European woman to the Volksraad. In 1938, women gained the right to be elected to urban representative institutions, which led to some Indonesian and European women entering municipal councils. Eventually, only European women and municipal councils could vote,[clarification needed] excluding all other women andlocal councils. In September 1941, the Volksraad extended the vote to women of all races. Finally, in November 1941, the right to vote for municipal councils was granted to all women on a similar basis to men (subject to property and educational qualifications).[171]
Women's suffrage had been expressly excluded in the Iranian Constitution of 1906 and a women's rights movement had been organized, which supported women's suffrage.
In 1942, theWomen's party of Iran (Ḥezb-e zanān-e Īrān) was founded to work to introduce the reform, and in 1944, the women's group of theTudeh Party of Iran, theDemocratic Society of Women (Jāmeʿa-ye demokrāt-e zanān) put forward a suggestion of women's suffrage in the Parliament, which was however blocked by the Islamic conservatives.[172] In 1956, a new campaign for women's suffrage was launched by theNew Path Society (Jamʿīyat-e rāh-e now), the Association of Women Lawyers (Anjoman-e zanān-e ḥoqūqdān) and the League of Women Supporters of Human Rights (Jamʿīyat-e zanān-e ṭarafdār-e ḥoqūq-e bašar).[172]
After this, the reform was actively supported by the Shah and included as a part of his modernization program, theWhite Revolution. Areferendum in January 1963 overwhelmingly approved by voters gave women the right to vote, a right previously denied to them under theIranian Constitution of 1906 pursuant to Chapter 2, Article 3.[155]
Full women's suffrage was introduced in Iraq in 1980.
The campaign for women's suffrage started in the 1920s. The women's movement in Iraq organized in 1923 with theNahda al-Nisa (Women's Awakening Club), led byAsma al-Zahawi and with elite women such as Naima a-Said, and Fakhriyya al-Askari among their members.[173]King Faysal himself had supported women's suffrage during his prior short tenure as king in Syria. Feminists such asMary Wazir andPaulina Hasun raised the issue in the 1920s.[173] Paulina Hassan published the first Iraqi women's magazine,Layla, in 1923–1925, followed by a number of women's magazines in the 1930s and 1940s that voiced feminist demands.[174] When the Constituent Assembly of Iraq was inaugurated in 1924, Paulina Hassun appealed to the Assembly that women should not be excluded from political participation in the new nation, and one of the members, Amjad al-Umari, unsuccessfully proposed that the word "male" be erased from the Electoral Law to include women in it.[175]
The Women's suffrage reform was primarily supported by the opposition parties, notably theIraq Communist Party.[176]During the 1930s, the Communist ICP and the leftist al-Ahali supported women's suffrage.[175] Even those supporting the reform, however, often did so with the reservation that woman should reach a higher level of education before they were ready for it.[176]
The Iraqi monarchy prioritized foreign policy rather than internal issues and showed little enthusiasm to address the issue of women's suffrage.[177]The monarchy was careful to avoid alienating conservative and religious circles, who considered women's suffrage as incompatible with the "nature" of women, the proper social order and gender hierarchies, and women's suffrage was not given refused serious consideration.[175] Both the Sunni and Shia clergy rejected women's suffrage as being in opposition to the natural roles of gender, as the "joke of the day", an attack on the law of nature and the proper way of life, since women were the weaker sex and "lesser persons" similar to children.[175]When women's suffrage in Syria was introduced in 1949, MP Farhan al-Irs of al-Amara commented: "Women are shameful. How could they possibly sit with men?"[175]
In 1951 a motion to include women in the Electoral Law was rejected in the Chamber of Deputies.[175]During the discussion to change the electoral law to include women's suffrage in March–April 1951, the MP Abd al-Abbas of Diwaniyya opposed suffrage as this would contradict Islamic sex segregation, as elected women MP would then sit among male MPs in the Chamber of Deputies: "Is this not forbidden? Are we not all of Islam?"[175]
An electoral decree in December 1952 provided direct elections but did not include women.[175]A Sunni scholar published an article in the paper al-Sijill in October 1952 named "The Crime of Equality Between Men and Women": as an imam and khatib of the mosques of Baghdad and scholar of the al-Azhar University, he stated that women's suffrage was a plot against Islam and contrary to Quranic verses which delineated gender hierarchies that made women in politics incompatible.[175]
A number of women's organization was founded in the 1940s and 1950s that campaigned for women's rights including suffrage, notably theIraqi Union for Women's Rights (1952).[176]Naziha al-Dulaimi of theLeague for Defence of Women's Rights (Iraqi Women's League), which gathered 42,000 members, campaigned for gender equality (including suffrage), organized educational programs, provided social services, established 78 literacy centers, and drafted the 1959 Personal Status Law, which was accepted and introduced by the Government.[178] In the 1950s the Iraqi Women's Union petitioned senior state figures including the prime minister and wrote articles in the press.[175]
A Week of Women's Rights was launched in October 1953 by Iraqi Women's Union suffrage, who arranged a sumposium and voiced their demand in radio programs and articles in the press to campaigned for women's suffrage.[175]As a response, the Islamic clergy launched a Week of Virtue and called for a general strike against women's suffrage and called for women to "stay at home" since women's suffrage was against Islam.[175] During the Week of Virtue, the Sunni Nihal al-Zahawi, daughter of Amjad al-Zahawi, head of the Muslim Sisters Society (Jamiyyat al-Aukht al-Muslima), spoke on the radio against women's suffrage: she described the suffragists as women who revolted against the very Islam that gave them rights, and that women's suffrage was lamentable since it broke sex segregation and resulted in gender mixing, which was an unrestricted liberty that broke the rules of against Islam.[175]
A breakthrough came in 1958. During the Arab Union ofIraq-Jordan, the Iraqi Constitution was set, in March 1958, to be amended to include women's suffrage later that year, but the matter became moot when the monarchy was abolished in July that year.[175]An unnamed MP to the newspaper al-Hawadith that he could never run against a female candidate, since if he lost he would have lost to a woman, which would have been dishonorable, and if he won, he would only have won over a woman; he claimed many male MPs felt the same, and that voters would also feel dishonored by being represented and ruled by a woman.[175] The MP Tawfq al-Mukhtar commented to a reporter: "Friends, women's rights bother me a lot, and anybody who condemns or criticizes them gives me great pleasure"; he added that he would withdraw if he was put against a female candidate, and he was one of four MPs to vote against the proposed amendment of March 1958.[175]
In 1958 the Iraqi Monarchy was replaced by the Baathis regime. The early Baathist regime saw women's emancipation in many aspects, with urban liberal modernist women enjoying professional and educational equality and appearing unveiled.[179]TheBaathist Party supported women's rights by principle, though it initially focused in expanding women's educational and professional rights rather than their political rights.[173]Article 19 of the Iraqi Provisional Constitution of 1970 granted all Iraqi citizens equal before the law regardless of sex, blood, language, social origin or religion, and the state women's umbrella organizationGeneral Foundation of Iraqi Women (GFIW) of 1972 guaranteed women's full equal rights in the professional and educational sphere, prevented all discrimination and recognized women's political participation in principle.[180]However, while women's rights progressed in other aspects, the political rights was delayed. The regime was unstable and saw four regime changes in the 1960s.[179]
In 1980 full suffrage was granted and women were given the right to vote and be elected to political office.[95][96]The suffrage reform was granted when the new Iraq National Assembly was formed before the 1980s Elections, and 16 of 250 seats where filled by women.[181]
In 1920, theUnion of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights in Erez Israel launched a campaign that women's suffrage and equal rights for women should be included in the Jewish Authority of the BritishPalestina Mandate; in 1926, the Jewish Authority granted women's suffrage to the Jewish Authority, and declared that women would be given equal right to vote in the future Jewish State, a promise that was fullfilled upon the foundation of Israel in 1947, followed by equal rights being included in the Constitution of 1951.[182]
Although women were allowed to vote in some prefectures in 1880, women's suffrage was enacted at a national level in 1945 with the end of the world war.[183]
The campaign for women's suffrage started in 1923, when the women's umbrella organizationTokyo Rengo Fujinkai was founded and created several sub groups to address different women's issues, one of whom,Fusen Kakutoku Domei (FKD), was to work for the introduction of women's suffrage and political rights.[184] The campaign was gradually reduced due to difficulties in the 1930s fascist era; the FKD was banned after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese war, and women's suffrage could not be introduced until it was incorporated in the new constitution after the war.[185]
Suffrage were given to educated women in 1955, but the Federation continued to campaign for universal suffrage for women, collecting the thumb prints as signatures from illiterate women in support for women's suffrage.[99] Universal women's suffrage was finally granted in 1974. However, since no elections was held in Jordan until 1989, women's suffrage was not enforced until that year.
When voting was first introduced in Kuwait in 1985, Kuwaiti women had theright to vote.[187] The right was later removed. In May 2005, the Kuwaiti parliament re-granted female suffrage.[188]
After the1970 Omani coup d'état, women's position in society was being reassessed in connection to the national modernization program, and many reforms in women's rights was introduced alongside the establishment of the state feministOmani Women's Association.
