Women's suffrage

U.S. women suffragists demonstrating for the right to vote, February 1913

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or marital status. The movement's modern origins can be attributed to late-18th century France.

Limited voting rights were gained by women in Sweden, Britain, Finland and some western U.S. states in the late 19th century. International organizations were formed to coordinate efforts, especially the International Council of Women (1888) and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (1904). In 1893, New Zealand became the first nation to extend the right to vote to all adult women. The women in South Australia achieved the same right in 1894 but became the first to obtain the right to stand (run) for Parliament. The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland—then a part of the Russian Empire with autonomous powers—which also produced the world's first female members of parliament as a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections.

In most Western nations, women's suffrage came at the end of World War I, with some important late adopters such as France in 1944 and Switzerland in 1971.

Women's suffrage has generally been recognized after political campaigns to obtain it were waged. In many countries it was granted before universal suffrage. Women’s suffrage is explicitly stated as a right under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the United Nations in 1979.

History

Woman Suffrage Headquarters, Cleveland, 1913

The modern movement for women's suffrage originated in France in the 1780s and 1790s, where Antoine Condorcet and Olympe de Gouges advocated women's suffrage in national elections. Various countries, colonies and states granted restricted women's suffrage in the latter half of the 19th century.

In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage was in effect during the Age of Liberty (1718–1771). Other possible contenders for first "country" to grant female suffrage include the Corsican Republic (1755), the Pitcairn Islands (1838), the Isle of Man (1881), and Franceville (1889), but some of these had brief existences as independent states and others were not clearly independent.

In 1756, Lydia Taft became the first legal woman voter in colonial America. This occurred under British rule in the Massachusetts Colony. This was in a New England town meeting and she voted on at least three occasions in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Unmarried women who owned property could vote in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807.

Eighteen female MPs joined the Turkish Parliament in 1935

In the 1792 elections in Sierra Leone, all heads of household—one-third of whom were African women—could vote.

The female descendants of the Bounty mutineers who lived on Pitcairn Islands could vote from 1838, and this right transferred with their resettlement to Norfolk Island (now an Australian external territory) in 1856.

The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, the conference that refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from America because of their sex. In 1851, Stanton met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women. In 1868 Anthony encouraged working women from the printing and sewing trades in New York, who were excluded from men's trade unions, to form Workingwomen's Associations. As a delegate to the National Labor Congress in 1868 Anthony persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work, although the men at the conference deleted the reference to the vote.

Women in the Wyoming Territory voted as of 1869.

The 1871 Paris Commune recognized women's right to vote, but with its fall women were again deprived of the right, which would only be recognized again in July 1944 by Charles de Gaulle (at that time most of France—including Paris—was under Nazi occupation; Paris was liberated the following month).

In 1881 the Isle of Man, an internally self-governing dependent territory of the British Crown, enfranchised women property owners and delivered the first installment of women’s right to vote in parliamentary elections within the British Isles.

The Pacific colony of Franceville, declaring independence in 1889, became the first self-governing nation to adopt universal suffrage without distinction of sex or color; however, it soon came back under French and British colonial rule.

Of currently existing independent countries, New Zealand was the first to acknowledge women's right to vote in 1893 when it was a self-governing British colony. Unrestricted women's suffrage in terms of voting rights (women were not initially permitted to stand for election) was adopted in New Zealand in 1893. Following a successful movement led by Kate Sheppard, the women's suffrage bill was adopted mere weeks before the general election of that year. The women of the British protectorate of Cook Islands obtained the same right soon after and beat New Zealand's women to the polls in 1893.

The self-governing British colony of South Australia enacted universal suffrage and, furthermore, enabled women to stand for the colonial parliament in 1894. The Commonwealth of Australia federated in 1901, with women voting and standing for office in some states. The Australian Federal Parliament extended voting rights to all adult women for Federal elections from 1902 (with the exception of Aboriginal women in some states).

The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland. Amidst administrative reforms following the 1905 uprising, Finnish women's demand for both the right to vote (universal and equal suffrage) and the right to stand for election were met in 1906. The world's first female members of parliament were also Finnish, when on 1907, 19 women took up their places in the Parliament of Finland as a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections.

File:Poster23.jpg

Soviet poster celebrates women's right to vote and to be elected.

In the years before World War I, women in Norway (1913) and Denmark (1915) also won the right to vote, as did women in the remaining Australian states. Near the end of the war, Canada, Soviet Russia, Germany, and Poland also recognized women's right to participate in the elective franchise. British women over 30 had the vote in 1918, Dutch women in 1919, and American women won the vote August 26, 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. Women in Turkey won voting rights in 1926. In 1928, British women won suffrage on the same terms as men, that is, for persons 21 years old and older. One of the most recent jurisdictions to acknowledge women's full right to vote was Bhutan in 2008 (its first national elections).

Voting rights for women were introduced into international law by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, whose elected chair was Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal 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."

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, which went into force in 1954, enshrining the equal rights of women to vote, hold office, and access public services as set out by national laws.

Suffrage movements

After selling her home, British activist Emmeline 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 very broad one which encompassed women and men with a very broad range of views. One major division, especially in Britain, was between suffragists, who sought to create change constitutionally, and suffragettes, led by iconic English political activist Emmeline Pankhurst, who in 1903 formed the more militant Women's Social and Political Union. Pankhurst would not be satisfied with anything but action on the question of women's enfranchisement, with "deeds, not words" the organisation's motto. There was also a diversity of views on a "woman's place". Some who campaigned for women's suffrage felt that women were naturally kinder, gentler, and more concerned about weaker members of society, especially children. It was often assumed that women voters would have a civilizing effect on politics and would tend to support controls on alcohol, for example. Societies believed that although a woman's place was in the home, she should be able to influence laws which impacted upon that home. Other campaigners felt that men and women should be equal in every way and that there was no such thing as a woman's "natural role". There were also differences in opinion about other voters. Some campaigners felt that all adults were entitled to a vote, whether rich or poor, male or female, and regardless of race. Others saw women's suffrage as a way of canceling out the votes of lower class or non-white men.

