Raymonde Swiss

Raymonde Schweizer (born January 26, 1912 in La Chaux-de-Fonds , † December 30, 2003 in Malvilliers ; resident in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Oberdorf BL ) was a Swiss politician ( SP ), teacher, trade unionist and feminist . As a Grand Councilor in Neuchâtel , she became the first female cantonal parliamentarian in Switzerland in September 1960.

Works

Raymonde Schweizer was the daughter of Commis Louis Alfred Schweizer and Henriette Marie nee Bringold. In 1932 she acquired the teaching patent at the Neuchâtel teachers' college and later another patent as a handicraft teacher . From 1939 onwards, Schweizer taught at the women's labor school ( French École des travaux féminins ) in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Nine years later, she presided over the school's commission and became deputy principal. In the years from 1951 to 1975 she was able to achieve an upswing in her school as director.

After the cantons of Vaud and Neuchâtel were the first to introduce women's suffrage on February 1 and September 27, 1959 , Raymonde Schweizer replaced Gaston Schelling († July 18, 1960) in September 1960 in the Grand Council of the Canton of Neuchâtel . The swearing-in of the Swiss as a major councilor took place on September 27th. In the renewal elections on May 6 and 7, 1961, it received the second highest number of votes. Three more women from a group of 26 candidates were elected to the Grand Council. Only in 1992 did a woman join the Neuchâtel municipal council, and another five years passed before the first woman from the canton ran for the Council of States .

Raymonde Schweizer died on December 30, 2003 in Malvilliers. Like many other teachers of her generation, she remained unmarried (see celibacy of teachers in Switzerland ).

See also

• Gertrud Späth-Schweizer , 1958 first Swiss woman in a municipal government (Bürgergemeinde Riehen , Canton Basel-Landschaft )
• Emma Kammacher , first president of a cantonal parliament in 1965 (Geneva)
• Lise Girardin (Canton Geneva), 1971 first woman in the Council of States
• In the Swiss parliamentary elections in October 1971 ten women were elected to the National Council
• Heidi Deneys (Canton Neuchâtel), 1972 first president of a cantonal party
• Elisabeth Blunschy , first President of the National Council in 1977
• Elisabeth Kopp , first Federal Councilor in 1984, Vice-President there in 1988

Web links

• Philippe Hebeisen, Christoph Neuenschwander (translator): Raymonde Schweizer. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . 20th February 2017 .
• Getty Images : 1960 portrait photo

literature

• The first female member of parliament in Switzerland. In: Schweizer Frauenblatt , September 23, 1960.
• Christian Jaccard: Le combat politique pour le droit de vote et d'éligibilité des femmes dans le canton de Neuchâtel. Université de Neuchâtel Institut d'Histoire. 1996.

Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{a b} imagesdupatrimoine.ch: La première suissesse à siéger dans un législatif cantonal. (French, with photograph of the swearing-in; accessed on September 8, 2021).
2. ↑ The women's wall calendar 1996 names September 26, 1960 as the inauguration.
3. ↑ Women's wall calendar 1996 , sheet from 25. – 30. September 1996.