Background

Suffrage means the right to vote in elections. It is an important part of modern political systems. Most nation-states that came out of the revolutions of the 1700s limited suffrage to small groups. Most people won voting rights slowly over time. This is especially true for women. They most often had to fight hard for the right to vote.

The story of women’s suffrage is not simple. It has an unusual timeline. Women first won voting rights through smaller victories around the world. Some places started allowing women to vote in local elections. That gave more strength to the broader voting rights push. The fight in some areas lasted much longer than in others. It was also affected by race, class and age.

Let’s tell the story with a journey around the world. We’ll look at the when, where, who and how of suffrage movements.

Region 1: New Zealand And Australia

In 2018, New Zealand celebrated 125 years of women’s suffrage. Women won the right to vote from the Electoral Act of 1893. It made New Zealand the first self-governing nation to give women the right to vote in national elections. Kate Sheppard was a major figure in winning this victory. She was an English woman who moved to the city of Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island. She became the head of a group called the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1887. The group’s main focus was to stop people from selling or drinking alcohol. Sheppard started with voting rights, though. She argued that women must first be allowed to vote. Then, her group could change alcohol laws. Sheppard traveled across the country. She gathered women’s signatures demanding the right to vote. Then she presented the signatures to New Zealand lawmakers. They said no. She did not give up, though. By 1893 she had gathered the signatures of almost 32,000 women. This time, lawmakers listened. New Zealand’s women gained the right to vote. Women would have to wait until 1919 before they could run for elected offices, though.

Other local areas had given women the right to vote before 1893. New Zealand was the first at the national level, and the first to give all women¹ the right to vote. Neighboring country Australia followed soon after. Australia gave women the right to vote at the national level in 1902. But the right to vote only applied to white women. Aboriginal² women would have to wait another 60 years.

Region 2: Europe

Mary Wollstonecraft was a British writer. She wrote “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” in 1792. It was very important for Europe’s suffrage movement. Her work was based on Enlightenment ideas. That meant she believed all people deserved equal treatment. Wollstonecraft supported the education of women. She wrote that the sexes were not naturally unequal. Wollstonecraft said that women’s lack of educational opportunities kept them under men’s control.

Women’s suffrage in Europe began at the local level in 1862. That year, Sweden gave voting rights to rural widows and unmarried women. Married women still could not vote. Finland followed in 1872. It allowed women to vote only if they paid taxes. Other nations also allowed certain classes of women to vote in local elections. They included England, Wales, and Scotland. Women had to wait longer for full voting rights across Europe. It did not happen until the 1900s.

The United Kingdom’s suffrage movement became well known. Its supporters sometimes used violence to bring attention to their cause. It took more than 100 years of planning and protests to win suffrage. Then in May 1929, it happened. Lawmakers voted to allow all women over the age of 21 to vote. Women won the same voting rights as men.

France and Italy took longer. Women had to wait until the end of World War II for full suffrage. The women of Spain and Switzerland did not get the right to vote until 1971. Women in Liechtenstein had to wait until 1984. That’s 91 years later than New Zealand.  

Region 3: Asia

Asia is a large continent with many different cultures. Let’s break it up into three parts for a closer look.

Central Asia

Many Marxists believed in women’s suffrage. They said it was needed in a socialist state. In fact, this right was given toward the end of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Central Asian nations with ties to Russia did the same. Over the next 20 years, other nearby areas followed.

East and Southeast Asia

Nations in East and Southeast Asia gave women the right to vote at various times. Mongolia led the way in 1924. Thailand soon followed in 1932. Women in China first had to change the existing system of government. Then, the fight for suffrage could begin. The new constitution for the Republic of China was written in 1936. It included full women’s suffrage. Then came Japan’s 1937 attack, World War II, and the Communist Revolution. Women would have to wait until 1947 to actually use their voting rights.

Japanese women faced a similar fight. Full male suffrage was given in 1925. Women were left out. It wasn’t until after World War II that women were included. They won suffrage at the end of 1945. India was a British colony until 1947. Women in the United Kingdom were given full voting rights in 1928. British colonies were another story. Indian men only had limited suffrage under British rule. The British government and many Indian leaders fought against women’s suffrage. The men argued that women did not have the knowledge needed to vote. They said that women voting would go against long-held family values. Once India was free from British rule, things changed. The Constitution of India went into effect in 1950. It gave women full suffrage.