Table of international women's suffrage

Main article: Timeline of women's suffrage

Date listed is the first date women were allowed to participate (by voting) in elections, not the date that women were granted universal suffrage without restrictions.

Note: The table can be sorted alphabetically or chronologically using the icon.

Country	Year	Voting age
Kingdom of Afghanistan	1963	18 years
Principality of Albania	1920	18 years
Algeria	1962	18 years
Andorra	1970	18 years
People's Republic of Angola	1975	18 years
Argentina	1947	18 years
Armenia	1917 (by application of the Russian legislation) 1919 March (by adoption of its own legislation)	18 years (currently) 20 years (initially)
Aruba	(a)	18 years
Australia	1902	18 years
German Austria	1919	16 years (since 2007) 20 years (initially)
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic	1918	18 years
Bahamas	1960	18 years
Bahrain	2002	18 years
Bangladesh	1972 (since independence)	18 years
Barbados	1950	18 years
British Leeward Islands (Today: Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla)	1951	18 years
British Windward Islands (Today: Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica)	1951	18 years
Belarusian People's Republic	1919	18 years
Belgium	1919/1948(b)	18 years
British Honduras (Today: Belize)	1954	18 years
Dahomey (Today: Benin)	1956	18 years
Bermuda	1944	18 years
Bhutan	1953	18 years
Bolivia	1938	18 years
Botswana	1965	18 years
Brazil	1932	16 years (optional since 1988, otherwise 18)
Brunei	1959	18 years (village elections only)
Kingdom of Bulgaria	1938	18 years
Upper Volta (Today: Burkina Faso)	1958	18 years
Burma	1922	18 years
Burundi	1961	18 years
Kingdom of Cambodia	1955	18 years
British Cameroons (Today: Cameroon)	1946	20 years
Canada	1917	18 years (since 1970) 21 years (initially)
Cape Verde	1975	18 years
Cayman Islands	(a)	18 years
Central African Republic	1986	21 years
Chad	1958	18 years
Chile	1934	18 years (currently) 25 years initially, able to read and write (local elections only)
China	1947	18 years
Colombia	1954	18 years
Comoros	1956	18 years
Zaire (Today: Democratic Republic of the Congo)	1967	18 years
Congo, Republic of the	1963	18 years
Cook Islands	1893	18 years
Costa Rica	1949	18 years
Côte d'Ivoire	1952	19 years
Cuba	1934	16 years
Cyprus	1960	18 years
Czechoslovakia (Today: Czech Republic, Slovakia)	1920	18 years
Kingdom of Denmark (Including Greenland, the Faroe Islands and, at that time, Iceland)	1915	18 years
Djibouti	1946	18 years
Dominican Republic	1942	18 years
Ecuador	1929	18 years
Egypt	1956	18 years
El Salvador	1939	18 years
Equatorial Guinea	1963	18 years
Estonia	1917	18 years
Ethiopia (Then including Eritrea)	1955	18 years
Falkland Islands	(a)	18 years
Fiji	1963	21 years
Finland	1906	18 years
France	1944	18 years
French Polynesia	(a)	18 years
Gabon	1956	21 years
Gambia, The	1960	18 years
Democratic Republic of Georgia	1918	18 years
Germany	1918	18 years
Ghana	1954	18 years
Gibraltar	(a)	18 years
Greece	1930 (Local Elections, Literate Only), 1952 (Unconditional)	18 years (since 1952), 30 years (in 1930)
Guam	(a)	18 years
Guatemala	1946	18 years
Guernsey	(a)	18 years
Guinea	1958	18 years
Guinea-Bissau	1977	18 years
Guyana	1953	18 years
Haiti	1950	18 years
Honduras	1955	18 years
Hong Kong	1949	18 years
Hungarian Democratic Republic	1918	18 years
India	1947 (Since the state's inception)	18 years
Indonesia	1937 (for Europeans only), 1945	17 years (married persons regardless of age)
Iran	1963	18 years, was 15
Iraq	1980	18 years
Ireland	1918	18 years
Isle of Man	1881	16 years
Israel	1948 (Since the state's inception)	18 years
Italy	1946	18 years (except in senatorial elections, where minimum age is 25)
Jamaica	1944	18 years
Japan	1947	20 years
Jersey	(a)	16 years
Jordan	1974	18 years
Kazakh SSR	1924	18 years
Kenya	1963	18 years
Kiribati	1967	18 years
Korea, North	1946	17 years
Korea, South	1948	19 years
Kuwait	2005	21 years
Kyrgyz SSR	1918	18 years
Kingdom of Laos	1958	18 years
Latvia	1917	18 years
Lebanon	1952	21 years
Lesotho	1965	18 years
Liberia	1946	18 years
Kingdom of Libya	1964	18 years
Liechtenstein	1984	18 years
Lithuania	1917	18 years
Luxembourg	1919	18 years
Macau	(a)	18 years
Madagascar	1959	18 years
Malawi	1961	18 years
Federation of Malaya (Today: Malaysia)	1957	21 years
Maldives	1932	21 years
Mali	1956	18 years
Malta	1947	18 years
Marshall Islands	1979	18 years
Mauritania	1961	18 years
Mauritius	1956	18 years
Mexico	1947	18 years
Micronesia, Federated States of	1979	18 years
Moldavian SSR	1940	18 years
Monaco	1962	18 years
Mongolian People's Republic	1924	18 years
Morocco	1963	18 years
People's Republic of Mozambique	1975	18 years
Namibia	1989	18 years
Nauru	1968	20 years
Nepal	1951	18 years
Netherlands	1919	18 years
New Zealand	1893	18 years
Nicaragua	1955	16 years
Niger	1948	18 years
Nigeria	1958	18 years
Norway	1913	18 years
Oman	2003	21 years
Pakistan	1947 (Since the state's inception)	18 years
Palau	1979	18 years
Panama	1941	18 years
Papua New Guinea	1964	18 years
Paraguay	1961	18 years
Peru	1955	18 years
Philippines	1937	18 years
Pitcairn Islands	1838	18 years
Poland	1917	18 years
Portugal	1931	18 years
Puerto Rico	1929	18 years
Qatar	1997	18 years
Kingdom of Romania	1938	18 years
Russian Provisional Government	1917	18 years (currently) 20 years (initially, for city dumas) 21 year (initially, for RCA)
Rwanda	1961	18 years
Saint Helena	(a)	(a)
Samoa	1990	21 years
San Marino	1959	18 years
São Tomé and Príncipe	1975	18 years
Saudi Arabia	2015 (expected)	21 years
Senegal	1945	18 years
Seychelles	1948	17 years
Sierra Leone	1961	18 years
Singapore	1947	21 years
Solomon Islands	1974	21 years
Somalia	1956	18 years
South Africa	1930 (white women only; women of other races were enfranchised at the same time as men)	18 years (since 1958) 21 years (initially)
Spain	1931	18 years
Ceylon (Today: Sri Lanka)	1931	18 years
Sudan	1964	17 years
Suriname	1948	18 years
Swaziland	1968	18 years
Sweden	1921	18 years
Switzerland	1971	18 years
Syria	1949	18 years
Taiwan	1947	20 years
Tajik SSR	1924	18 years
Tanzania	1959	18 years
Thailand	1932	18 years
Timor-Leste	1976	17 years
Togo	1945	18 years
Tonga	1960	21 years
Trinidad and Tobago	1946	18 years
Tunisia	1959	18 years
Turkey	1930 (for local elections), 1934 (for national elections)	18 years
Turkmen SSR	1924	18 years
Tuvalu	1967	18 years
Uganda	1962	18 years
Ukrainian SSR	1919	18 years
United Arab Emirates	2006	(a)
United Kingdom (Then including Ireland)	1918 and 1928	18 years, was 30 and then 21 years
United States	1920	18 years
Uruguay	1917/1927 (c)	18 years
Uzbek SSR	1938	18 years
Vanuatu	1975	18 years
Venezuela	1946	18 years
Vietnam	1946	18 years
South Yemen (Today: Yemen)	1967	18 years
Zambia	1962	18 years
Southern Rhodesia (Today: Zimbabwe)	1919	21 years
Yugoslavia (Today: Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia)	1945	18 years

