Swiss Association for Women's Suffrage

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The Swiss Association for Women's Suffrage (SVF) was created in 1909 through the merger of local voting rights associations on a national level. For decades, women from the workers' movement fought side by side with women from the bourgeois women's movement for women's suffrage in Switzerland .

In 1912 Emilie Gourd from Geneva became president of the SVF and thus one of the most important protagonists of the women's movement of the 1910s. She held this post until 1928. During the Swiss national strike in 1918, the SVF supported the Olten Action Committee , which, among other things, demanded that the Federal Council give women the right to vote.

The SVF launched a petition for women's suffrage in 1929 and achieved a record number of signatures, which even exceeded the number of signatures required for a popular initiative : 170,397 signatures from women and 78,840 signatures from men. In 1939, just before the outbreak of war , the SVF dared to advance to the National Council to demand the right to vote for women. The reason for the move was that, especially in times of war, the political cooperation of women was essential in order to defend democracy and independence.

When women's suffrage was introduced in Switzerland in 1971 , the SVF changed its name to the Swiss Association for Women's Rights and adopted a feminist line.

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