Women's suffrage

Part of a series on
Women in society
Society Women's history (legal rights) Woman Animal advocacy Business Female entrepreneurs Gender representation on corporate boards of directors Diversity (politics) Diversity, equity, and inclusion Economic development Explorers and travelers Education Feminism Womyn Government Conservatives in the US Heads of state or government Legislators Queen regnant List Health Journalism Law Law enforcement Military Mother Nobel Prize laureates Piracy Positions of power Reproductive rights Venture capital Violence and abuse Voting rights Workforce Exchange of women
Science Technology Computing Engineering Geology Medicine dentistry in the United States Organizations Science Science, technology, engineering and mathematics Space Telegraphy
Arts Humanities Architecture Arts Art history field Women's cinema Dance Film "Chick flicks" Fine arts Literature Science fiction Philosophy Feminist philosophy Photographers Music Jazz Punk rock In Shakespeare's works
Religion Theological figures Baháʼí Faith Bible Buddhism Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Opus Dei Hinduism Islam Judaism Sikhism Taoism
Popular culture Comics Portrayal in American comics Film industry Music Fictional pirates Speculative fiction Video games Gender representation in video games
Sports Auto racing Baseball Basketball Boxing Cricket Curling Cycling Fastpitch softball Football / soccer Golf Gymnastics Ice hockey Lacrosse Mixed martial arts Netball Paralympic Games Rodeo Roller derby Rowing Surfing Swimming Tennis Track and field Volleyball Winter sports See also: List of sports
By country Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Argentina Armenia Australia Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Belgium Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Cambodia Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Croatia Cuba Cyprus (North) Denmark DR Congo Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador East Timor Ethiopia FS Micronesia Fiji Finland France Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Guatemala Guyana Haiti Honduras Iceland Italy India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Ivory Coast Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Libya Madagascar Malaysia Maldives Mali Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Mongolia Morocco Myanmar Nepal New Zealand Niger Nigeria North Korea Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Spain Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Sudan Suriname Sri Lanka Sweden Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Thailand Tonga Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Trinidad and Tobago Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Kurdistan
v t e

Part of a series on
Feminism
History Feminist history History of feminism Women's history American British Canadian German Waves First Second Third Fourth Timelines Women's suffrage Muslim countries US Other women's rights Women's suffrage by country Austria Australia Canada Colombia India Japan Kuwait Liechtenstein New Zealand Spain Second Republic Francoist Switzerland United Kingdom Cayman Islands Wales United States states
Intersectional variants Fat Lesbian Lesbian of color Radical lesbianism Separatist Sex-positive Transfeminism Postgenderism Vegetarian ecofeminism Socialist Anarchist Queer Jineology Marxist Critical theory Standpoint Materialist Ecofeminist Postcolonial Global Transnational Xenofeminism Multicultural Africana womanism Black Hip hop Lesbian Ratchet Chicana Lesbian Indigenous Native American Multiracial Romani Womanism
Other variants Anti-abortion Equity Femonationalism Maternal Postfeminism Neofeminism Reactionary State Carceral Imperial Embedded Gender-critical Victim White
Religious variants Atheist Buddhist Christian Mormon New Womanist Asian Neopagan Dianic Wicca Reclaiming Ecofeminist Hindu Islamic Jewish Orthodox Sikh
Movements and ideologies Analytical Anti-fascist Anti-pornography Cyberfeminism HCI Networked Ecofeminism Eugenic Individualist Lipstick Stiletto Liberal Difference Equality Social Labor Libertarian Post-structural Postmodern Radical Cultural Political lesbianism Separatist Technofeminism Women's liberation
Concepts Literature Children's literature Discrimination against transgender women Diversity (politics) Diversity, equity, and inclusion Effects on society Equality Female education Female genital mutilation Femicide Feminationalism Feminism in culture Feminist movement African-American women's suffrage movement Art movement In hip hop Feminist stripper Gender equality Girl power Honor killing Ideal womanhood Internalized sexism International Girl's Day and Women's Day Language reform Likeability trap Male privilege Matriarchal religion Media Men in feminism Misogyny Oedipus complex Opposition to feminism Pro-feminism Protofeminism Purple capitalism Purplewashing Reproductive justice Sex workers' rights Sexual harassment Sexual objectification Toxic masculinity Transmisogyny Triple oppression Violence against women War on women Women's empowerment Women-only space Women's health Women's rights Women in the workforce
Outlooks Bicycling and feminism Criticism of marriage Views on BDSM Views on pornography Views on prostitution Views on sexual orientation Views on sexuality Views on transgender topics
Theory Feminist method Gender studies Gender mainstreaming Gynocentrism Kyriarchy Male gaze Matriarchy Women's studies Men's studies Patriarchy Écriture féminine Areas of study Anthropology Archaeology Architecture Art Art criticism Literary criticism Film theory Science fiction Biology Composition studies Criminology Pathways perspective Economics FDPA Geography International relations Constructivism Legal theory Pedagogy Philosophy Aesthetics Empiricism Epistemology Ethics Justice ethics Existentialism Metaphysics science Political ecology Political theory Pornography Psychology Therapy Revisionist mythology Sex wars Sexology Sociology Technoscience Theology womanist theology
By continent/country Africa Democratic Republic of the Congo Egypt Ethiopia Ghana Mali Nigeria Senegal South Africa Albania Australia Bangladesh Canada China Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Hong Kong India Indonesia Iran Iraq Republic of Ireland Israel Italy Japan Latin America Argentina Brazil Chile Haiti Honduras Mexico Paraguay Trinidad and Tobago Lebanon Malaysia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Northern Cyprus Norway Pakistan Philippines Poland Russia Saudi Arabia South Korea Sweden Syria Taiwan Thailand Turkey Vietnam Ukraine United Kingdom United States History of women
Lists and categories Lists Articles Feminists by nationality Literature American feminist literature Feminist comic books Feminist songs Conservative feminisms Ecofeminist authors Feminist art critics Feminist economists Feminist philosophers Feminist poets Feminist rhetoricians Jewish feminists Muslim feminists Feminist parties Suffragists and suffragettes Women's rights activists Women's studies journals Women's suffrage organizations Categories Women's rights by country Feminists by nationality
Feminism portal
v t e

Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. At the beginning of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vote, increasing the number of those parties' potential constituencies. National and international organizations formed to coordinate efforts towards women voting, especially the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (founded in 1904 in Berlin, Germany).^[1]

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 the Age of Liberty (1718–1772), as well as in Revolutionary and early-independence New Jersey (1776–1807).^[2][3]

The first territory to continuously allow women to vote to this present day is the Pitcairn Islands since 1838. The Kingdom 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 the British and Russian empires conferred women's suffrage, and some of these became sovereign nations at a later point, like New Zealand, Australia, and Finland. 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 the Isle of Man in 1881, and in 1893, women in the then self-governing^[4] British colony of New Zealand were granted the right to vote. In Australia, the colony of South Australia conferred voter rights on all women from 1894, and the right to stand for Parliament from 1895, while the Australian Federal Parliament conferred the right to vote and stand for election in 1902 (although it allowed for the exclusion of "aboriginal natives").^[5][6] Prior to independence, in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland, women gained equal suffrage, with both the right to vote and to stand as candidates in 1906.^[7][8][9] Most major Western powers extended voting rights to women in the interwar period, including Canada (1917), Germany (1918), the United Kingdom (1918 for some women, 1928 for all women), Austria, the Netherlands (1919) and the United States (1920).^[10] 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), and Switzerland (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). The last European jurisdictions to give women the right to vote were Liechtenstein in 1984 and the Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden at the local level in 1990,^[11] with the Vatican City being an absolute elective monarchy (the electorate of the Holy See, the conclave, is composed of male cardinals, rather than Vatican citizens). In some cases of direct democracy, such as Swiss cantons governed by Landsgemeinden, objections to expanding the suffrage claimed that logistical limitations, and the absence of secret ballot, made it impractical as well as unnecessary; others, such as Appenzell Ausserrhoden, instead abolished the system altogether for both women and men.^[12][13][14]

Leslie Hume argues that the First World War changed the popular mood:

The women's contribution to the war effort challenged the notion of women's physical and mental inferiority and made it more difficult to maintain that women were, both by constitution and temperament, unfit to vote. If women could work in munitions factories, it seemed both ungrateful and illogical to deny them a place in the voting booth. But the vote was much more than simply a reward for war work; the point was that women's participation in the war helped to dispel the fears that surrounded women's entry into the public arena.^[15]

Pre-WWI opponents of women's suffrage such as the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League cited women's relative inexperience in military affairs. They claimed that since women were the majority of the population, women should vote in local elections, but due to a lack of experience in military affairs, they asserted that it would be dangerous to allow them to vote in national elections.^[16]

Extended political campaigns by women and their supporters were necessary to gain legislation or constitutional amendments for women's suffrage. In many countries, limited suffrage for women was granted before universal 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 the Convention 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.