Note:

(a) Data unavailable

(b) Was granted in the constitution in 1919, for communal voting. Suffrage for the provincial councils and the national parliament only came in 1948.

(c) Women's suffrage was broadcast for the first time in 1927, in the plebiscite of Cerro Chato.

Women's suffrage by country

Australian women's rights were lampooned in this 1887 Melbourne Punch cartoon: A hypothetical female member foists her baby's care on the House Speaker

Asia

India

Basu shows that the Women'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, the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League. British and Indian feminists combined in 1918 to publish a magazine Stri Dharma that featured international news from a feminist perspective. In 1919 in the Montagu–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). In Bengal province, the provincial assembly rejected it in 1921 but Southard shows an intense campaign produced victory in 1921. The original idea came from British suffragettes. Success in Bengal depended on middle class Indian women, who emerged from a fast-growing urban elite that favoured European fashions and ideas. 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.

In the Government of India Act 1935 the British 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.

Pakistan

Pakistan was part of India until 1947, when it became independent. Women received full suffrage in 1947. Ali points out that 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. Before 1947 there was a tendency for the Muslim women in Punjab to vote for the Muslim League while their menfolk supported the Unionist Party.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh was (mostly) the province of Bengal in India until 1947, then it became part of Pakistan. 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, namely Sheikh Hasina and Begum 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 and Hasanuzzaman argue that the strong patriarchal traditions of Bangladesh explain why women are so reluctant to stand up in politics.

Indonesia

In the first half of the 20th century, Indonesia (pre-independence era as Dutch East Indies) was one of the slowest moving countries to gain women’s suffrage. They began their fight in 1905 by introducing municipal councils that included some members elected by a restricted district. Voting rights only went to males that could read and write, which excluded many non-European males. At the time, the literacy rate for males was 11% and for females 2%. The main group who pressured the Indonesian government for women’s suffrage was the Dutch Vereeninging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (VVV-Women’s Suffrage Association) which was founded in the Netherlands in 1894. They tried to attract Indonesian membership, but had very limited success because the leaders of the organization had little skill in relating to even the educated class of the Indonesians. When they eventually did connect somewhat with women, they failed to sympathize with them and thus ended up alienating many well-educated Indonesians. In 1918 the colony gained its first national representative body called the Volksraad, which still excluded women in voting. In 1935, the colonial administration used its power of nomination to appoint a European woman to the Volksraad. In 1938, the administration introduced the right of women to be elected to urban representative institution, which resulted in some Indonesian and European women entering municipal councils. Eventually, the law became that only European women and municipal councils could vote, which excluded all other women and local councils. September 1941 was when this law was amended and the law extended to women of all races by the Volksraad. Finally, in November 1941, the right to vote for municipal councils was granted to all women on a similar basis to men (with property and educational qualifications). There are a lot of women that supports the rights for women. The famous one is Raden Ajeng Kartini. She is also famous for her quote, "Habis Gelap, Terbitlah Terang" or in English, "After Dark, Comes the Light". It means that after bad days or dark days, there will always be hope everything including the success of the Women's Suffrage. Raden Ajeng Kartini did succeed. The other women that also fights for women's right also succeed. Raden Ajeng Kartini is so famous, Indonesians made a special date just for her, Hari Kartini, or Kartini's Day on 21 April, which is Kartini's birthday.

