Women’s Right to Vote
Women’s right to vote has been a long standing worldwide issue which is still unsettled in some countries including most countries in the Middle East. American women took one hundred years of campaigning to win a battle which began in earnest in 1820. Oddly, women went through several periods of being allowed to vote in certain states and then losing that right because of changes to the state’s constitution. For example, in some places women were allowed to vote as long as they owned property. This, of course, was a limiting factor since married women were not allowed to own property in their own names. This meant that only single or widowed women actually were able to vote. This changed in 1807 when the laws were altered and only white men were permitted to vote.
The Untied States was not the only country where the fight for women’s rights was raging. In 1755 the Corsican Republic allowed women to vote, with the same rights it gave the men, as long as they were over twenty five. But this changed in 1769 when France took possession of the island. Before being taken over by France, and then Britain, Franceville, an island in the Pacific now known as Port Vila, had allowed voting rights to every man and woman of any race. This began in 1879 but ended with its takeover in 1887.
The first country that was considered to be self governing and allowed voting rights to women was New Zealand in 1893. The first country to support women’s right to vote as well as to allow them to run for political office was South Australia in 1894 though this privilege did not extend to aboriginal women. In Europe the first country to grant the vote to women was Finland in 1906. This also included the right to stand for office. In 1907 nineteen women were elected to their government. Norway granted women the right to vote in 1918. Canada did in 1917, except for the province of Quebec which waited until 1940 to follow the rest of the country. In 1918 British, German and Polish women were able to vote. Slowly more counties joined in allowing women this right. Lichtenstein was amongst the last European countries to let women vote. They waited until 1984 to give their women this irrefutable right.
In the United States women’s right to vote was a long struggle that began in 1820 and ended in 1920 with the Nineteenth Amendment to the American Constitution which officially granted the right to vote to American women. In part this victory can be traced back to the efforts of Susan B. Anthony, who was a founding member of the National Woman Suffrage Association. This group, founded in 1869, had as their goal getting women the right to vote. The American Woman Suffrage Association was also working hard at the time, trying to change women’s rights one state at a time. The two organizations joined together in 1890. In 1893 Colorado allowed women to vote as did Utah in 1895 and Idaho in 1896. Over the next eight years twelve other states changed their laws to allow women to vote.
It is felt in some places that the reason for the 1920 change in the law which allowed women to finally have the vote may have been a reflection of gratitude for the work they did during the First World War when it was necessary for women to take men’s jobs to help keep the factories, and other businesses, running.
There are still so many places where women are not allowed to vote. In Bhutan there is one vote permitted per household. That usually means that the men get to vote, but this will change in 2008. In Lebanon women can vote if they can prove they have reached a certain education level. Men do not have to do this. In Saudi Arabia, where elections were held for the first time in 2005, only the men voted. In Brunei women are not allowed to vote, but then neither are the men. Since 1962 the country has been run as an absolute monarchy. The United Arab Emirates claim they will change the voting rights by 2010. With half of the population being female it seems that it took far too long for them to be heard.
