women's suffrage

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women's suffrage
Event notice on the demand for women's suffrage (ca. 1908)

Women's suffrage means that women in a country have the opportunity to actively and passively participate in political votes . The term women's suffrage , on the other hand, refers only to active suffrage . The achievement of women's suffrage was preceded by a long struggle in the women's movement that began in the 18th century.

story

Olympe de Gouges is considered the first "modern" campaigner for women's suffrage . In the course of the French Revolution , she wrote, among other things, the Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens (published September 1791 ), was arrested during the reign of terror in the summer of 1793 for hostility to Robespierre and executed in the autumn after a short show trial.

The path to universal women's suffrage ran parallel to the hotly contested abolition of the census suffrage for men. Few states introduced universal suffrage for both sexes at the same time; for example in 1906 in the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was then part of Russia. The sooner men got full suffrage, the longer women had to fight for it. France and Switzerland became latecomers because they were the oldest male democracies in Europe; the situation was similar in Greece and Bulgaria.

In many states, liberals sympathized with women's suffrage. What is crucial, however, is that liberal politicians often stuck to a census electoral law and made political participation dependent on social status or education. Accordingly, the majority of middle-class women also demanded restricted voting rights for their gender. They were primarily concerned with removing gender barriers, although some women's rights activists saw this as only the first step that would be followed by universal suffrage.

Every side of the political spectrum feared negative consequences for themselves. Socialists and liberals often believed that conservatives and clerics would benefit most from women's suffrage, while conservative parties invoked the danger that women's votes would strengthen left-wing and liberal parties. They also saw women's suffrage as the first step towards full emancipation . This was also a reason why the abolition of the class barrier was more likely to prevail.

Chronological order

"Islands often have their own systems of government, and in some cases this led to systems that included [women] earlier than the mainland communities."

The Pitcairn Islands

“The Pitcairn Islands can claim to be the first place where women voted on the same terms as men. After the 1789 Tahiti mutiny by the Bounty 's crew , the mutineers and their Tahitian comrades-in-arms took the ship to uninhabited Pitcairn Island. Their descendants and newcomers who occasionally emerged continued to live there. It is believed that there was no government there until 1838, when a British captain landed on HMS Fly , claimed the island for the British Crown and left the populace with some hastily drafted rules". "The islanders had been urging Captain Russell Elliott to put them in some form of order because they were at the mercy of mutinous whaling crews who came ashore and threatened to rape the island's women. This caused the men to neglect their fields to protect them. They saw the solution in the protection of the British crown for the 99 islanders.” In Elliot's opinion they should “elect at regular intervals a judge from among their number who would be available to address the instructions of the royal government. This would be given official recognition [by the British Crown]” “Captain Elliott wanted to involve his government as little as possible, and the best way of doing this was to arrange for the islanders to have their own government. Therefore he said the island should be governed by a magistrate," "who should be elected by the free electoral vote of all those born on the island, male or female, who were at least eighteen years of age; plus those who had lived on the island for five years.” “So there was universal suffrage based solely on permanent residence on the island, making the system a progressive form of democracy. It had been instituted in a time of crisis and guaranteed by a higher power that had nothing to lose and a small gain from its actions. There is no information on the reasons why women were treated the same as men when it came to voting rights. But no doubt the reason was that they already played a part in the life of the community; and a certain number of people was necessary for the functioning of the fledgling democracy.”

Colombia and the Wyoming Territory

In 1853 , Vélez in Colombia was the first city in the world to introduce women's suffrage. This was followed by the Wyoming Territory (state of the United States from 1890), which introduced women's suffrage in 1869 .