Iran

In 1963, a referendum overwhelmingly approved by voters gave women the right to vote, a right previously denied to them under the Iranian Constitution of 1906 pursuant to Chapter 2, Article 3.

Japan

Main article: Women's suffrage in Japan

Women's Rights meeting in Tokyo, to push for women's suffrage.

Although women were allowed to vote in some counties in 1880, women's suffrage was enacted at a national level in 1945.

Kuwait

Main article: Women's suffrage in Kuwait

Women's suffrage in Kuwait was recognized in an amendment to electoral law on May 17, 2005.

Saudi Arabia

In late September 2011, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud declared that women would be able to vote and run for office starting in 2015. The franchise will apply to the only (semi-)elected bodies in the kingdom, the municipal councils. Half of the seats on municipal councils are elective, and the councils have few powers. The council elections have been held since 2005 (the first time they were held before that was the 1960s). The King also declared that women would be eligible to be appointed to the Shura Council, an unelected body that issues advisory opinions on national policy. '"This is great news," said Saudi writer and women's rights activist Wajeha al-Huwaider. "Women's voices will finally be heard. Now it is time to remove other barriers like not allowing women to drive cars and not being able to function, to live a normal life without male guardians."' Robert Lacey, author of two books about the kingdom, said, "This is the first positive, progressive speech out of the government since the Arab 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.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka (at that time Ceylon) was one of the first Asian countries to allow voting rights to women over the age of 21 without any restrictions. Since then, women have enjoyed a significant presence in the Sri Lankan political arena. The zenith of this favourable condition to women has been the 1960 July General Elections, in which Ceylon elected the world's first woman Prime Minister, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Her daughter, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga also became the Prime Minister later in 1994, and the same year she was elected as the Executive President of Sri Lanka, making her the fourth woman in the world to hold the portfolio.

Africa

South Africa

The franchise was extended to white women 21 years or older by the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930. The first general election at which women could vote was the 1933 election. At that election Leila Reitz (wife of Deneys Reitz) was elected as the first female MP, representing Parktown for the South African Party. The limited voting rights available to non-white men in the Cape Province and Natal (Transvaal and the Orange Free State practically denied all non-whites the right to vote, and had also done so to non-Afrikaner uitlanders 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 the Transkei bantustan, was granted to all adult citizens of the Transkei, including women. Similar provision was made for the Legislative Assemblies created for other bantustans. All adult coloured citizens were eligible to vote for the Coloured Persons Representative Council, which was established in 1968 with limited legislative powers; the council was however abolished in 1980. Similarly, all adult Indian citizens were eligible to vote for the South African Indian Council in 1981. In 1984 the Tricameral Parliament was established, and the right to vote for the House of Representatives and House 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 the National Assembly was granted to all adult citizens.

Southern Rhodesia

Southern Rhodesian women won the vote in 1919 and Ethel Tawse Jollie (1875–1950) was elected to the Southern Rhodesia legislature 1920-1928, the first woman to sit in any national Commonwealth Parliament outwith Westminster. The influx of women settlers from the United Kingdom and the British Dominions proved a decisive factor in the 1922 referendum that rejected annexation by a South Africa increasingly under the sway of traditionalist Afrikaner Nationalists in favor of Rhodesian Home Rule or "responsible government". Only 51 black Rhodesians qualified for the vote in 1923 (based upon property, assets, income, and literacy). It is unclear when the first black woman qualified for the vote.

Europe

Austria

After the 1848 revolutions, the right to vote was bound to the ownership of property and thus paying of taxes. While it was also bound to being male, a small number of privileged women who owned property were actually allowed to vote as a result. In 1889 this "loophole" was closed in Lower Austria, which led some to mobilise for the struggle for political rights and the right to vote for women.

It was only after the breakdown of the Habsburg Monarchy, that the new Austria would grant the general, equal, direct and secret right to vote to all citizens, regardless of sex, in 1919.

Belgium

Jane Brigode, Belgian suffragist, around 1910.

After a revision of the constitution in 1921 the general right to vote was introduced according to the "one man, one vote" principle. Women obtained voting rights at the municipal level. As an exception, widows of World War I were allowed to vote at the national level as well. The introduction of women's suffrage was already put onto the agenda at the time, by means of including an article in the constitution that allowed approval of women's suffrage by special law. This happened no sooner than after World War II, in 1948. In Belgium, voting is compulsory but not enforced.

Czech Republic

In the former Bohemia, taxpaying women and women in "learned profession" were allowed to vote by proxy and made eligible to the legislative body in 1864. The general public obtained the right to vote and be elected, based on age but regardless of sex, when Czechoslovakia was established in 1918.

Denmark

In Denmark, women were given the right to vote in municipal elections on April 20, 1909. However it was not until June 5, 1915 that they were allowed to vote in Rigsdag elections.

Finland

13 of the total of 19 female MPs, who were the first female MPs in the world, elected in Finland's parliamentary elections in 1907.

Finland was a Swedish province until 1809, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish Age of Liberty (1718–1771), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds

The predecessor state of modern Finland, the Grand Principality of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863 taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the country side, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpää, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926.

Finland's first female President Tarja Halonen was voted into office in 2000 and for a second term in 2006. Since the 2011 parliamentary election, women's representation stands at 42,5%. In 2003 Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the first female Prime Minister of Finland, and in 2007 Matti Vanhanen's second cabinet made history as for the first time there were more women than men in the cabinet of Finland (12 vs. 8).

France

The 21 April 1944 ordinance of the French provisional government extended suffrage to French women. The first elections with female participation were the municipal elections of 29 April 1945 and the parliamentary elections of 21 October 1945. "Indigenous Muslim" women in French Algeria had to wait until a 3 July 1958 decree.

