Women's suffrage
Suffrage Parade, New York City, 1912.
The Movement for Women's suffrage, the Suffragettes, was a social, economic and political movement aimed at extending equal suffrage (the right to vote according to the one-man-one-vote principle) to women.
In 1869 the territory of Wyoming became the first modern place where equal suffrage was extended to women. The first countries were New Zealand in 1893, Australia in 1902, and Finland in 1906.
Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "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."
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2 Countries without women's suffrage 3 See also: |
Timeline
Women's suffrage has been granted (and been revoked) at various times in various countries throughout the world. In many countries women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women (and men) from certain races were still unable to vote.
The table below lists years when women's suffrage was enacted in various places. In many cases the first voting took place in a subsequent year.
- 1776
- New Jersey (although rescinded in 1807)
- 1862
- 1869
- United Kingdom (only in local elections, unmarried women only until 1894)
- 1869-1920
- US states (one after another)
- 1883
- Widows granted right to vote in Canada
- 1893
- New Zealand (although not to stand for election)
- 1902
- 1906
- 1913
- 1915
- 1918
- 1919
- Germany
- Luxembourg
- The Netherlands (right to stand in election granted in 1917)
- Sweden
- 1920
- Czechoslovakia (later divided in Czechia and Slovakia)
- United States (Federal level and all states)
- 1921
- 1928
- United Kingdom and Ireland: franchise equal as for men
- 1929
- 1930
- South Africa (although gender-inspecific restrictions by race)
- 1931
- Spain (of practical effect until the Spanish Civil War)
- Portugal (with restrictions following level of education)
- 1932
- 1935
- India (same year as men)
- 1937
- 1939
- 1942
- 1944
- 1945
- 1947
- 1948
- 1949
- 1955
- 1960
- 1962
- 1963
- Afghanistan (revoked under Taliban rule 1996-2001)
- 1970
- 1971
- 1976
- Portugal (restrictions lifted)
- 1984
- 1994
- South Africa: franchise extended to black men and women
- 2001
- Bahrain (same as men)
- 2003
Countries without women's suffrage
Some countries do not extend suffrage to women, or extend it differently than they do to men (this list does not include countries where neither men nor women have suffrage):- Bhutan -- One vote per familiy in village-level elections
- Kuwait -- No female suffrage.
- Lebanon -- Proof of education required for women, not required for men. Voting compulsory for men, optional for women.
- Vatican City -- Voting restricted to all-male College of Cardinals.
- Oman -- limited to 175,000 people chosen by the government, mostly male