The Cook Islands

“The South Seas were a remarkable pioneer in terms of democracy. [...] In the 1880s, the Cook Islands attracted the attention of some major European powers and of the Māoris . They were attacked by Peruvian slave traders and targeted by New Zealand traders and missionaries. There is evidence of the importance of women on the islands: in 1890, four of Rarotonga 's five chiefs were women, and they appreciated the fact that the British Navy was under the authority of a queen. Dick Scott, the historian of the Cook Islands, relates how they had already taken the title of queen themselves; they called their houses palaces : "The flattery customary at court was carried out meticulously here, too, and a whole series of impressionable tourists and travel writers gifted people at home with reports of how they had been received in the royal apartments." democracy not just mere ornaments - playing imperialists by their own rules, the chiefs of Raratonga pledged to respect foreign power, taking precedence over it with their royal flag; the visit of the Supreme Chief Makea Takau to New Zealand in 1885 was arranged according to the rules of a state visit.”

Frederick Moss, a former MP from Auckland who was made a British resident of New Zealand , made the island part of the British Empire . A contemporary observed: "He had far-reaching ambitions, and the fact that the island was nowhere near big enough to fulfill them dampened his élan." Among other reforms, Moss introduced an elected parliament, including women was chosen. Moss proudly wrote: "The Parliament of the Cook Islands is the only free Maori parliament that has ever been attempted." but the chiefs retained their power over their communities and were able to influence the people's elected representatives, largely because Moss' plans for a secret ballot were thwarted.”

"Universal suffrage was officially guaranteed three days after the New Zealand Election Act , but the women of Raratonga voted before the women of New Zealand on October 14, 1893."

"The first female member of government was Minister of Home Affairs and Posts Fanaura Kingsone , appointed in 1983 . Marguerite (Margaret) Nora Kitimira Brown Story was elected the first woman to the Legislative Assembly in 1965, during colonial times, and chaired it from 1965 to 1979 and again in 1983.”

“These grants of suffrage to women are part of a tradition of power for women of respected families in the South Seas; in these communities it was not uncommon for women to make public appearances. The principle that politics, or the organization of public life, was a male domain and the home a female, which condemned women's suffrage in northern countries, simply did not exist on Rarotonga (and presumably on many other South Sea islands). Fighting, however, was reserved for men. This, of course, decimated the male population and resulted in church life having to be shouldered by a community with a significant female surplus. The paucity of information about the early reign in the South Seas supports the truth of John Markoff's remark: "The history of democracy owes much to the creativity of places that historians have scarcely explored."

Further development

In 1776 , the US state of New Jersey introduced the right to vote for all persons of a certain acquis by the constitution. This also applied to widows, but not to married women, because they were not allowed to own anything; the right to vote was restricted to men in 1807.

In 1893 , Colorado was the first state where men voted in a popular vote for women's suffrage. In 1894 , 3 women were elected to the Colorado House of Representatives.

As early as 1893 , New Zealand was the first self-governing colony to introduce universal active women's suffrage. In 1902 , the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia followed New Zealand's example. This makes Australia the first modern sovereign country to introduce active and passive women's suffrage.

In 1906 Finland was the first European country to give women the right to vote with its state parliament of June 1st. Finland was then a Russian grand duchy . Finland was the first country where women not only had the theoretical right to stand as a candidate, but were actually elected to parliament. In Denmark , including Iceland , women's suffrage was introduced in 1915 . In Austria , women were granted universal suffrage on November 12, 1918 by the law on the form of government and government of German- Austria , with which the latter declared itself a republic in the course of the break-up of Austria-Hungary .

On the same day in Germany , the Council of People's Representatives published an appeal to the German people , in which the Reich government, which had come to power in the course of the November Revolution, announced "with the force of law": "From now on, all elections to public bodies are to be held according to the same, secret, direct , universal suffrage based on the proportional electoral system for all male and female persons at least 20 years old.” Shortly thereafter, the right to vote was legally fixed with the ordinance on elections to the German Constituent National Assembly of November 30, 1918. Thus, in the elections to the German National Assembly on January 19, 1919 , women in Germany were able to exercise their right to vote for the first time at national level. Austria and Germany were among the pioneers in Europe.

In 1919 , the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan was the first Muslim-majority country to introduce women's suffrage, giving women the same political rights as men.