Germany

In Germany, women's suffrage was granted by decree by the revolutionary Council of People's Deputies (Rat der Volksbeauftragten) on November 12, 1918. Women were subsequently eligible to participate in elections in January 1919 for the National Assembly that drafted what became the constitution of the Weimar Republic, ratified in August 1919.

Italy

In Italy, women's suffrage was not introduced following the World War I, but upheld by Socialist and Fascist activists and partly introduced by Benito Mussolini's government in 1925. Following the war, in the 1946 election, all Italians simultaneously voted for the Constituent Assembly and for a referendum about keeping Italy a monarchy or creating a republic instead. Elections were not held in the Julian March and South Tyrol because they were under UN occupation.

Liechtenstein

In Liechtenstein, women's suffrage was granted via referendum in 1984. Previously, referendums on the issue of women's suffrage had been held in 1968, 1971 and 1973.

Netherlands

Dutch Wilhelmina Drucker, pioneer for women's rights, is portrayed by Truus Claes in 1917 on the occasion of her seventieth birthday.

The group working for women’s suffrage in the Netherlands was the Dutch Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (Women’s Suffrage Association), founded in 1894. In 1917 Dutch women became electable in national elections, which led to the election of Suze Groeneweg of the SDAP party in the general elections of 1918. On 15 May 1919 a new law was drafted to allow women's suffrage without any limitations. The law was passed and the right to vote could be exercised for the first time in the general elections of 1922. Voting was made mandatory from 1918, which was not lifted until 1970.

Norway

The first Norwegian woman casts her vote in the 1910 municipal election

Middle class women could vote for the first time in 1907 (i.e., women coming from families with a certain level of prosperity). Women in general were allowed to vote in local elections from 1910 on, and in 1913 a motion on general suffrage for women was carried unanimously in the Norwegian parliament (Stortinget).

Poland

Poland in its first days after regaining of independence (1918) after the 123 year period of the Partitions of Poland (before 1795 tax-paying females were allowed to take part in political life), allowed voting rights to women, as well as rights to be elected, without any restrictions. The first women elected to the Sejm in 1919 were: Gabriela Balicka, Jadwiga Dziubińska, Irena Kosmowska, Maria Moczydłowska, Zofia Moraczewska, Anna Piasecka, Zofia Sokolnicka, Franciszka Wilczkowiakowa.,

Portugal

Carolina Beatriz Ângelo was the first Portuguese woman to vote, in 1911, for the Republican Constitutional Parliament. She argued that she was entitled to do so as she was the head of a household. The law was changed some time later, stating that only male heads of households could vote. In 1931 during the Estado Novo regime, women were allowed to vote for the first time, but only if they had a high school or university degree, while men had only to be able to read and write. In 1946 a new electoral law enlarged the possibility of female vote, but still with some differences regarding men. A law from 1968 claimed to establish "equality of political rights for men and women", but a few electoral rights were reserved for men. After the Carnation Revolution, in 1974, women were granted full and equal electoral rights.

Spain

Women exercising the right to vote during the Second Spanish Republic, 5th of November 1933.

In the Basque provinces of Biscay and Gipuzkoa women who paid a special election tax were allowed to vote and get elected to office till the abolition of the Basque fueros. Nonetheless the possibility of being elected without the right to vote persisted, hence María Isabel de Ayala was elected mayor in Ikastegieta in 1865. Women's suffrage was officially adopted in 1931 not without the opposition of Margarita Nelken and Victoria Kent, two female MPs (both members of the Republican Radical-Socialist Party), who argued that women in Spain and at that time, were far too immature and ignorant to vote responsibly, thus putting at risk the existence of the Second Republic. During the Franco regime only women that were considered heads of household were allowed to vote; in the "organic democracy" type of elections called "referendums" (Franco's regime was dictatorial) women were allowed to vote. From 1976, during the Spanish transition to democracy women fully exercised the right to vote and be elected to office.

Sweden

Swedish suffragist Signe Bergman, around 1910.

During the Age of Liberty (1718–1771), tax-paying female members of guilds (most often widows), had been allowed to vote. Furthermore, new tax regulations made the participation of women in the elections even more extensive from 1743 onward.

The vote was sometimes given through a male representative, which was one of the most prominent reasons cited by those in opposition to female suffrage. In 1758 women were excluded from mayoral and local elections, but continued to vote in national elections. In 1771 women's suffrage was abolished through the new constitution.

In 1862 tax-paying women of legal majority (unmarried women and widows) were again allowed to vote in municipal elections, making Sweden the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote. The right to vote in municipal elections applied only to people of legal majority, which excluded married women, as they were juridically under the guardianship of their husbands. In 1884 the suggestion to grant women the right to vote in national elections was initially voted down in Parliament. In 1902 the Swedish Society for Woman Suffrage was founded. In 1906 the suggestion of women's suffrage was voted down in parliament again. However, the same year, also married women were granted municipal suffrage. In 1909 women were granted eligibility to municipal councils, and in the following 1910–11 municipal elections, forty women were elected to different municipal councils, Gertrud Månsson being the first. In 1914 Emilia Broomé became the first woman in the legislative assembly.

The right to vote in national elections was not returned to women until 1919, and was practised again in the election of 1921, for the first time in 150 years. In the election of 1921 more women than men had the right to vote because women got the right just by turning 21 years old while men had to undergo military service for the right to vote. In a decision 1921 men received the same right as women and this was practised in the election of 1924.

After the 1921 election, the first women were elected to Swedish Parliament after the suffrage: Kerstin Hesselgren in the Upper chamber and Nelly Thüring (Social Democrat), Agda Östlund (Social Democrat) Elisabeth Tamm (liberal) and Bertha Wellin (Conservative) in the Lower chamber. Karin Kock-Lindberg became the first female government minister, and in 1958, Ulla Lindström became the first acting Prime Minister.