The modernization in women's rights in Oman was followed by municipal suffrage in Muscat in 1994 (with the first two women elected to the local Shura the same year), municipal suffrage in all Oman in 1996, and national suffrage in 2002.[108]
The provinces that now constitutePakistan were a part of northwestBritish India until 1947, when thepartition of India occurred. Women received full suffrage in 1947.Muslim women leaders from all classes actively supported the Pakistan movement in the mid-1940s. Their movement was led by wives and other relatives of leading politicians. Women were sometimes organized into large-scale public demonstrations.In November 1988,Benazir Bhutto became the first Muslim woman to be elected as prime minister of a Muslim country.[190]
Philippine PresidentManuel L. Quezon signing the Women's Suffrage Bill following the 1937 plebiscite
The Philippines was one of the first countries in Asia to grant women the right to vote.[191] The women's movement organized in the early 20th-century in organizations such as theAsociacion Feminista Filipina (1904) theSociety for the Advancement of Women (SAW) and theAsociaction Feminist Ilonga, who campaigned for women's suffrage and other rights for gender equality.[192] Suffrage forFilipinas was achieved following an all-female,special plebiscite held on April 30, 1937. 447,725 – some ninety percent – voted in favour of women's suffrage against 44,307 who voted no. In compliance with the1935 Constitution, theNational Assembly passed a law which extended the right of suffrage to women, which remains to this day.[193][191]
In late September 2011,KingAbdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud declared that women would be able to vote and run for officestarting in 2015. That applies to the municipal councils, which are the kingdom's only semi-elected bodies. Half of the seats on municipal councils are elective, and the councils have few powers.[195] The council elections have been held since 2005 (the first time they were held before that was the 1960s).[196][197] Saudi women did first vote and first run for office in December 2015, for those councils.[198]Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi became the first elected female politician in Saudi Arabia in December 2015, when she won a seat on the council in Madrakah in Mecca province.[199] In all, the December 2015 election in Saudi Arabia resulted in twenty women being elected to municipal councils.[200]
The king declared in 2011 that women would be eligible to be appointed to theShura Council, an unelected body that issues advisory opinions on national policy.[201]'"This is great news," said Saudi writer and women's rights activistWajeha al-Huwaider. "Women's voices will finally be heard. Now it is time to remove other barriers like not allowingwomen to drive cars and not being able to function, to live a normal life without male guardians."'Robert Lacey, author of two books about the kingdom, said, "This is the first positive, progressive speech out of the government since theArab Spring.... 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.[196] In January 2013,King Abdullah issued two royal decrees, granting women thirty seats on the council, and stating that women must always hold at least a fifth of the seats on the council.[202] According to the decrees, the female council members must be "committed to Islamic Shariah disciplines without any violations" and be "restrained by the religious veil".[202] The decrees also said that the female council members would be entering the council building from special gates, sit in seats reserved for women and pray in special worshipping places.[202] Earlier, officials said that a screen would separate genders and an internal communications network would allow men and women to communicate.[202] Women first joined the council in 2013, holding a total of thirty seats.[203][204] There are two Saudi royal women among these thirty female members of the assembly,Sara bint Faisal Al Saud andMoudi bint Khalid Al Saud.[205] Furthermore, in 2013 three women were named as deputy chairpersons of three committees: Thurayya Obeid was named deputy chairwoman of the human rights and petitions committee, Zainab Abu Talib, deputy chairwoman of the information and cultural committee, and Lubna Al Ansari, deputy chairwoman of the health affairs and environment committee.[203]
While the women's suffrage reform was supported by the women's magazineNur al-Faya ofNazik al-Abid andal-Arus of Mary Ajami, there was no organized suffrage movement in Syria, and the majority was convinced that women preserved their virtue by staying away from politics.[206]
In 1920, the feministMary Ajami presented a petition to the Syrian Congress of 1920 during theFaisal-Government, but the subject was postphoned and forgotten after the fall of the Faisal regime.[206] When the petition of women's suffrage was discussed in the Syrian Congress in 1920,Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Kaylani stated that to given women the right to vote would be the same thing as abolish sex segregation and allow women to appear unveiled.[207]
In the 1930s and 1940s, theArab Women's Union of Damascus presented a women's suffrage petition to PresidentHashim al-Atassi and to PresidentShukri al-Quwatli, as well as directly to the Parliament.[208]When the influential feministAdila Bayhum gave her support toHusni al-Za'im, he promised her to introduce women's suffrage when he came to power in 1949, and the reform was finally introduced in 1953.[209]
In 1931,Sri Lanka (at that time Ceylon) became 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 Lankan political arena.
The zenith of this favourable condition to women has been the 1960 July General Elections, in which Ceylon elected the world's first female prime minister,Sirimavo Bandaranaike. She became the world's first democratically elected female head of government. Her daughter,Chandrika Kumaratunga also became the Prime Minister later in 1994, and the same year she was elected as theExecutive president of Sri Lanka, making her the fourth woman in the world to be elected president, and the first female executive president.
The Ministry of Interior's Local Administrative Act of May 1897 (Phraraachabanyat 1897 [BE 2440]) granted municipal suffrage in the election of village leader to all villagers "whose house or houseboat was located in that village," and explicitly included women voters who met the qualifications.[211] This was a part of the far-reaching administrative reforms enacted by KingChulalongkorn (r. 1868–1919), in his efforts to protect Thai sovereignty.[211]
In the new constitution introduced after theSiamese revolution of 1932, which transformed Siam from an absolute monarchy to a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, women were granted the right to vote and run for office.[212] This reform was enacted without any prior activism in favor of women's suffrage and was followed by a number of reforms in women's rights, and it has been suggested that the reform was part of an effort byPridi Bhanomyong to put Thailand on equal political terms with modern Western powers and establish diplomatic recognition by those as a modern nation.[212] The new right was used for the first time in 1933, and the first female MPs were elected in 1949.
Historically Yemen was divided in two nations prior to its unification in 1990, both of whom already had women's suffrage prior to the unification. The history of women's suffrage is therefore split.
Women's suffrage was granted inSouth Yemen in 1967.[214] The reform was a part of a number of reforms introduced in women's rights under Socialist rule. When thePeople's Democratic Republic of Yemen was founded as an independent nation under the Socialist NLF Party in 1967, theGeneral Union of Yemeni Women was founded as a part of the regime's policy. The purpose of the GUYW was to enforce the official women's policy of the People's Democratic Republic regime, which was a radical and ambitionsstate feminism.[215]
Women's suffrage was granted in North Yemen in 1970. The NorthernYemen Arab Republic was a deeply conservative state with sharia law and no strong women's movement, were no reforms in women's rights were not prioritised during the Yemen civil war of 1962–1970. However, the Second Permanent Constitution of 1970 stated that "all citizens are equal before the law"; and while this phrase did not explicitly include women, women voters used this phrase to vote in the next election, which was held in 1983.[216]
The Principality of Andorra introduced women's suffrage in 1970 (third last in Europe), though Andorra did not have a democratic constitution until 1993.[221]
In 1969, 3708 signatures demanding women's suffrage and eligibility was presented to the Andorra Council Parliament. In April 1970, women's suffrage was introduced after a vote with 10 votes for and eight against, while however eligibility was voted down.[222] Women's eligibility was introduced on 5 September 1973.[222] The first woman became MP in 1984.
After the breakdown of theHabsburg monarchy in 1918,Austria granted the general, equal, direct and secret right to vote to all citizens, regardless of sex, through the change of the electoral code in December 1918.[81] The first elections in which women participated were theFebruary 1919 Constituent Assembly elections.[223]
Universal voting rights were recognized in Azerbaijan in 1918 by theAzerbaijan Democratic Republic.[83] Thus, making Azerbaijan the first Muslim-majority country to enfranchise women.[224] This early commitment to women's rights was part of a broader movement towards secularization and modernization in the country.
A revision of the constitution in October 1921 (it changed art. 47 of theConstitution of Belgium of 1831) introduced the general right to vote according to the "one man, one vote" principle. Art. 47 allowed widows of World War I to vote at the national level as well.[225] 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 byspecial law (meaning it needed a 2/3 majority to pass).[226] Belgian socialists opposed the women's suffrage, fearing their conservative leanings and their "domination" by the clergy.[227] This happened on March 27, 1948. In Belgium, voting is compulsory.
Bulgaria left Ottoman rule in 1878. Although the first adopted constitution, theTarnovo Constitution (1879), gave women equal election rights, in fact women were disenfranchised, not allowed to vote and to be elected. TheBulgarian Women's Union was an umbrella organization of the 27 local women's organisations that had been established in Bulgaria since 1878. It was founded as a reply to the limitations of women's education and access to university studies in the 1890s, with the goal to further women's intellectual development and participation, arranged national congresses and usedZhenski glas as its organ. However, they had limited success, and women were allowed to vote and to be elected only after whenCommunist rule was established.