In July 1936, the Chamber of Deputies of France voted unanimously (475 to 0) for women's suffrage; however, the text was not placed on the agenda of the second chamber (Senate). Only after the end of the German occupation of France , on October 5, 1944 , did the Provisional Government of the French Republic agree to this.

In 1984 , Liechtenstein was the last European country to join, after the introduction had been rejected in two referendums (1971 and 1973).

Since 2005 women in Kuwait have had the right to vote and stand for election, since 2006 also in the United Arab Emirates . On December 12, 2015 , women in Saudi Arabia had the right to vote and stand as a candidate in local elections for the first time. However, you were in the election campaign z. B. Externally financed election advertising is prohibited. Women and men had to vote in different rooms. However, the majority of Saudi women do not have an identity card : the basic requirement for being able to vote. According to official figures, around 6,100 men and more than 860 women ran, twenty of whom were elected.

women's suffrage worldwide

Introduction of active women's suffrage worldwide (yellow = no women's suffrage).
It is the year in which the same voting rights as men were introduced at the national level for women without exception. See criteria for selecting the year of women's suffrage for details.

implications for politics

On average, women vote differently than men. The reasons for this have not been conclusively clarified scientifically. Possible reasons include women's greater risk aversion , and their relatively greater vulnerability to income losses after divorce .

The introduction of women's suffrage in the United States has had significant effects on politics to this day. It led to significant expansions in federal spending and revenue. Similar changes occurred at the federal level, where the election results shifted in favor of the Democrats . In the Senate , women's suffrage was responsible for a nearly 20% change in the Republican -Democrat ratio .

Women's suffrage in Europe

The triggers for the emergence of a European women's suffrage movement were:

  1. electoral reforms that only benefited men and ignored women,
  2. Electoral laws that deprived a minority of privileged women of the right to vote they traditionally enjoyed, as in Britain and Austria, and
  3. the strengthening of women's movements that strive not only for civil but also for political rights. In the Central and Eastern European countries, which were ruled by Russia, Austria and Prussia, no independent women's movement could develop. Here there were few votes for women's rights; the struggle for national independence was a priority.

European developments

In Central Europe almost all countries introduced women's suffrage after the First World War. A complete upheaval took place in most of these states around 1918, which included the introduction of universal suffrage for both sexes either in the course of a revolution or the establishment of a new state.

Most southern and south-eastern countries gained women's suffrage after World War II or in the post-war period, with Belgium and France also falling into this timeline. In the Romance countries, in which the civil code or a patriarchal, non-deconfessional legal system applied, the immaturity of women was more firmly anchored in society. Feudal-agrarian structures and the dominant influence of the church still shaped the gender order in the first half of the 20th century . In many southern countries, the value of women's activities was only recognized in the resistance against the German occupation in World War II, whereupon they were given the right to vote as a "reward" or in return.

In Switzerland and Liechtenstein , the introduction of women's suffrage depended on a male referendum, which made it very difficult for women to fight. Because it was easier to protest against a government decision than against a “no” by the people.

Portugal and Spain were characterized by a long dictatorship of an authoritarian regime that prevented women from having the right to vote in general and in Spain reversed the earlier achievements in women's politics. In both countries, it took until the end of the dictatorship in the mid-1970s for women to acquire their civil rights. In other countries, too, authoritarian or fascist regimes such as Italy (until 1946) and Bulgaria prevented the implementation of universal women's suffrage.

In Germany in 2019, the introduction of women's suffrage was celebrated as a way to a real democracy. The Potsdam women's polling station has worked through the story and has been awarded for it.