Switzerland

Main article: Women's suffrage in Switzerland

The Swiss referendum on women's suffrage was held on 1 February 1959. The majority of Switzerland's men voted against it, but in some cantons women obtained the vote. The first Swiss woman to hold political office, Trudy Späth-Schweizer, was elected to the municipal government of Riehen in 1958.

Switzerland was the last Western republic to grant women's suffrage; they gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1971. In 1991 following a decision by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, Appenzell Innerrhoden became the last Swiss canton to grant women the vote on local issues.

Turkey

In Turkey women were given the right to vote in municipal elections on March 20, 1930. Women's suffrage was achieved for parliament elections on December 5, 1934 by the constitutional amendment. Turkish women who participated for the parliament elections as a first time on February 8, 1935 obtained 18 seats. Latife Uşşaki (wife of the founder of the Republic of Turkey) is known for being in the Emancipation of Women.

United Kingdom

A British cartoon speculating on why imprisoned suffragettes refused to eat in prison

Main article: Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom

The campaign for women's suffrage gained momentum throughout the early part of the 20th century as women became increasingly politically active, particularly during the campaigns to reform suffrage in the United Kingdom. John Stuart Mill, elected to Parliament in 1865 and an open advocate of female suffrage (about to publish The Subjection of Women), campaigned for an amendment to the Reform Act to include female suffrage. Roundly defeated in an all male parliament under a Conservative government, the issue of women's suffrage came to the fore.

During the later half of the 19th century, a number of campaign groups were formed in an attempt to lobby Members of Parliament and gain support. In 1897, seventeen of these groups came together to form the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), who held public meetings, wrote letters to politicians and published various texts. In 1907 the NUWSS organized its first large procession. This march became known as the Mud March as over 3,000 women trudged through the streets of London from Hyde Park to Exeter Hall to advocate for women’s suffrage.

In 1903 a number of members of the NUWSS broke away and, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, formed the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). As the national media lost interest in the suffrage campaign, the WSPU decided it would use other methods to create publicity. This began in 1905 at a meeting where Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, a member of the newly elected Liberal government, was speaking. As he was talking, two members of the WSPU constantly shouted out, 'Will the Liberal Government give votes to women?'. When they refused to cease calling out, police were called to evict them and the two suffragettes (as members of the WSPU became known after this incident) were involved in a struggle which ended with them being arrested and charged for assault. When they refused to pay their fine, they were sent to prison for one week, and three days. The British public were shocked and took notice at this use of violence to win the vote for women.

After this media success, the WSPU's tactics became increasingly violent. This included an attempt in 1908 to storm the House of Commons, the arson of David Lloyd George's country home (despite his support for women's suffrage). In 1909 Lady Constance Lytton was imprisoned, but immediately released when her identity was discovered, so in 1910 she disguised herself as a working class seamstress called Jane Warton and endured inhumane treatment which included force-feeding. In 1913, suffragette Emily Davison protested by interfering with a horse owned by King George V during the running of the Epsom Derby; she was trampled and died four days later. The WSPU ceased their militant activities during World War I and agreed to assist with the war effort.

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. On 6 February, the Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed, enfranchising women over the age of 30 who met minimum property qualifications. About 8.4 million women gained the vote. In November 1918, the Eligibility of Women Act was passed, allowing women to be elected into Parliament. The Representation of the People Act 1928 extended the voting franchise to all women over the age of 21, granting women the vote on the same terms as men.

In 1999 Time magazine in naming Emmeline Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, states.."she shaped an idea of women for our time; she shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back".

The Americas

Brazil

The first Brazilian women enrolled as a voter was Celina Guimarães Viana, who was able to vote based on a state electoral law, after being authorized by a local judge in 1927. After this precedent, women from at least nine Brazilians states could be enrolled via judicial decisions. The female lawyer Mietta Santiago filed a writ of security alleging that the prohibition of women's suffrage was unconstitutional. She also managed a judicial decision to vote in 1928.

All restrictions to women's suffrage in Brazil were removed on February 24, 1932, when President Getúlio Vargas issued the Brazilian Electoral Code (Decrete 21076), whose Article 2 stated that the right to vote was granted to all Brazilian citizens with at least 21 years old, without distinction of sex. The first occasion on which all Brazilian women could finally vote was the 1934 election for the National Constituent Assembly.

Canada

In the 19th century, female property holders could demand municipal voting rights on the principle of "no taxation without representation". Propertied women in Québec voted unchallenged between 1809 and 1849, when the word "male" was inserted into Québec's franchise act. What women in Québec lost, women in Ontario soon gained; from 1850, women with property, married or single, could vote for school trustees. By 1900 municipal voting privileges for propertied women were general throughout Canada". Bills to enfranchise women in provincial elections failed to pass in any province until Manitoba finally succeeded in 1916. At the federal level it was a two step process. On September 20, 1917, women gained a limited right to vote: According to the Parliament of Canada website, the Military Voters Act established that "women who are British subjects and have close relatives in the armed forces can vote on behalf of their male relatives, in federal elections." In 1919, the right to vote was extended to all women in the Act to confer the Electoral Franchise upon Women. The remaining provinces quickly followed suit, except for Quebec, which did not do so until 1940. Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to Parliament in 1921.

United States

Program for Woman Suffrage Procession, Washington, D.C., March 3, 1913

Main article: Women's suffrage in the United States

Lydia Taft was an early forerunner in Colonial America who was allowed to vote in three New England town meetings, beginning in 1756, at Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Following the American Revolution, women were allowed to vote in New Jersey, but no other state, from 1790 until 1807, provided they met property requirements then in place. In 1807 all women were taken off the voters' roll as universal male suffrage was instated.