In the formerBohemia, taxpaying women and women in "learned profession[s]" were allowed to vote by proxy and made eligible to the legislative body in 1864.[228] The first Czech female MP was elected to the Diet of Bohemia in 1912. The Declaration of Independence of the Czechoslovak Nation from October 18, 1918, declared that "our democracy shall rest on universal suffrage. Women shall be placed on equal footing with men, politically, socially, and culturally," and women were appointed to the Revolutionary National Assembly (parliament) on November 13, 1918. On June 15, 1919, women voted in local elections for the first time. Women were guaranteed equal voting rights by theconstitution of the Czechoslovak Republic in February 1920 and were able to vote for the parliament for the first time inApril 1920.[229]
Cyprus had no organized women's movement until the mid-20th century and no activism in favor of women's suffrage, which was introduced in the new constitution of 1961 after the liberation from Britain, simply because women's suffrage had at that point came to be regarded as a given thing in international democratic standard.[230]
Line luplau seen in the foreground on her daughterMarie Luplau's large group portrait paintingFrom the Early Days of the Fight for Women's Suffrage (1897)
In Denmark, theDanish Women's Society (DK) debated, and informally supported, women's suffrage from 1884, but it did not support it publicly until in 1887, when it supported the suggestion of the parliamentarianFredrik Bajer to grant women municipal suffrage.[231] In 1886, in response to the perceived overcautious attitude of DK in the question of women suffrage,Matilde Bajer founded theKvindelig Fremskridtsforening (or KF, 1886–1904) to deal exclusively with the right to suffrage, both in municipal and national elections, and it 1887, the Danish women publicly demanded the right for women's suffrage for the first time through the KF. However, as the KF was very much involved with worker's rights and pacifist activity, the question of women's suffrage was in fact not given full attention, which led to the establishment of the strictly women's suffrage movementKvindevalgretsforeningen (1889–1897).[231] In 1890, the KF and the Kvindevalgretsforeningen united with five women's trade worker's unions to found theDe samlede Kvindeforeninger, and through this form, an active women's suffrage campaign was arranged through agitation and demonstration. However, after having been met by compact resistance, the Danish suffrage movement almost discontinued with the dissolution of the De samlede Kvindeforeninger in 1893.[231]
Women won the right to vote in municipal elections on April 20, 1908. However it was not until June 5, 1915 that they were allowed to vote inRigsdag elections.[232]
Estonia gained its independence in 1918 with theEstonian War of Independence. However, the first official elections were held in 1917. These were the elections of temporary council (i.e. Maapäev), which ruled Estonia from 1917 to 1919. Since then, women have had the right to vote.
The parliament elections were held in 1920. After the elections, two women got into the parliament – history teacherEmma Asson and journalistAlma Ostra-Oinas. Estonian parliament is calledRiigikogu and during the First Republic of Estonia it used to have 100 seats.
The area that in 1809 becameFinland had been a group of integral provinces of theKingdom of Sweden for over 600 years. Thus, women in Finland were allowed to vote during the SwedishAge of Liberty (1718–1772), during which conditional suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members ofguilds.[233] However, this right was controversial. InVaasa, there was opposition against women participating in the town hall discussing political issues, as this was not seen as their right place, and women's suffrage appears to have been opposed in practice in some parts of the realm: whenAnna Elisabeth Baer and two other women petitioned to vote in Turku in 1771, they were not allowed to do so by town officials.[234]
The predecessor state of modernFinland, theGrand Duchy of Finland, was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree ofautonomy. In 1863, taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the countryside, and in 1872, the same reform was implemented in the cities.[228] The issue of women's suffrage was first raised by the women's movement when it organized in theFinnish Women's Association (1884), and the first organization exclusively devoted to the issue of suffrage wasNaisasialiitto Unioni (1892).[235]
Although several countries had started extending suffrage to women from the end of the 19th century, France was one of the last countries to do so in Europe. In fact, theNapoleonic Code declares the legal and political incapacity of women, which blocked attempts to give women political rights.[242] First feminist claims started emerging during the French Revolution in 1789.Condorcet expressed his support for women's right to vote in an article published inJournal de la Société de 1789, but his project failed.[243] On 17 January 1913,Marie Denizard was the first woman to stand as a candidate in a Frenchpresidential election but the state refused to acknowledge her.[244] AfterWorld War I, French women continued demanding political rights, and despite theChamber of Deputies being in favor, theSenate continuously refused to analyze the law proposal.[243] Socialists, and more generally, the political left repeatedly opposed the right to vote for women because they feared their more conservative preferences and their "domination" by priests.[242][227] It was only afterWorld War II that women were granted political rights.
Women were granted the right to vote and be elected from November 12, 1918. TheWeimar Constitution established a "new" Germany after theend of World War I and extended the right to vote to all citizens above the age of 20, with some exceptions.[155]
Greece haduniversal suffrage since its independence in 1832, but this suffrage excluded women. The first proposal to give Greek women the right to vote was made on May 19, 1922, by a member of parliament, supported by then Prime MinisterDimitrios Gounaris, during a constitutional convention.[246] The proposal garnered a narrow majority of those present when it was first proposed, but failed to get the broad 80% support needed to add it to the constitution.[246] In 1925 consultations began again, and a law was passed allowing women the right to vote in local elections, provided they were 30 years of age and had attended at least primary education.[246] The law remained unenforced, untilfeminist movements within the civil service lobbied the government to enforce it in December 1927 and March 1929.[246] Women were allowed to vote on a local level for the first time in thePiraeus local elections, on December 14, 1930, where 240 women exercised their right to do so.[246] Women's turnout remained low, at only around 15,000 in the national local elections of 1934, despite women being a narrow majority of the population of 6.8 million.[246] Women could not stand for election, despite a proposal made by Interior ministerIoannis Rallis, which was contested in the courts; the courts ruled that the law only gave women "a limited franchise" and struck down any lists where women were listed as candidates for local councils.[246]Misogyny was rampant in that era;Emmanuel Rhoides is quoted as having said that "two professions are fit for women: housewife and prostitute". Another misogynistic "argument" employed against women's right to vote was that "during menstruation women are loony and in a frantic psychological state, and since they may be menstruating at the time of the elections, they can't vote".[247]
From 1918, with the rest of the United Kingdom, women in Ireland could vote at age 30 with property qualifications or in university constituencies, while men could vote at age 21 with no qualification. From separation in 1922, theIrish Free State gaveequal voting rights to men and women. ["All citizens of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) without distinction of sex, who have reached the age of twenty-one years and who comply with the provisions of the prevailing electoral laws, shall have the right to vote for members of Dáil Eireann, and to take part in the Referendum and Initiative."][249] Promises of equal rights from the Proclamation were embraced in the Constitution in 1922, the year Irish women achieved full voting rights. However, over the next ten years, laws were introduced that eliminated women's rights from serving on juries, working after marriage, and working in industry. The 1937 Constitution and TaoiseachÉamon de Valera’s conservative leadership further stripped women of their previously granted rights.[250] As well, though the 1937 Constitution guarantees women the right to vote and to nationality and citizenship on an equal basis with men, it also contains a provision, Article 41.2, which states:
1° [...] the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.2° The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.
In 1881, The Isle of Man (in the British Isles but not part of the United Kingdom) passed a law giving the vote to single and widowed women who passed a property qualification. This was to vote in elections for the House of Keys, in the Island's parliament, Tynwald. This was extended to universal suffrage for men and women in 1919.[251]
In Italy, women's suffrage was not introduced followingWorld War I, but upheld bySocialist andFascist activists and partly introduced on a local or municipal level byBenito Mussolini's government in 1925.[252] In April 1945, the provisional government led by theItalian Resistance decreed the universal enfranchisement of women in Italy, allowing for the immediate appointment of women to public office, of which the first was Elena Fischli Dreher.[253] In the1946 election, all Italians simultaneously voted for the Constituent Assembly and fora referendum about keeping Italy amonarchy or creating arepublic instead. Elections were not held in theJulian March andSouth Tyrol because they were underAllied occupation.
In Luxembourg,Marguerite Thomas-Clement spoke in favour of women suffrage in public debate through articles in the press in 1917–19; however, there was never any organized women suffrage movement in Luxembourg, as women suffrage was included without debate in the new democratic constitution of 1919.
Malta was a British colony, but when women's suffrage was finally introduced in Great Britain in 1918, this had not been included in the 1921 Constitution on Malta, when Malta was given its own parliament, although theLabour Party did support the reform.[256] In 1931,Mabel Strickland, assistant secretary of Constitution Party, delivered a petition signed by 428 to the Royal Commission on Maltese Affairs requesting women's suffrage without success.[256]
However, there had been no organized movement for women's suffrage on Malta. In 1944 theWomen of Malta Association was founded byJosephine Burns de Bono andHelen Buhagiar. The purpose was to work for the inclusion of women's suffrage in the new Malta constitution, which was to be introduced in 1947 and which was at that time prepared in parliament.[256] The Women of Malta Association was officially registered as a labor union, in order to give its representatives the right to speak in parliament.[256] The Catholic church as well as theNationalist Party opposed women's suffrage with the argument that suffrage would be an unnecessary burden for women who had family and household to occupy them.[256] The Labour Party as well as the labour movement in general supported the reform.[256] An argument was that women paid taxes and should therefore also vote to decide what to do with them. Women's suffrage was approved with the votes 145 to 137.[256] However, this did not include women's right to be elected to political office, and the Women of Malta Association therefore continued the campaign to include also this right. The debate continued with the same supporters and opponents, and the same arguments for and against, until this right was approved as well.