Women's suffrage outside of Europe

International networking

In 1904 the International Woman Suffrage Alliance ( later the International Alliance of Women ) was founded in Berlin. One of his goals was to reduce the voting distance between the sexes. As is common around the world, women's rights activists were divided on whether they should simply demand suffrage like that enjoyed by men (which could in some circumstances be census suffrage , a position championed by prominent figures in the movement such as John Stuart Mill ) or whether they should demand the extension of equal and universal suffrage for men and women everywhere. The world association was an important driving force, which with its regular congresses ensured global networking and motivated individual women and groups from many countries to stand up for their rights. However, he only accepted the respective umbrella organization of a state. As a result, women from countries that did not exist as separate states at the time, such as Poland, the Czech Republic or the Baltic States, were not represented in the World Alliance and their demands for national independence, which were often linked to political rights for women and men, were not heard.

politicians

Female city councilors in Berlin, 1919: Martha Hoppe , Helene Schmitz , Martha Wygodzinski , Martha Shiroa , Liesbeth Riedger , Anna Kulicke

In addition to active voting rights (i.e. the right to vote), there is passive voting rights (the right to be elected). After the introduction of full suffrage, however, it still took some time before the first women were elected to top political offices. The public takes particular notice when a woman holds a top political position for the first time.

In many countries, the office of defense minister is considered a male domain ; women in this post are/were:

anti-feminism

In almost all countries, people reacted with the same reservations to women's demands for political participation. Supported by the anti-feminist current , in all countries (including the USA) the "natural" destiny of women was repeatedly put forward, which predestined them to work in the home, while politics belonged in the male world. But it was also thought that women could not judge independently because of their social role. With the Reform Act 1867 , British reformers prevented women from voting, mainly because it could cause political differences within families between spouses. For this reason, in Scandinavia and Great Britain, municipal voting rights were initially only introduced for single and widowed women - with the official justification that married women were already represented by their husbands.

Women had to contend with gender barriers that men did not. In some Catholic countries, such as Belgium, Italy and Orthodox Bulgaria, married mothers were given the right to vote first because they were considered "more valuable" than childless women. On the other hand, it never occurred to the idea of ​​making the right to vote dependent on the fathering of legitimate children. These had conscription as a prerequisite for equal rights.

In order to minimize the allegedly unforeseeable consequences of women's suffrage, the parliamentarians discussed all possible forms of a specifically female census suffrage. In some states, such as Greece, a certain right to vote in the educational census has been introduced for women; unlike male voters, they had to provide evidence of schooling. In England, Hungary and Iceland, women were temporarily subject to an age census voting right, according to which they could only exercise their right to vote at the age of 30 or 40. Another form was the moral census voting right, which prostitutes in Austria, Spain and Italy initially withheld the right to vote.

See also

documentations

  • Half the world is ours: When women won the right to vote. Two-part television documentary by Annette Baumeister (WDR/NDR, Germany 2018).

literature

web links

Commons : Women's Suffrage  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Frauenstimmrecht  - Explanations of meaning, word origin, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Women's suffrage  - explanations of meaning, word origin, synonyms, translations

