Women's suffrage in Finland

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Active and passive voting rights for women in Finland were passed by parliament on May 28, 1906 and proclaimed on June 20, 1906. This made Finland the first country in Europe where women were allowed to vote at national level, and the third country in the world after New Zealand and Australia .

prehistory

Political situation

At that time Finland was under the rule of the Russian Empire , but still had extensive autonomy . It had a four-class state day in which the nobility , clergy , citizens and free farmers were represented. Finland also had its own constitution. Around 15 percent of the male population had the right to vote in the state parliament.

Importance of education for the development of women's suffrage

Only about 12 percent of Finland's population spoke Swedish at the end of the 19th century, but it was the upper class and Swedish was the official language. In 1863 a decree was published stipulating that equality between Swedish and Finnish should be achieved within 20 years. Women played a special role in this process because of their importance for the school system. Inspired by John Stuart Mill's book The Slavery of Women , a group of women around Alexandra Gripenberg founded the Suomen Naisyhdistys , the first Finnish women's organization, in May 1884 . It was very active in rural areas: in 1894 half of its branches were literacy groups for rural women, and by 1900 almost all adults in Finland could read and write. An almost complete literacy of women around 1900 and Finnish nationalism were essential for the progress of the movement to introduce women's suffrage.

Opposition to Russia

Women who owned land and paid taxes on it were allowed to vote at the local level since 1863 and at the municipal level since 1872. In 1897 the Finnish parliament passed the right to vote for women in local elections, but the Russian government blocked the law. As a result, the issues of women's rights and nationalism became even more closely linked in the awareness of the population.

Protests and general strike

The year 1905 was riddled with demonstrations and unrest. Here a demonstration in front of the town hall in Jakobstad in autumn 1905.

Consequences of the February Manifesto of 1899

In 1899, Tsar Nicholas II issued the February Manifesto , which revoked Finnish autonomy in the Russian Empire. There were numerous protests in Finland because the Finnish people wanted to regain their independence. At the same time, the labor movement , in which women also played an important role, received a lot of support and called for the fight against social inequality.

Approaches to introduce women's suffrage

The right to vote for everyone was one of the central themes of the political struggle at this time. As early as 1897 a bill to introduce women's suffrage was introduced into parliament, but political instability prevented normal business operations, so that the first debates did not start until 1904/1905. The draft envisaged the right to vote for some upper class women, unmarried women and widows, and teachers. MEPs from the rural areas, who spoke mostly Finnish and made up a quarter of the parliament, supported this proposal, but the other three social groups, namely the clergy, the city dwellers and the nobility, rejected it. As a result, support for women's suffrage in Finland was stronger in rural areas than in cities. Possibly this was due to the fact that the peasant population considered the right to vote for women as a measure which corresponded to their conservative attitude and were not afraid of a possible revolutionary potential among the women voters. In addition, the Finnish-speaking population was more easily won over to women's suffrage than the Swedish-speaking upper class.

The historian Irma Sulkunen emphasizes the influence of religious revival movements , in which mainly women were active in Finland, on the early attainment of women's suffrage. They had their heyday at the end of the 19th century and had close ties to the Finnish Party , which represented the ideal of an agrarian society.

Behavior of Russia

Russia's 1905 defeat to Japan and the Revolution meant that the Finns saw opportunities to gain greater autonomy and women's suffrage. In Finland, as in India , nationalism and the development of democracy went hand in hand: women were actively involved in the resistance at all levels.

A general strike began on October 31, 1905, with the aim of regaining autonomy for Finland, and with great popular support. The Russian tsar decided to give in to the demands in order to avoid further escalation. He asked parliament to draw up a new constitution. At a mass meeting in Helsingfors on December 7, 1905, a resolution called for unrestricted voting rights for everyone aged 24 and over. The Social Democratic Party of Finland and the Conservative Finnish Party approved the proposal on May 28, 1906. With the November Manifesto, the Tsar restored Finnish autonomy and reformed the four-class state parliament. On July 20, 1906, the tsar confirmed the new regulation. The class system was replaced by a unicameral parliament , which was determined by general and equal elections. All Finnish citizens aged 24 and over were now eligible to vote, regardless of their gender and social class. The general strike and street rioting had forced women to vote.

Importance of change

With the parliamentary reform, women gained the right to vote and to stand for the first time in Europe. From one day to the next, one of the most conservative, property-based regimes of women's suffrage in Europe had become the most democratic system on the continent. In New Zealand women had been given the right to vote but not to stand as early as 1893. In Australia, it was not until 1908 that women were allowed to vote in national elections in all states. This made Finland the first country in the world to give women the full right to vote and stand for election, but at that time it was still under Russia and was not an independent state. Independence was only declared on December 6, 1917, and in 1919 there was a complete break with Russia and Finland became an independent republic.

Parliamentary elections in Finland 1907

Alexandra Gripenberg, one of the first Finnish MPs

In the spring of 1907 the first elections for the new Finnish parliament took place. The number of those entitled to vote had increased tenfold after the parliamentary reform. In addition to women, for the first time 85 percent of the male population were allowed to vote, whose stands had not previously been represented in the state parliament. The election had a turnout of 70.7 percent. 62 candidates ran for election, 19 of them entered parliament.

Most of the women belonged to the Social Democratic Party , which also received the most votes with 80 seats in parliament. Among them also Miina Sillanpää , who then sat in the Finnish parliament for around 40 years and in 1926 as Minister of Social Affairs was the first woman in a Finnish ministerial office. Alexandra Gripenberg and Lucina Hagman also received seats.

consequences

After Finland introduced women's suffrage, Norway followed in 1913, Denmark and Iceland in 1915, Estonia in 1917, and Latvia and Germany in 1918. In Great Britain women were given the right to vote in 1928, in France in 1944. In 1984 , Liechtenstein was the last European country to have women suffrage at the national level a.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 437
  2. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/politik/ Background-aktuell/231260/1906-frauenwahlrecht-finnland- 18-07-2016
  3. ↑ a b c d e Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 178.
  4. ^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 180.
  5. ↑ Marjaliisa Hentilä, Alexander Schug (ed.): From today for everyone! One hundred years of women's suffrage. (= Finland Institute in Germany [Hrsg.]: Series of publications by the Finland Institute in Germany . Volume 6 ). Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8305-1084-5 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 181.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 182.
  8. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/politik/ Background-aktuell/231260/1906-frauenwahlrecht-finnland- 18-07-2016
  9. ^ Jad Adams: Women and the Vote. A world history. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014, ISBN 978-0-19-870684-7 , page 183.
  10. ↑ Marjaliisa Hentilä, Alexander Schug (ed.): From today for everyone! One hundred years of women's suffrage. (= Finland Institute in Germany [Hrsg.]: Series of publications by the Finland Institute in Germany . Volume 6 ). Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-8305-1084-5 , p. 125–143 (short biographies of the first 19 women parliamentarians).
  11. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/politik/ Background-aktuell/231260/1906-frauenwahlrecht-finnland- 18-07-2016
  12. ↑ http://www.bpb.de/politik/ Background-aktuell/231260/1906-frauenwahlrecht-finnland- 18-07-2016