Women's suffrage and right to be elected to political office were included in the MacMichael Constitution, which was finally introduced on September 5, 1947. A politician at the time commented that the reform had been possible only because of women's participation in the war effort during theWorld War II.[256]
Monaco introduced women's suffrage in 1962, as the fourth last in Europe. In Monaco, Women's suffrage was not introduced after a long campaign – although supported by theUnion of Monegasque Women, itself only founded in 1958[257] – but was introduced as a part of the new Constitution, alongside Parliamentarism, an independent court system and a number of other legal and political reforms.[258]
Wilhelmina Drucker, a Dutch pioneer for women's rights, is portrayed byTruus Claes in 1917 on the occasion of her seventieth birthday.
Women were granted the right to vote in theNetherlands on August 9, 1919.[155] In 1917, a constitutional reform already allowed women to be electable. However, even though women's right to vote was approved in 1919, this only took effect from January 1, 1920.
The women's suffrage movement in the Netherlands was led by three women:Aletta Jacobs,Wilhelmina Drucker andAnnette Versluys-Poelman. In 1889, Wilhelmina Drucker founded a women's movement calledVrije Vrouwen Vereeniging (Free Women's Union) and it was from this movement that the campaign for women's suffrage in the Netherlands emerged. This movement got a lot of support from other countries, especially from the women's suffrage movement in England. In 1906 the movement wrote an open letter to the Queen pleading for women's suffrage. When this letter was rejected, in spite of popular support, the movement organised several demonstrations and protests in favor of women's suffrage. This movement was of great significance for women's suffrage in the Netherlands.[259]
The first Norwegian woman voter casts her ballot in the 1910 municipal election.
Liberal politicianGina Krog was the leading campaigner for women's suffrage in Norway from the 1880s. She founded theNorwegian Association for Women's Rights and theNational Association for Women's Suffrage to promote this cause. Members of these organisations were politically well-connected and well organised and in a few years gradually succeeded in obtaining equal rights for women. Middle-class women won the right to vote in municipal elections in 1901 and parliamentary elections in 1907. Universal suffrage for women in municipal elections was introduced in 1910, and in 1913 a motion on universal suffrage for women was adopted unanimously by theNorwegian parliament (Stortinget).[260] Norway thus became the first independent country to introduce women's suffrage.[261]
Regaining independence in 1918 following the 123-year period of partition and foreign rule,[262]Poland immediately granted women the right to vote and be elected as of November 28, 1918.[155]
In 1931, during theEstado Novo regime, women were allowed to vote for the first time, but only if they had a high school oruniversity 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 ofpolitical rights for men and women", but a few electoral rights were reserved for men. After theCarnation Revolution, women were granted full and equal electoral rights in 1976.[109][110]
The timeline of granting women's suffrage in Romania was gradual and complex, due to the turbulent historical period when it happened. The concept of universal suffrage for allmen was introduced in 1918,[266] and reinforced by the1923 Constitution of Romania. Although this constitution opened the way for the possibility of women's suffrage too (Article 6),[267] this did not materialize: the Electoral Law of 1926 did not grant women the right to vote, maintaining all male suffrage.[268] Starting in 1929, women who met certain qualifications were allowed to vote in local elections.[268] After theConstitution from 1938 (elaborated underCarol II of Romania who sought to implement an authoritarian regime) the voting rights were extended to women for national elections by the Electoral Law 1939,[269] but both women and men had restrictions, and in practice these restrictions affected women more than men (the new restrictions on men also meant that men lost their previous universal suffrage). Although women could vote, they could be elected only to theSenate and not to theChamber of Deputies (Article 4 (c)).[269] (the Senate was later abolished in 1940). Due to the historical context of the time, which included the dictatorship ofIon Antonescu, there were no elections in Romania between 1940 and 1946. In 1946, Law no. 560 gave full equal rights to men and women to vote and to be elected in the Chamber of Deputies; and women voted in the1946 Romanian general election.[270] TheConstitution of 1948 gave women and men equal civil and political rights (Article 18).[271] Until the collapse of communism in 1989, all the candidates were chosen by theRomanian Communist Party, and civil rights were merely symbolic under this authoritarian regime.[272]
A 1917 demonstration in Petrograd. The plaque says (in Russian): "Without the participation of women, election is not universal!"
Despite initial apprehension against enfranchising women for the right to vote for the upcomingConstituent Assembly election, theLeague for Women's Equality and other suffragists rallied throughout the year of 1917 for the right to vote. After much pressure (including a 40,000-strong march on theTauride Palace), on July 20, 1917, theProvisional Government enfranchised women with the right to vote.[273]
During theMiguel Primo de Rivera regime (1923–1930) only women who were considered heads of household were allowed tovote in local elections, but there were none at that time. Women's suffrage was officially adopted in 1931 despite the opposition ofMargarita Nelken andVictoria Kent, two female MPs (both members of the Republican Radical-Socialist Party), who argued that women in Spain at that moment lacked social and political education enough to vote responsibly because they would be unduly influenced by Catholic priests.[227] Most Spanish Republicans at the time held the same view.[227] The other female MP at the time,Clara Campoamor of the liberal Radical Party, was a strong advocate of women's suffrage and she was the one leading the Parliament's affirmative vote. During theFranco regime in the "organic democracy" type of elections called "referendums" (Franco's regime was dictatorial) women over 21 were allowed to vote without distinction.[274] From 1976, during theSpanish transition to democracy women fully exercised the right to vote and be elected to office.
The Swedish writerMaria Gustava Gyllenstierna (1672–1737); as a taxpaying property owner, and a woman of legal majority due to her widowed status, she belonged to the women granted suffrage in accordance with the constitution of theAge of Liberty (1718–1772).
During theAge of Liberty (1718–1772), Sweden had conditional women's suffrage.[5] Until the reform of 1865, the local elections consisted of mayoral elections in the cities, and elections of parish vicars in the countryside parishes. TheSockenstämma was the local parish council who handled local affairs, in which the parish vicar presided and the local peasantry assembled and voted, an informally regulated process in which women are reported to have participated already in the 17th century.[275] The national elections consisted of the election of the representations to theRiksdag of the Estates.
Suffrage was gender neutral and therefore applied to women as well as men if they filled the qualifications of a voting citizen.[5] These qualifications were changed during the course of the 18th-century, as well as the local interpretation of the credentials, affecting the number of qualified voters: the qualifications also differed between cities and countryside, as well as local or national elections.[5]
Initially, the right tovote in local city elections (mayoral elections) was granted to everyburgher, which was defined as a taxpaying citizen with aguild membership.[5] Women as well as men were members of guilds, which resulted in women's suffrage for a limited number of women.[5]In 1734, suffrage in both national and local elections, in cities as well as countryside, was granted to every property owning taxpaying citizen oflegal majority.[5] This extended suffrage to all taxpaying property owning women whether guild members or not, but excluded married women and the majority of unmarried women, as married women were defined as legal minors, and unmarried women were minors unless they applied for legal majority by royal dispensation, while widowed and divorced women were of legal majority.[5] The 1734 reform increased the participation of women in elections from 55 to 71 percent.[5]
Between 1726 and 1742, women voted in 17 of 31 examined mayoral elections.[5] Reportedly, some women voters in mayoral elections preferred to appoint a male to vote for them byproxy in the city hall because they found it embarrassing to do so in person, which was cited as a reason to abolish women's suffrage by its opponents.[5] The custom to appoint to vote by proxy was however used also by males, and it was in fact common for men, who were absent or ill during elections, to appoint their wives to vote for them.[5] InVaasa in Finland (then a Swedish province), there was opposition against women participating in the town hall discussing political issues as this was not seen as their right place, and women's suffrage appears to have been opposed in practice in some parts of the realm: whenAnna Elisabeth Baer and two other women petitioned to vote inTurku in 1771, they were not allowed to do so by town officials.[234]
In 1758, women were excluded from mayoral elections by a new regulation by which they could no longer be defined as burghers, but women's suffrage was kept in the national elections as well as the countryside parish elections.[5] Women participated in all of the eleven national elections held up until 1757.[5] In 1772, women's suffrage in national elections was abolished by demand from the burgher estate. Women's suffrage was first abolished for taxpaying unmarried women of legal majority, and then for widows.[5]However, the local interpretation of the prohibition of women's suffrage varied, and some cities continued to allow women to vote: inKalmar,Växjö,Västervik,Simrishamn,Ystad,Åmål,Karlstad,Bergslagen,Dalarna andNorrland, women were allowed to continue to vote despite the 1772 ban, while inLund,Uppsala,Skara, Turku,Gothenburg andMarstrand, women were strictly barred from the vote after 1772.[5]
Women's suffrage demonstration in Gothenburg, June 1918
While women's suffrage was banned in the mayoral elections in 1758 and in the national elections in 1772, no such bar was ever introduced in the local elections in the countryside, where women therefore continued to vote in the local parish elections of vicars.[5] In a series of reforms in 1813–1817, unmarried women of legal majority, "Unmarried maiden, who has been declared of legal majority", were given the right to vote in thesockestämma (local parish council, the predecessor of the communal and city councils), and thekyrkoråd (local church councils).[276]
In 1823, a suggestion was raised by the mayor of Strängnäs to reintroduce women's suffrage for taxpaying women of legal majority (unmarried, divorced and widowed women) in the mayoral elections, and this right was reintroduced in 1858.[275]
In 1862, tax-paying women of legal majority (unmarried, divorced and widowed women) were again allowed to vote in municipal elections, making Sweden the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote.[228] This was after the introduction of a new political system, where a new local authority was introduced: the communal municipal council. 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.[277] During the 1880s, theMarried Woman's Property Rights Association had a campaign to encourage the female voters, qualified to vote in accordance with the 1862 law, to use their vote and increase the participation of women voters in the elections, but there was yet no public demand for women's suffrage among women. In 1888, thetemperance activistEmilie Rathou became the first woman in Sweden to demand the right for women's suffrage in a public speech.[278] In 1899, a delegation from theFredrika Bremer Association presented a suggestion of women's suffrage to prime ministerErik Gustaf Boström. The delegation was headed byAgda Montelius, accompanied byGertrud Adelborg, who had written the demand. This was the first time the Swedish women's movement themselves had officially presented a demand for suffrage.