In June 1848, Gerrit Smith made women's suffrage a plank in the Liberty Party platform. In July, at the Seneca Falls Convention in upstate New York, activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott began a seventy-year struggle by women to secure the right to vote. Attendees signed a document known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, of which Stanton was the primary author. Equal rights became the rallying cry of the early movement for women's rights, and equal rights meant claiming access to all the prevailing definitions of freedom. In 1850 Lucy Stone organized a larger assembly with a wider focus, the National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. Susan B. Anthony, a native of Rochester, New York, joined the cause in 1852 after reading Stone's 1850 speech. Women's suffrage activists pointed out that blacks had been granted the franchise and had not been included in the language of the United States Constitution's Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments (which gave people equal protection under the law and the right to vote regardless of their race, respectively). This, they contended, had been unjust. Early victories were won in the territories of Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870).

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. The law was approved on December 10, 1869. This day was later commemorated as Wyoming Day.

Utah women were disenfranchised by provisions of the federal Edmunds–Tucker Act enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1887.

"Kaiser Wilson" banner held by a woman who picketed the White House

The push to grant Utah women's suffrage was at least partially fueled by the belief that, given the right to vote, Utah women would dispose of polygamy. It was only after Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor of polygamy that the U.S. Congress disenfranchised Utah women.

By the end of the 19th century, Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming had enfranchised women after effort by the suffrage associations at the state level.

During the beginning of the 20th century, as women's suffrage faced several important federal votes, a portion of the suffrage movement known as the National Women's Party led by suffragist Alice Paul became the first "cause" to picket outside the White House. Paul and Lucy Burns led a series of protests against the Wilson Administration in Washington. 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". 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. On October 17, Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months and on October 30 began a hunger strike, but after a few days prison authorities began to force feed her. After years of opposition, Wilson changed his position in 1918 to advocate women's suffrage as a war measure.

The key vote came on June 4, 1919, when the Senate approved the amendment by 56 to 25 after four hours of debate, during which Democratic Senators opposed to the amendment filibustered to prevent a roll call until their absent Senators could be protected by pairs. The Ayes included 36 (82%) Republicans and 20 (54%) Democrats. The Nays comprised 8 (18%) Republicans and 17 (46%) Democrats. It was ratified by sufficient states in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment, which prohibited state or federal sex-based restrictions on voting.

Mexico

Women gained the right to vote in 1947 for local elections and for national elections in 1953 (article 34 of the constitution).

Oceania

Australia

South Australian suffragette Catherine Helen Spence (1825-1910). South Australia granted women the vote in 1894.

Main article: Women's suffrage in Australia

The female descendants of the Bounty mutineers who lived on Pitcairn Islands could vote from 1838, and this right transferred with their resettlement to Norfolk Island (now an Australian external territory) in 1856.

Propertied women in the colony of South Australia were granted the vote in local elections (but not parliamentary elections) in 1861. Henrietta Dugdale formed the first Australian women's suffrage society in Melbourne, Victoria in 1884. Women became eligible to vote for the Parliament of South Australia in 1894 and in 1897, Catherine Helen Spence became the first female political candidate for political office, unsuccessfully standing for election as a delegate to Federal Convention on Australian Federation. Western Australia granted voting rights to women in 1899.

The first election for the Parliament of the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 was based on the electoral provisions of the six pre-existing colonies, so that women who had the vote and the right to stand for Parliament at state level had the same rights for the 1901 Australian Federal election. In 1902, the Commonwealth Parliament passed the Commonwealth Franchise Act, which enabled all women to vote and stand for election for the Federal Parliament. Four women stood for election in 1903. The Act did, however, specifically exclude 'natives' from Commonwealth franchise unless already enrolled in a state. In 1949, The right to vote in federal elections was extended to all Indigenous people who had served in the armed forces, or were enrolled to vote in state elections (Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory still excluded indigenous women from voting rights). Remaining restrictions were abolished in 1962 by the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

Edith Cowan was elected to the West Australian Legislative Assembly in 1921, the first woman elected to any Australian Parliament. Dame Enid Lyons, in the Australian House of Representatives and Senator Dorothy Tangney became the fist women in the Federal Parliament in 1943. Lyons went on to be the first woman to hold a Cabinet post in the 1949 ministry of Robert Menzies. Rosemary Follett was elected Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory in 1989, becoming the first woman elected to lead a state or territory. By 2010, the people of Australia's oldest city, Sydney had female leaders occupying every major political office above them, with Clover Moore as Lord Mayor, Kristina Keneally as Premier of New South Wales, Marie Bashir as Governor of New South Wales, Julia Gillard as Prime Minister, Quentin Bryce as Governor-General of Australia and Elizabeth II as Queen of Australia.

Cook Islands

Women in Rarotonga were given the right to vote in 1893, shortly after New Zealand.

New Zealand

Main article: Women's suffrage in New Zealand

New Zealand's Electoral Act of 19 September 1893 made this country of the British Empire the first in the world to grant women the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

Women who owned property and paid rates—usually widows or "spinsters"—had been allowed to vote in local elections in Otago and Nelson since 1867; women in other provinces were granted suffrage in 1876. Women in New Zealand were inspired to fight for universal voting rights by the equal-rights philosopher John Stuart Mill and the British feminists’ aggression. In addition, the missionary efforts of the American-based Woman's Christian Temperance Union gave them the motivation to fight—and their efforts were supported by a number of important male politicians including John Hall, Robert Stout, Julius Vogel, and William Fox. In 1878, 1879, and 1887 amendments extending the vote to women failed by a hair each time. In 1893 the reformers at last succeeded in extending the franchise to women.

Although the Liberal government which passed the bill generally advocated social and political reform, the electoral bill was only passed because of a combination of personality issues and political accident. The bill granted the vote to women of all races. New Zealand women were not given the right to stand for parliament, however, until 1919. In 2005 almost a third of the Members of Parliament elected were female. Women recently have also occupied powerful and symbolic offices such as those of Prime Minister, Governor-General, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and between 2005, and 2006, all three of these posts were held by women. New Zealand's first chief justice, Sian Elias is also a woman.

Women's suffrage in religions

Catholicism

The Pope is only elected by the College of Cardinals. Women are not appointed as cardinals, so women cannot vote for the Pope.