West Asia (also called the Middle East)

Women in the Middle East have fought the longest battle for suffrage and equal rights. Some majority Muslim nations gave suffrage rights from the 1950s to the 1970s. They include Afghanistan and Pakistan. Others include Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Yemen. Other nations took much longer. In some cases, fighting took away rights that had been won. For example, the Taliban briefly ruled Afghanistan. They got rid of women’s suffrage from 1996 to 2001. Women in Iraq won the right to vote in 1958. They could not exercise that right, though. A sudden change of leaders stopped them. Oman allowed women to vote in 1997. Qatar followed in 1999. In Bahrain, it happened in 2002. The last country to give voting rights to women was Saudi Arabia. It happened in December of 2015.

Region 4: North America

North America’s suffrage movement began in the 1800s. Women took to the streets for voting rights and other issues. These included abolishing slavery and getting rid of alcohol. 

They also demanded changes to education and work. Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas were important to the American suffrage movement as well.

American and Canadian women won the right to vote in 1920. Not all women were included. Indigenous women and men were given United States citizenship in 1924. Rules at the state level set them back, though. Some people could not vote until 1948. In Canada, indigenous people did not get full voting rights until 1960. African-American women in the U.S. won voting rights in 1920. Many states did not allow it, though. Unfair rules were put in place to prevent most African Americans from voting. Those practices were finally stopped in the 1960s. Sadly, the struggle for voting rights continues. Some argue that recent laws still make it difficult for minorities to vote.

Region 5: Latin America

Mexico, Central and South America had their own feminist and suffrage movements. They happened in the late 1800s and early 1900s. People were fighting to form independent nation-states. Women in these areas first had to fight for freedom. They wanted to end colonial rule. They had to win the right to even have national elections. That’s why women’s suffrage in this area came later than in others.

Women’s suffrage came to Uruguay in 1927. It came to Ecuador in 1929. Chile was next in 1931. These newly independent nations gave women higher education and suffrage. Brazil and Cuba followed in 1943. Then came Guatemala and Venezuela in 1946 and Argentina in 1947. Chile and Costa Rica followed in 1949. Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Paraguay followed later. Women’s suffrage was won there in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Many women who fought for suffrage were from the upper classes. Often they were educated in other countries. Women in Latin America also had to fight another form of unequal treatment. They were expected to fill certain roles in the family. As a result, women argued that suffrage would improve family life. Many women in Latin America took a more socialist view of equal treatment and rights. They supported the rights of workers. They talked about the ills of capitalism. They focused on the need for social changes. This contrasted with Western women’s focus on personal rights.

Region 6: Africa

Indigenous African women once held positions of power. Women’s and men’s roles were often viewed as supporting each other. Many communities also practiced matrilineal³ descent.

Then, European powers came to Africa and began carving up the continent. Everything changed. Men were given the power to act politically through indirect rule. In the early 1900s women joined movements to create free states. They protested colonial governments. They demanded more rights for women.

African women called for full suffrage. First, though, they had to fight to create independent states. Once they did, the right to vote followed. It was almost always given to women at the same time as to men.  

South Africa was different. White women there were given the right to vote much sooner than black women. This was because of a system of racial segregation, where black and white people were kept apart. It was called apartheid. Black women did not get full suffrage until the end of apartheid in 1994. Two countries remained independent during colonialism. They were Liberia and Ethiopia. Even there, women were not allowed to vote until the mid-1950s.

Conclusion

The fight for women’s suffrage was not easy. Across societies, it was affected by many things. It was affected by differences in culture as well as views of class and race. In most nations, upper-class, educated women organized for voting rights first. They had the time, money and connections that working-class women did not. The history of women’s suffrage can seem like a hard story to follow. The goal was the same across the world, though. Women must be allowed to participate in government. It is the only way to win equal rights. Fights for social justice continue into the 2000s. They include equal pay, health rights and education. These battles could only be fought once women got the right to vote.

1 All women meaning that there were no race or ethnic restrictions placed on women’s suffrage.
2 The word aboriginal can mean the same thing as indigenous, or native. However, it is also a proper noun. It can refer to groups native to Australia.
3 Matrilineal descent is the cultural practice of tracing kinship through the mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, etc.