In 1902 theSwedish Society for Woman Suffrage was founded, supported by theSocial Democratic women's Clubs.[279] In 1906 the suggestion of women's suffrage was voted down in parliament again.[280] In 1909, the right to vote in municipal elections were extended to also include married women.[281] The same year, women were granted eligibility for election to municipal councils,[281] and in the following 1910–11 municipal elections, forty women were elected to different municipal councils,[280]Gertrud Månsson being the first. In 1914Emilia Broomé became the first woman in the legislative assembly.[282]
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.[233]
Areferendum on women's suffrage was held on February 1, 1959. The majority of Switzerland's men (67%) voted against it, but in some French-speakingcantons women obtained the vote.[284] The first Swiss woman to hold political office,Trudy Späth-Schweizer, was elected to the municipal government ofRiehen in 1958.[285]
The first female member of the seven-memberSwiss Federal Council,Elisabeth Kopp, served from 1984 to 1989.Ruth Dreifuss, the second female member, served from 1993 to 1999, and was the first femalePresident of the Swiss Confederation for the year 1999. From September 22, 2010, until December 31, 2011, the highest political executive of the Swiss Confederation had a majority of female councillors (4 of 7); for the three years 2010, 2011, and 2012 Switzerland was presided byfemale presidency for three years in a row. In 2015, 2017,[286] 2020 and 2024, the country was presided by a woman.
Eighteen female MPs joined the Turkish Parliament in 1935.
InTurkey,Atatürk, the founding president of the republic, led a secularist cultural and legal transformation supporting women's rights including voting and being elected. Women won the right to vote in municipal elections on March 20, 1930. Women's suffrage was achieved for parliamentary elections on December 5, 1934, through a constitutional amendment. Turkish women, who participated in parliamentary elections for the first time on February 8, 1935, obtained 18 seats.
In the early republic, when Atatürk ran a one-party state, his party picked all candidates. A small percentage of seats were set aside for women, so naturally those female candidates won. When multi-party elections began in the 1940s, the share of women in the legislature fell, and the 4% share of parliamentary seats gained in 1935 was not reached again until 1999. In the parliament of 2011, women hold about 9% of the seats. Nevertheless, Turkish women gained the right to vote a decade or more before women in such Western European countries as France, Italy, and Belgium – a mark of Atatürk's far-reaching social changes.[287]
Tansu Çiller served as the 22nd prime minister of Turkey and the first female prime minister of Turkey from 1993 to 1996. She was elected to the parliament in 1991 general elections and she became prime minister on June 25, 1993, when her cabinet was approved by the parliament.
Until the 1832 Reform Act specified "male persons", a few women had been able to vote in parliamentary elections through property ownership, although this was rare.[289] In local government elections, women lost the right to vote under theMunicipal Corporations Act 1835. Unmarried womenratepayers received the right to vote in theMunicipal Franchise Act 1869. This right was confirmed in theLocal Government Act 1894 and extended to include some married women.[290][291][292][293] By 1900, more than 1 million women were registered to vote in local government elections in England.[290]
In 1881, theIsle of Man (in the British Isles but not part of the United Kingdom) passed a law giving the vote to single and widowed women who passed a property qualification. This was to vote in elections for the House of Keys, in the Island's parliament, Tynwald. This was extended to universal suffrage for men and women in 1919.[294]
During the later half of the 19th century, a number of campaign groups for women's suffrage in national elections were formed in an attempt to lobby members of parliament and gain support. In 1897, seventeen of these groups came together to form theNational Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), who held public meetings, wrote letters to politicians and published various texts.[295] In 1907 the NUWSS organized its first large procession.[295] This march became known as theMud March as over 3,000 women trudged through the streets of London fromHyde Park toExeter Hall to advocate women's suffrage.[296]
In 1903 a number of members of the NUWSS broke away and, led byEmmeline Pankhurst, formed theWomen's Social and Political Union (WSPU).[297] 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 in Manchester'sFree Trade Hall whereEdward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, a member of the newly elected Liberal government, was speaking.[298] As he was talking,Christabel Pankhurst andAnnie Kenney of the WSPU constantly shouted out: "Will the Liberal Government give votes to women?"[298] 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 that ended with them being arrested and charged for assault.[299] When they refused to pay their fine, they were sent to prison for one week, and three days.[298] 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 theHouse of Commons, the arson ofDavid Lloyd George's country home (despite his support for women's suffrage). In 1909 LadyConstance Lytton was imprisoned, but immediately released when her identity was discovered, so in 1910 she disguised herself as a working class seamstress calledJane Warton and endured inhumane treatment which includedforce-feeding. In 1913, suffragetteEmily Davison protested by interfering with a horse owned by KingGeorge V during the running ofThe Derby; she was struck by the horse and died four days later. The WSPU ceased their militant activities duringWorld War I and agreed to assist with thewar effort.[300]
The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, which had always employed "constitutional" methods, continued to lobby during the war years, and compromises were worked out between the NUWSS and the coalition government.[301] TheSpeaker's Conference on electoral reform (1917) represented all the parties in both houses, and came to the conclusion that women's suffrage was essential. Regarding fears that women would suddenly move from zero to a majority of the electorate due to the heavy loss of men during the war, the Conference recommended that the age restriction be 21 for men, and 30 for women.[302][303][304]
In 1999,Time magazine, in naming Emmeline Pankhurst as one of the100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, states: "...she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back".[307]
Australian women's rights were lampooned in this 1887Melbourne Punch cartoon: A hypothetical female member foists her baby's care on the House Speaker.South Australian women were to achieve the vote in 1895.[19]
Edith Cowan (1861–1932) was elected to theWestern Australian Legislative Assembly in 1921 and was the first woman elected to any Australian Parliament (though women in Australia had already had the vote for two decades).
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 non-indigenous women to vote and stand for election to the Federal Parliament. The following yearNellie Martel,Mary Moore-Bentley,Vida Goldstein, andSelina Siggins stood for election.[310] The Act specifically excluded 'natives' from Commonwealth franchise unless already enrolled in a state, the situation in South Australia. 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.[311]
New Zealand's Electoral Act of September 19, 1893 made the self-governing British colony the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.[32][313]
Women in Central and South America, and in Mexico, lagged behind those in Canada and the United States in gaining the vote. The first South American country to enfranchise women in national elections was Ecuador in 1929[315] and the last was Paraguay in 1961.[316] By date of full suffrage:
The modern suffragist movement in Argentina arose partly in conjunction with the activities of theSocialist Party and anarchists of the early twentieth century. Women involved in larger movements for social justice began to agitate equal rights and opportunities on par with men; following the example of their European peers, Elvira Dellepiane Rawson,Cecilia Grierson andAlicia Moreau de Justo began to form a number of groups in defense of the civil rights of women between 1900 and 1910. The first major victories for extending the civil rights of women occurred in theProvince of San Juan. Women had been allowed to vote in that province since 1862, but only in municipal elections. A similar right was extended in theprovince of Santa Fe where a constitution that ensured women's suffrage was enacted at the municipal level, although female participation in votes initially remained low. In 1927, San Juan sanctioned its Constitution and broadly recognized the equal rights of men and women. However, the1930 coup overthrew these advances.
Women's demonstration in Buenos Aires in front of the National Congress by law for universal suffrage, 1947
A great pioneer of women's suffrage wasJulieta Lanteri, the daughter of Italian immigrants, who in 1910 requested a national court to grant her the right to citizenship (at the time not generally given to single female immigrants) as well as suffrage. The Claros judge upheld her request and declared: "As a judge, I have a duty to declare that her right to citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution, and therefore that women enjoy the same political rights as the laws grant to male citizens, with the only restrictions expressly determined such laws, because no inhabitant is deprived of what they do not prohibit."
In July 1911,Dr. Lanteri were enumerated, and on November 26 of that year exercised her right to vote, the first Ibero-American woman to vote. Also covered in a judgment in 1919 was presented as a candidate for national deputy for the Independent Centre Party, obtaining 1,730 votes out of 154,302.
In 1919, Rogelio Araya UCR Argentina had gone down in history for being the first to submit a bill recognizing the right to vote for women, an essential component of universal suffrage. On July 17, 1919, he served as deputy national on behalf of the people ofSanta Fe.
