Women’s Suffrage
The women’s suffrage movement chronicles the efforts made by women to promote reforms to policies that would finally allow them to have the right to vote. This effort began in earnest in the 1820s and spread from the United States throughout Europe and the countries that Europeans had colonized. It was a long battle for women to win the right to vote. It took one hundred years for that momentous change to finally become a new law in the United States. Different countries made strides towards this step at different times. In 1913 Denmark and Norway changed their laws to allow women to vote. Canada did so in 1917 though one province, Quebec, waited until 1940. In Britain, Germany and Poland women were allowed to vote in 1918. Though in Britain, women had to be thirty and over to vote until 1928 when they were granted the same rights as men on that issue. The last European country to make this change was Liechtenstein in1984.
During this fight there were groups who supported this action and others that were against it, even women’s groups could not always agree on what should be done. There were two main groups in the women’s suffrage movement who wanted the same outcome, but had different opinions on the best way to reach their goal. One group was the suffragettes; they were the more confrontational and somewhat aggressive group. While the suffragists wanted to make changes through the correct legal channels, the questions that were raised by these groups and others like them dealt with what a woman’s responsibilities truly were. Some women’s groups, and many men’s groups, believed that a woman’s place was in the home tending to the needs of her husband and children. At the same time others were saying that a woman can be in the home and still have her opinions heard. It was said that as the gentler gender, perhaps women could influence politics; make it a less aggressive field, perhaps even influence some laws for the better especially those that had affected the home life.
This fight for the right to vote was a worldwide one. In Australia their parliament granted them this right in 1902, but it was only for white women. The indigenous people, the Aboriginal women and men, were not allowed to vote though this was changed in 1962. In 1893 New Zealand was the first country with its own government to allow women of all races to vote, but it was another twenty five years before they were allowed to run for a seat in parliament.
Sadly, there are still places in the world where women’s suffrage is still an issue. Most of them are countries in the Middle East that have based their decision on religious reasons. Lebanon allows for a halfway deal. If a woman can prove that she has been educated, though men need not prove the same thing, she can vote. Men must vote in Lebanon while those women who qualify to vote have the option to do so or not. Bhutan allows one vote per home; they do not care if it is the male or female head of the house that does the voting. They are discussing changing this in 2008. No one can vote in Brunei because they are governed by a monarchy. Saudi Arabia only recently allowed elections, but only men were permitted to vote and the United Arab Emirates say they will allow everyone to vote by the year 2010. Changes are still occurring and slowly the world is moving to a position where women’s suffrage will no longer be an issue and they will be able to vote no matter where they live.