itemizations

  1. ↑ a b Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 24.
  2. ^ a b c d e Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. page 25
  3. ↑ a b Walter Brodie, Pitcairn's Island and The Islanders in 1850. Whittaker and Co. London, 1851, p. 82, quoted from: Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. page 25
  4. ↑ Bernd Marquardt: State, Democracy and Constitution in Hispano-America since 1810 , Volume 1, The Liberal Century (1810-1916), Bogotá 2008, p. 173.
  5. ↑ Dick Scott: Years of the Pooh-Bah: A History of the Cook Islands. CITC Rarotonga, 1991, p. 43, quoted from: Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. page 25
  6. ↑ a b c d Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. , page 26.
  7. ↑ Dick Scott: Years of the Pooh-Bah: A History of the Cook Islands. CITC Raratonga, 1991, p. 44, quoted from: Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. , page 26.
  8. ↑ Dick Scott: Years of the Pooh-Bah: A History of the Cook Islands. CITC Raratonga, 1991, p. 58, quoted from: Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. , page 26.
  9. ↑ Dick Scott: Years of the Pooh-Bah: A History of the Cook Islands. CITC Raratonga, 1991, p. 61, quoted from: Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. , Note 24, p. 444.
  10. ↑ Mart Martin, The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics. Westview Press Boulder, Colorado, 2000, p. 281.
  11. ↑ John Markoff: Margins, Centres, and Democracy. The Paradigmatic History of Women's Suffrage. In: Signs: Journal of Women in Cluture and Society , Vol. 29/1, 2003, p. 109, quoted from: Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A World History. , page 26.
  12. ↑ Act of April 7, 1893, Extending Suffrage to Women under Section 2, Paragraph 2 of the Colorado Constitution , ratified by the Governor of Colorado of December 2, 1893 , passing the Act by the popular vote of November 7, 1893, number 35,798 Approvals versus 29,451 rejections.
  13. ↑ Amia Srinivasan: He, She, One, They, Ho, Hus, Hum, Ita. In: London review of Books. July 2, 2020 (English); Quote: “In 1894, after three women were elected to the Colorado House of Representatives (the first women to be elected to any state legislature), […]”.
  14. ↑ Women and the vote - Introduction . In: New Zealand History . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , accessed 22 September 2018 (English, ... and eight following webpages).
  15. ↑ Klaus Reichel: You went ahead - introduction of women's suffrage in Finland. In: Die Zeit , March 8, 2007
  16. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education: MW 04.03 Introduction of women's suffrage in Europe - bpb. In: bpb.de. October 26, 2012, retrieved August 3, 2018 .
  17. ↑ Isabel Leipold, University of Vienna: Chronological overview of women's suffrage
  18. ↑ Law of November 12, 1918 on the form of government and government in German-Austria in the State Law Gazette in retro-digitized form at ALEX – Historical legal and legal texts online
  19. ^ Appeal of the Council of People's Representatives to the German people (dokumentarchiv.de)
  20. ↑ On the history of women's suffrage in Germany , dossier on the website of the Foundation Archive of the German Women's Movement
  21. ↑ Ordinance on the elections to the German Constituent National Assembly of November 30, 1918 (dokumentarchiv.de)
  22. ↑ Wahlrechtslexikon from Wahlrecht.de on women's suffrage
  23. ↑ Angelika Schaser, On the introduction of women's suffrage 90 years ago on November 12, 1918 , in: Feministische Studien 1 (2009), pp. 97-110 , here pp. 107f.
  24. ↑ Christine Bard: Les Filles de Marianne. History of Feminism. 1914-1940. Fayard 1995, p. 355
  25. ↑ https://www.300.li/knowing-values/milestones-liechtensteins-history
  26. ↑ Martin Gehlen : Saudi Arabia discovers women's suffrage. In: zeit.de , September 1, 2015, retrieved on December 12, 2015
  27. ↑ Karin Senz: Women are allowed to vote for the first time. In: deutschlandfunk.de , December 12, 2015, accessed December 12, 2015
  28. ↑ Women elected to local councils for the first time. In: Badische-zeitung.de . December 15, 2015, retrieved February 19, 2020 ( paywall ).
  29. ↑ Gesine Fuchs: Do women vote differently than men? | bpb. Retrieved January 12, 2019 .
  30. ^ a b John Lott; Lawrence Kenny: Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government? In: Journal of Political Economy , Vol. 107, No. 6, 1999, pp. 1163–1198. (PDF; 342 kB)
  31. ↑ Steffen Schmidt; Sabrina Röser: Political participation of women. Federal Agency for Civic Education , June 10, 2011
  32. ↑ Anniversary of 100 years of women's suffrage , accessed 22 February 2019
  33. ↑ Carole Pateman, Beyond Suffrage. Three Questions About Woman Suffrage, in: Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan (eds.): Suffrage and Beyond. International Feminist Perspectives. New York 1994, pp. 331–348, here p. 334.
  34. ↑ Catherine Hall ; Keith McClelland; Jane Rendall, Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867 , Cambridge University, 2000, ISBN 0-521-57218-5