On February 27, 1946, three days after theelections that consecrated presidentJuan Perón and his wife First LadyEva Perón 26 years of age gave his first political speech in an organized women to thank them for their support of Perón's candidacy. On that occasion, Eva demanded equal rights for men and women and particularly, women's suffrage:
The woman Argentina has exceeded the period of civil tutorials. Women must assert their action, women should vote. The woman, moral spring home, you should take the place in the complex social machinery of the people. He asks a necessity new organize more extended and remodeled groups. It requires, in short, the transformation of the concept of woman who sacrificially has increased the number of its duties without seeking the minimum of their rights.
The bill was presented the new constitutional government assumed immediately after the May 1, 1946. The opposition of conservative bias was evident, not only the opposition parties but even within parties who supportedPeronism. Eva Perón constantly pressured the parliament for approval, even causing protests from the latter for this intrusion.
Although it was a brief text in three articles, that practically could not give rise to discussions, the Senate recently gave preliminary approval to the project August 21, 1946, and had to wait over a year for the House of Representative to publish the September 9, 1947, Law 13,010, establishing equal political rights between men and women and universal suffrage inArgentina. Finally, Law 13,010 was approved unanimously.
Eva Perón voting at the hospital in 1951. It was the first time women had been permitted to vote in national elections in Argentina. To this end Eva Perón received the Civic Book No. 00.000.001. It was the first and only time she would vote; she died July 26, 1952, after developing cervical cancer.
In an official statement on national television, Eva Perón announced the extension of suffrage to Argentina's women:
Women of this country, this very instant I receive from the Government the law that enshrines our civic rights. And I receive it in front of you, with the confidence that I do so on behalf and in the name of all Argentinian women. I do so joyously, as I feel my hands tremble upon contact with victory proclaiming laurels. Here it is, my sisters, summarized into few articles of compact letters lies a long history of battles, stumbles, and hope.
Because of this, in it there lie exasperating indignation, shadows of menacing sunsets, but also cheerful awakenings of triumphal auroras. And the latter which translates the victory of women over the incomprehensions, the denials, and the interests created by the castes now repudiated by our national awakening.
And a leader who destiny forged to victoriously face the problems of our era, General [Perón]. With him, and our vote we shall contribute to the perfection of Argentina's democracy, my dear comrades.
On September 23, 1947, they enacted the Female Enrollment Act (No. 13,010) during the first presidency of Juan Domingo Perón, which was implemented in theelections of November 11, 1951, in which 3,816,654 women voted (63.9% voted for theJusticialist Party and 30.8% for theRadical Civic Union). Later in 1952, the first 23 senators and deputies took their seats, representing the Justicialist Party.
In Belize,The Nationalist Movement (Belize) formed a women's group, theWomen's League underElfreda Trapp, who campaigned for women's suffrage among the demands the worker's and independence movement's put upon the British authorities, and presented a petition of women's suffrage to governorAlan Burns in 1935.[321]Women's suffrage was finally introduced in the reform bill of 1954, when full male suffrage was also introduced.
AsBermuda (or the Somers Isles) is part of the British Realm, the British Government is the responsible government and the British Parliament has complete authority to legislate for the territory, but certain competencies of local governance have been delegated to a local government since a local legislature, including an electedlower house, was introduced in 1620. Voting for this local assembly, however, was long restricted to property-holding men (the property qualification had not originally applied, having been introduced to limit the number of coloured men, as well as poorer white men, who could vote). In 1918,Gladys Morrell held a public speech in favor of women's suffrage, and in 1923 the women's movement organized in theBermuda Woman's Suffrage Society chaired byRose Gosling to campaigned for women's suffrage.[322] Women's suffrage was finally introduced in 1944. The same property qualification that applied to men also applied to women until universal adult suffrage was introduced in the 1960s. This suffrage specifically concerned voting for the local Parliament of theBritish Overseas Territory. Although having the same right to vote in British elections as other British nationals (in Bermuda's case, these rights were guaranteed in Royal Charters of 1607 and 1615: "all and euery persons being our subjects which shall goe and inhabite within the said Somer Ilandes and every of their children and posterity which shall happen to bee borne within the limits thereof shall haue and enjoy all libertyes franchesies and immunities of free denizens and natural subjectes within any of our dominions to all intents and purposes, as if they had beene abiding and borne within this our Kingdome of England or in any other of our Dominions"),[323][324][325][326][327][328] Bermudian women (and female and male British nationals from British Overseas Territories more generally) remain effectively barred from voting for the national British Parliament as no seats have been provided for the territories.[329]
In Brazil, the issue was lifted foremost by the organizationFederação Brasileira pelo Progresso Feminino from 1922. The struggle for women's suffrage was part of a larger movement to gain rights for women.[331] Most of the suffragists consisted of a minority of women from the educated elite, which made the activism appear less threatening to the political male elite.
Women's political status without the vote was promoted by theNational Council of Women of Canada from 1894 to 1918. It promoted a vision of "transcendent citizenship" for women. The ballot was not needed, for citizenship was to be exercised through personal influence and moral suasion, through the election of men with strong moral character, and through raising public-spirited sons. The National Council position was integrated into its nation-building program that sought to uphold Canada as a white settler nation. While the women's suffrage movement was important for extending the political rights of white women, it was also authorized through race-based arguments that linked white women's enfranchisement to the need to protect the nation from "racial degeneration."[333]
Women had local votes in some provinces, as in Ontario from 1850, where women owning property (freeholders and householders) could vote for school trustees.[334] By 1900 other provinces had adopted similar provisions, and in 1916 Manitoba took the lead in extending women's suffrage.[335] Simultaneously suffragists gave strong support to the Prohibition movement, especially in Ontario and the Western provinces.[336][337]
TheWartime Elections Act of 1917 gave the vote to British women who were war widows or had sons, husbands, fathers, or brothers serving overseas.Unionist Prime Minister SirRobert Borden pledged himself during the 1917 campaign to equal suffrage for women. After his landslide victory, he introduced a bill in 1918 for extending the franchise to women. On May 24, 1918, women considered citizens (not Aboriginal women, or most women of colour) became eligible to vote who were "age 21 or older, not alien-born and meet property requirements in provinces where they exist".[335]
Most women of Quebec gained full suffrage in 1940.[335] Aboriginal women across Canada were not given federal voting rights until 1960.[338]
The first woman elected to Parliament wasAgnes Macphail in Ontario in 1921.[339]
Debate about women's suffrage in Chile began in the 1920s.[340] Women's suffrage inmunicipal elections was first established in 1931 by decree (decreto con fuerza de ley);voting age for women was set at 25 years.[341][342] In addition, theChamber of Deputies approved a law on March 9, 1933, establishing women's suffrage in municipal elections.[341]
Women obtained the legal right to vote in parliamentary and presidential elections in 1949.[340] Women's share among voters increased steadily after 1949, reaching the same levels of participation as men in 1970.[340]
Women organized in the LiberalUnion Femenina de Colombia (UFC) in 1944 and the SocialistAliazna Femenina in 1945 to demand women's suffrage. The Liberal and Socialist party supported the reform; the conservatives initially did not, but changed its attitude when the Catholic church supported it after the Pope's statement that women were loyal conservatives and thus supporters against Communism.[343]The vote was finally introduced in 1954.
The campaign for women's suffrage in begun in the 1910s, and the campaigns were active during all electoral reforms in 1913, 1913, 1925, 1927 and 1946, notably by theFeminist League (1923), which was a part of theInternational League of Iberian and Hispanic-American Women, who had a continuing campaign between 1925 and 1945.[344]
Women obtained the legal right to vote in parliamentary and presidential elections in 1949.[344]
The campaign for women's suffrage begun in the 1920s, when Cuban elite feminists started to organize in associations such asClub Femenino de Cuba andPartido Democrata Sufragista and collaborate and campaign for women's issues; they arranged congresses in 1923, 1925 and 1939, and managed to achieve a reformed property rights law (1917) a no-fault divorce law (1918), and finally women's suffrage in 1934.[344]
Women obtained the legal right to vote in parliamentary and presidential elections in 1934.[344]
The women's movement in the Dominican Republic organized in 1931 in theAcción Feminista Dominicana (AFD), who allied withRafael Trujillo in order to reach their goal of women's suffrage. Trujillo finally fulfilled his promise to the AFD for its support after eleven years, when he introduced women's suffrage on the Dominican Republic in 1942.[345]
Between June 1921 and January 1922, when El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica formed a (second)Federation of Central America, the Constitution of this state included women's suffrage on 9 September 1921, but the reform could never be implemented because the Federation (and thereby its constitution) did not last.[344]
The campaign for women's suffrage begun in the 1920s, notably by the leading figurePrudencia Ayala.[344]
Women obtained the legal right to vote in parliamentary and presidential elections in 1939.[344] However, the qualifications were extreme and excluded 80 percent of women so the suffrage movement continued its campaign in the 1940s, notably byMatilde Elena López andAna Rosa Ochoa, until the restrictions was lifted in 1950.[344]
Between June 1921 and January 1922, when El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica formed a (second)Federation of Central America, the Constitution of this state included women's suffrage on 9 September 1921, but the reform could never be implemented because the Federation (and thereby its constitution) did not last.[344]
The campaign for women's suffrage in begun in the 1920s, notably by the organisations Gabriela Mistral Society (1925) andGraciela Quan's Guatemalan Feminine Pro-Citizenship Union (1945).