Islam

Although Women were included in the process of electing the Caliph during the Rashidun Caliphate (632-661), Women's rights vary in Islamic countries in the modern era. The question of women's right to become imams (a religious leader) is disputed by many, see Women in Islam.

Judaism

Women are denied the vote and the ability to be elected to positions of authority in many Orthodox Jewish synagogues and religious organizations. This is not true of the non-Orthodox branches of Judaism, especially in the United States,

Women's suffrage denied or conditioned

• Brunei: Women and men have been revoked the right to vote or to stand for a national legislative election since 1962. Only in local elections are they permitted.
• Lebanon: Proof of elementary education is required for women but not for men, while voting is compulsory for men but optional for women.
• Saudi Arabia: Women were not given the right to vote or to stand for the local election in 2005, although suffrage was slated to possibly be granted by 2009, then set for later in 2011, but suffrage was not granted either of those times. In late September 2011, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud declared that women would be able to vote and run for office starting in 2015.
• United Arab Emirates: Limited suffrage (for both men and women), but it gradually expanded in the election held in 2011.
• Vatican City/Holy See (See above under Women's suffrage#Catholicism)

See also

• Anti-suffragism
• Izola Forrester
• List of the first female holders of political offices in Europe
• Open Christmas Letter
• Suffrage
• Suffragette
• Timeline of first women's suffrage in majority-Muslim countries
• Timeline of women's rights (other than voting)
• Timeline of women's suffrage
• Universal suffrage
• Women's rights
• Women's work

References

• Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists. Hill and Wang, New York, 2005. ISBN 0-8090-9528-9.
• "Woman suffrage" in Collier's New Encyclopedia, X (New York: P.F. Collier & Son Company, 1921), pp. 403–405.
• Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (New York: Merriam Webster, 1983) ISBN 0-87779-511-8
• Åsa Karlsson-Sjögren: "Männen, kvinnorna och rösträtten : medborgarskap och representation 1723–1866" (Men, women and the vote: citizenship and representation 1723–1866) (in Swedish)
• Women in politics
• Women's Suffrage, "A World Chronology of the Recognition of Women's Rights to Vote and to Stand for Election".
• Bryant, Edwin F. (2003), "Hare Krishna Movement", in Laderman, Gary; León, Luis D. (eds.), Religion and American Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Traditions, Diversity, and Popular Expressions, vol. 3, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, pp. 110–112, ISBN 1-57607-238-X {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Knott, Kim (2004), "Healing the Heart of ISKCON: The Place of Women", in Bryant, Edwin F.; Ekstrand, Maria (eds.), The Hare Krishna movement: the postcharismatic fate of a religious transplant, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 291–311, ISBN 978-0-231-12256-6 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Rochford, Burke E. (2007), Hare Krishna transformed, New York, NY: New York University Press, ISBN 978-0-8147-7579-0 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

• DuBois, Ellen Carol. Harriot Stanton Blatch and the Winning of Woman Suffrage (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997) ISBN 0-300-06562-0
• Flexner, Eleanor, Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States, enlarged edition with Foreword by Ellen Fitzpatrick (1959, 1975; Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1996) ISBN 0-674-10653-9
• Kenney, Annie, Memories of a Militant' (London: Edwin Arnold, 1924)
• Lloyd, Trevor, Suffragettes International: The Worldwide Campaign for Women's Rights (New York: American Heritage Press, 1971).
• Lowry, D. (1997) ‘White woman’s’ country: Ethel Tawse Jollie and the Making of White Rhodesia, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23(2), pp. 259–281.
• Markoff, John. "Margins, Centers, and Democracy: The Paradigmatic History of Women’s Suffrage," Signs (2003) 29#1 pp. 85–116 in JSTOR
• Mackenzie, Midge, Shoulder to Shoulder: A Documentary (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975). ISBN 0-394-73070-4
• Raeburn, Antonia. Militant Suffragettes (London: New English Library, 1973)
• Ramirez, Francisco O., Yasemin Soysal, and Suzanne Shanahan. "The Changing Logic of Political Citizenship: Cross-National Acquisition of Women’s Suffrage Rights, 1890 to 1990", American Sociological Review (1997) 62#5 pp 735–45. in JSTOR
• Stevens, Doris, edited by Carol O'Hare, Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote (1920; Troutdale, OR: NewSage Press, 1995). ISBN 0-939165-25-2
• Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill, ed., One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement (Troutdale, OR: NewSage Press, 1995) ISBN 0-939165-26-0

External links

• UNCG Special Collections and University Archives selections of American Suffragette manuscripts
• Photo Essay on Women's Suffrage by the International Museum of Women
• Suffrage in Canada
• Inter-Parliamentary Union: Women's Suffrage
• CIA Yearbook: Suffrage
• Press release with respect to Qatar and Yemen
• Photographs of U.S. suffragettes, marches, and demonstrations
• Ada James papers and correspondence (1915–1918)—a digital collection presented by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center. Ada James (1876–1952) was a leading a social reformer, humanitarian, and pacifist from Richland Center, Wisconsin and daughter of state senator David G. James. The Ada James papers document the grass roots organizing and politics required to promote and guarantee the passage of women's suffrage in Wisconsin and beyond.
• Women´s suffrage in Germany—19 January 1919—first suffrage (active and passive) for women in Germany
• Suffragettes versus Suffragists—website comparing aims and methods of Women’s Social and Political Union (Suffragettes) to National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (Suffragists)
• Suffragists vs. Suffragettes—brief article outlining origins of term "suffragette", usage of term and links to other sources.
• Women in Congress—Information about women who have served in the U.S. Congress including historical essays that cover suffrage.
• Culture Victoria—historical images and videos for the Centenary of Women’s Suffrage
• Woman suffragist, Mary Ellen Ewing vs the Houston School Board—Collection at the University of Houston Digital Library.