Women obtained the legal right to vote in parliamentary and presidential elections in 1945 (without restrictions in 1965).[344]
Between June 1921 and January 1922, when El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica formed a (second)Federation of Central America, the Constitution of this state included women's suffrage on 9 September 1921, but the reform could never be implemented because the Federation (and thereby its constitution) did not last.[344]
After women's suffrage had been introduced in Britain in 1918, white elite women organized in theWomen's Social Service Club (also known as theWomen's Social Service Association or WSSA) campaigned under the leadership ofNellie Latrielle andJudith DeCordova for the introduction of the reform on Jamaica from May 1918, and succeeded when limited suffrage for taxpaying women of property was introduced in May 1919.[350]The women's suffrage – as was male suffrage at the time – was, however, limited to a minority of women, and during the 1930s, women campaigned for universal women's suffrage via theUniversal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) theJamaica Women's League (JWL) and theWomen's Liberal Club (1936), until full suffrage was finally introduced in 1944.[351]
Women gained the right to vote in 1947 for some local elections and for national elections in 1953, coming after a struggle dating to the 19th century.[352]
A women's movement was organized in Nicaragua in the 1920s. Their demand for women's suffrage was supported by theNationalist Liberal Party, who allied themselves with the women's movement in order to get their support during their regime.[353]
The Nationalist Liberal Party promised to introduce the reform of women's suffrage, and in 1939, the leader of the Nicaraguan women's movementJosefa Toledo (leader of the Nicaragua branch of theInternational League of Iberian and Latin American Women) demanded that the regime fulfil their promise to the women's movement.[353]
The promise was finally fulfilled in 1950, and the reform introduced in 1955. After this, the Nicaraguan women's associations were incorporated in the women's wing of the Nationalist Liberal Party, theAla Femenina Liberal, under the leadership ofOlga Nunez de Saballos (who became the first woman MP), and gave the Party its official support in the following elections.[353]
The campaign for women's suffrage begun after the foundation ofFederation of Women's Club of the Canal in 1903, which became a part of theGeneral Federation of Clubs in New York City, which made the suffrage movement in Panama heavily influenced by the suffrage movement in the United States.[344] In 1922 The Feminist Group Renovation (FGR) was founded byClara González, which became the first Feminist Political women's party in Latin America when it was transformed to the Feminist National Party in 1923.[344]
Women obtained the legal right to vote in communal elections in 1941, and in parliamentary and presidential elections 1946.[344]
Paraguay was the last country in the Americas to grant women's suffrage.Liga Paraguaya de los Derechos de la Mujer campaigned for women's suffrage during the 1950s. Women's suffrage was gained in Paraguay in 1961, primarily because thestrongarm president,Alfredo Stroessner, lacking the approval of his male constituents, sought to bolster his support through women voters.[354]
Women's suffrage in Peru was first introduced on communal level in 1932, and on national level on 7 September 1955.[355] Peru was the second to last country in South America to introduce women's suffrage.
Long before theNineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, some individual U.S. states granted women suffrage in certain kinds of elections. Some allowed women to vote in school elections, municipal elections, or for members of the Electoral College. Some territories, like Washington, Utah, and Wyoming, allowed women to vote before they became states.[356] While many consider suffrage to include both voting rights and officeholding rights, many women were able to hold office prior to receiving voting rights.[127] In fact, suffragists in the United States employed the strategy of petitioning for and utilizing officeholding rights first to make a stronger argument in favor of giving women the right to vote.[127]
TheNew Jersey constitution of 1776 enfranchised all adult inhabitants who owned a specified amount of property. Laws enacted in 1790 and 1797 referred to voters as "he or she", and women regularly voted. A law passed in 1807, however, excluded women from voting in that state by moving towardsuniversal manhood suffrage.[357]
During the 20th century, the U.S. Post Office, under the auspices of the U.S. Government, had issued commemorative postage stamps celebrating notable women who fought for women suffrage and other rights for women. From left to right: —Susan B Anthony, 1936 issue —Elizabeth Stanton,Carrie C. Catt,Lucretia Mott, 1948 issue —Women Suffrage, 1970 issue, celebrating the 50th anniversary of voting rights for women
In June 1848,Gerrit Smith made women's suffrage aplank in theLiberty Partyplatform. In July, at theSeneca Falls Convention inupstate New York, activists includingElizabeth Cady Stanton andSusan B. Anthony began a seventy-year struggle by women to secure the right to vote.[127] Attendees signed a document known as theDeclaration 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 1850Lucy Stone organized a larger assembly with a wider focus, theNational Women's Rights Convention inWorcester, Massachusetts.Susan B. Anthony, a resident ofRochester, New York, joined the cause in 1852 after reading Stone's 1850 speech. Stanton, Stone and Anthony were the three leading figures of this movement in the U.S. during the 19th century: the "triumvirate" of the drive to gain voting rights for women.[360] Women's suffrage activists pointed out that black people had been granted the franchise and had not been included in the language of theUnited States Constitution's Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments (which gave people equal protection under the law and the right to vote regardless of their race, respectively). This, they contended, had been unjust. Early victories were won in the territories ofWyoming (1869)[361] andUtah (1870).
"Kaiser Wilson" banner held by a woman who picketed theWhite House
John Allen Campbell, the first Governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law in United States history explicitly granting women the right to vote entitled "An Act to Grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the Right of Suffrage, and to Hold Office.”[127] The law was approved on December 10, 1869. This day was later commemorated as Wyoming Day.[362] On February 12, 1870, the Secretary of the Territory and Acting Governor of theTerritory of Utah, S. A. Mann, approved a law allowing twenty-one-year-old women to vote in any election in Utah.[363] Utah women were disenfranchised by provisions of the federalEdmunds–Tucker Act enacted by theU.S. Congress in 1887.[127]
The push to grant Utah women's suffrage was at least partially fueled by the belief that, given the right to vote, Utah women would dispose ofpolygamy.[127] In actuality, it was the men ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that ultimately fought for women's enfranchisement to dispel myths that polygamy was akin to modern-day slavery.[127] It was only after Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor of polygamy that the male-dominated U.S. Congress unilaterally disenfranchised Utah women.[364]
During the beginning of the 20th century, as women's suffrage faced several important federal votes, a portion of the suffrage movement known as theNational Woman's Party led by suffragistAlice Paul became the first "cause" to picket outside the White House. Paul had been mentored by Emeline Pankhurst while in England, and both she andLucy Burns led a series of protests against theWilson Administration in Washington.[366]
Wilson ignored the protests for six months, but on June 20, 1917, as a Russian delegation drove up to the White House, suffragists unfurled a banner which stated: "We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of their national enfranchisement".[367] Another banner on August 14, 1917, referred to "Kaiser Wilson" and compared the plight of the German people with that of American women. With this manner of protest, the women were subject to arrests and many were jailed. Another ongoing tactic of the National Woman's Party was watchfires, which involved burning copies of President Wilson's speeches, often outside the White House or in the nearby Lafayette Park. The Party continued to hold watchfires even as the war began, drawing criticism from the public and even other suffrage groups for being unpatriotic.[368] On October 17, Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months and on October 30 began ahunger strike, but after a few days prison authorities began to force feed her.[367] After years of opposition, Wilson changed his position in 1918 to advocate women's suffrage as a war measure.[369]
TheSilent Sentinels, women suffragists picketing in front of the White Housec. February 1917. Banner on the left reads, "Mr President, How long must women wait for Liberty?", and the banner to the right, "Mr President, What will you do for women's suffrage?"[370]
The key vote came on June 4, 1919,[371] when the Senate approved the amendment by 56 to 25 after four hours of debate, during which Democratic Senators opposed to the amendmentfilibustered 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 were from 8 (18%) Republicans and 17 (46%) Democrats. TheNineteenth Amendment, which prohibited state or federal sex-based restrictions on voting, was ratified by sufficient states in 1920.[372] According to the article, "Nineteenth Amendment", by Leslie Goldstein from the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, "by the end it also included jail sentences, and hunger strikes in jail accompanied by brutal force feedings; mob violence; and legislative votes so close that partisans were carried in on stretchers" (Goldstein, 2008). Even after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, women were still facing problems. For instance, when women had registered to vote in Maryland, "residents sued to have the women's names removed from the registry on the grounds that the amendment itself was unconstitutional" (Goldstein, 2008).
Before 1965, women of color, such as African Americans and Native Americans, weredisenfranchised, especially in theSouth.[373][374] TheVoting Rights Act of 1965 prohibited racial discrimination in voting, and secured voting rights for racial minorities throughout the U.S.[373]
On Puerto Rico, the organized struggle for women's suffrage on the American dependency of Puerto Rico begun when the United States introduced suffrage for males only via the Jones Act in 1917, and theLiga Femínea Puertorriqueña (from 1920 known asLiga Social Sufragista) was founded byAna Roque de Duprey to campaign for voting rights to be extended also to women.[375]When women's suffrage was introduced in the US in 1920, the suffragists on Puerto Rico stated that this reform should apply to Puerto Rico as well, and sued under the leadership ofMilagros Benet de Mewton for this purpose. Women's suffrage was extended to Puerto Rico in 1929, but only for literate women; full women's suffrage was introduced by the US on Puerto Rico first in 1932.
After the1928 Student Protests, women started participating more actively in politics. In 1935, women's rights supporters founded theFeminine Cultural Group (known as 'ACF' from its initials in Spanish), with the goal of tackling women's problems. The group supported women's political and social rights, and believed it was necessary to involve and inform women about these issues to ensure their personal development. It went on to give seminars, as well as founding night schools and the House of Laboring Women.
Groups looking to reform the 1936 Civil Code of Conduct in conjunction with the Venezuelan representation to the Union of American Women called the First Feminine Venezuelan Congress in 1940. In this congress, delegates discussed the situation of women in Venezuela and their demands. Key goals were women's suffrage and a reform to the Civil Code of Conduct. Around twelve thousand signatures were collected and handed to the Venezuelan Congress, which reformed the Civil Code of Conduct in 1942.
In 1944, groups supporting women's suffrage, the most important being Feminine Action, organized around the country. During 1945, women attained the right to vote at a municipal level. This was followed by a stronger call of action. Feminine Action began editing a newspaper called the Correo Cívico Femenino, to connect, inform and orientate Venezuelan women in their struggle. Finally, after the1945 Venezuelan coup d'état and thecall for a new Constitution, to which women were elected, women's suffrage became a constitutional right in the country.
The right of women to vote has sometimes been denied in non-religious organizations; for example, it was not until 1964 that women in theNational Association of the Deaf in the United States were first allowed to vote.[377]
ThePope is elected bycardinals.[378] Women are not appointed as cardinals, and therefore, women cannot vote for the Pope.[379]
The female Catholic office ofAbbess is elective, the choice being made by the secret votes of nuns belonging to the community.[380] The high rank ascribed to abbesses within the Catholic Church formerly permitted some abbesses the right to sit and vote at national assemblies – as with various high-ranking abbesses in Medieval Germany, who were ranked among the independent princes of the empire. Their Protestant successors enjoyed the same privilege almost into modern times.[17]
In Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, and most Orthodox Jewish movements, women have the right to vote. Since the 1970s, more and more Modern Orthodox synagogues and religious organizations have been granting women the right to vote and to be elected to their governing bodies. In a few Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, women are denied the vote or the ability to be elected to positions of authority.[386][387][388]
In the United States, Jewish women were hugely participatory in the suffrage movement. American Jewish support started in the mid-1800s but grew significantly at the turn of the twentieth century due to Jewish immigration from Europe. Jewish suffragists facedantisemitism andxenophobia fromanti-suffragists and suffragists alike. By the time of theNineteenth Amendment, a majority of American Jews supported suffrage.[389]
Ernestine Rose was a Polish American suffragist who worked closely withElizabeth Cady Stanton andSusan B. Anthony. She is sometimes referred to as "the first Jewish feminist" though she had renounced Judaism at an early age and was an active atheist.[389]
^abcdefghijklmnopqrKarlsson Sjögren, Åsa,Männen, kvinnorna och rösträtten: medborgarskap och representation 1723–1866 [Men, women, and suffrage: citizenship and representation 1723–1866], Carlsson, Stockholm, 2006 (in Swedish).
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^Klinghoffer, Judith Apter; Lois, Elkis (1992)."'The Petticoat Electors': Women's Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776–1807". Journal of the Early Republic 12, no. 2. pp. 159–193.
^South Australia celebrated the centenary of the female franchise in 1994; that is, 100 years from the date the legislation was passed by parliament rather that from the date it gained royal assent.[45]
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^Denzer, LaRay (1988). Murray Last; Paul Richards; Christopher Fyfe (eds.).Sierra Leone: 1787–1987; Two Centuries of Intellectual Life. Manchester University Press. p. 442.ISBN978-0-7190-2791-8.
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^Choudhury, Dilara and Hasanuzzaman, Al Masud (February 1997). "Political Decision-Making in Bangladesh and the Role of Women".Asian Profile.25 (1):53–69.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Ali, Azra Asghar (April 1999). "Indian Muslim Women's Suffrage Campaign: Personal Dilemma and Communal Identity 1919–47".Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society.47 (2):33–46.
^abMeininghaus, E. (2016). Creating Consent in Ba‘thist Syria: Women and Welfare in a Totalitarian State. Storbritannien: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 57
^Thompson, E. (2000). Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon. USA: Columbia University Press. p. 128
^Meininghaus, E. (2016). Creating Consent in Ba‘thist Syria: Women and Welfare in a Totalitarian State. Storbritannien: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 65
^Moubayed, S. M. (2006). Steel & Silk: Men and Women who Shaped Syria 1900–2000. US: Cune. pp. 430–432
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^ab* Åsa Karlsson-Sjögren:Männen, kvinnorna och rösträtten : medborgarskap och representation 1723–1866 ("Men, women and the vote: citizenship and representation 1723–1866") (in Swedish)
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^Aidt, Toke S.; Dallal, Bianca (March 1, 2008). "Female voting power: the contribution of women's suffrage to the growth of social spending in Western Europe (1869–1960)".Public Choice.134 (3–4):391–417.doi:10.1007/s11127-007-9234-1.S2CID153354759.
^abJohnston, Neil (March 1, 2013),"Female Suffrage before 1918",The History of the Parliamentary Franchise, House of Commons Library, pp. 37–39, retrievedMarch 16, 2016
^Smart, Judith (July 2008)."Women's Suffrage Organisations – Entry".eMelbourne - The Encyclopedia of Melbourne Online: School of Historical Studies, Department of History. RetrievedApril 22, 2025.
^Markoff, John, 'Margins, Centers, and Democracy: The Paradigmatic History of Women's Suffrage'Signs the Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2003; 29 (1).
^Augustine-Adams, Kif (2017). "Women's Suffrage, the Anti-Chinese Campaigns, and Gendered Ideals in Sonora, Mexico, 1917–1925".Hispanic American Historical Review.97 (2):223–258.doi:10.1215/00182168-3824053.
^Barry, Carolina, ed.Sufragio feminino: Prácticas y debates políticos, religiosos, y culturales en la Argentina y América Latina. Caseros, Argentina: Editorial de la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero 2011.
^Macpherson, A. S. (2007). From Colony to Nation: Women Activists and the Gendering of Politics in Belize, 1912–1982. Ukraina: University of Nebraska Press.
^John Henry Lefroy (1981) [1877].Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of The Bermudas or Somers Islands, Volume 1 (The Bermuda Memorials Edition, 1881) (First ed.). Bermuda: The Bermuda Historical Society and The Bermuda National Trust. Letters Patent of King James I, 1615.
^Knahan, Anne-Marie, "Transcendent Citizenship: Suffrage, the National Council of Women of Canada, and the Politics of Organized Womanhood",Journal of Canadian Studies (2008), 42#3 pp. 5–27.
^Frederick Brent Scollie, "The Woman Candidate for the Ontario Legislative Assembly 1919–1929,"Ontario History, CIV (Autumn 2012), 5–6, discusses the legal framework for election to Ontario school boards and municipal councils.
^abcSusan Jackel."Women's Suffrage".The Canadian Encyclopedia. Archived fromthe original on October 16, 2015. RetrievedDecember 2, 2014.
^John H. Thompson, "'The Beginning of Our Regeneration': The Great War and Western Canadian Reform Movements,"Canadian Historical Association Historical Papers (1972), pp. 227–45.
^Voisey, Paul, "'The "Votes For Women' Movement",Alberta History (1975), 23#3, pp. 10–23.
^Przeworski, Adam; Shin, Kong Joo; Xi, Tianyang (September 26, 2013)."A Simple Partisan Calculus of Women's Suffrage"(PDF).Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas. São Paulo, Brazil: Universidade de São Paulo. p. 22. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on September 9, 2017. RetrievedSeptember 9, 2017.
^Aguilar Gil, Roisida (2002). «El sufragio de la mujer: Debate en el Congreso Constituyente de 1931–1932». Elecciones (Lima: ONPE): 123–164.ISSN1994-5272
^Chapin, Judge Henry (1881). Address Delivered at the Unitarian Church in Uxbridge, 1864. Worcester, Massachusetts: Charles Hamilton Press (Harvard Library; from Google Books). p. 172.
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^"An Act Conferring upon Women the Elective Franchise", approved February 12, 1870. Acts, Resolutions and Memorials of the Territory of Utah, Passed at the Nineteenth Annual Session of the Legislature, 1870, p. 8.
^Van Wagenen, Lola (2001)Sister-Wives and Suffragists: Polygamy and the Politics of Woman Suffrage 1870–1896, BYU Studies.
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^Jiménez-Muñoz, Gladys M. (1998). "7. Literacy, Class, and Sexuality in the Debate on Women's Suffrage in Puerto Rico during the 1920s". In Matos-Rodriguez, Felix V.; Delgado, Linda C. (eds.). Puerto Rican Women's History: New Perspectives. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, pp. 143–170.ISBN978-0-7656-3175-6.
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