The international movement for Women's suffrage, led by suffragists and suffragettes, was a social, economic and political reform movement aimed at extending the suffrage (i.e. the right to vote) to women, advocating equal suffrage (abolition of graded votes) rather then universal suffrage (abolition of discrimination due to, for instance, race), which was considered too radical. A catch phrase was "one man, one vote!"

In 1869 the Wyoming Territory in the United States became the first modern polity where equal suffrage was extended to women. The earliest country extending that right was Australia in 1902. In 1906, Finland was the first country to introduce universal suffrage.

Suffrage parade, New York City, 1912

Timeline

Women's suffrage has been granted (and been revoked) at various times in various countries throughout the world. In many countries women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women (and men) from certain races were still unable to vote.

The table below lists years when women's suffrage was enacted in various places. In many cases the first voting took place in a subsequent year.

• 1776
  • New Jersey (although rescinded in 1807)
• 1838
  • Pitcairn Islands
• 1862
  • Sweden (only in local elections, votes graded after taxation, unmarried women only until 1909)
• 1869
  • United Kingdom (only in local elections, unmarried women only until 1894)
• 1869-1920
  • States of the USA (not at the federal level), one after another. The USA as a whole granted women's suffrage in 1920 (see below).
• 1881
  • Isle of Man (only property owners until 1913, not universal until 1919)
• 1883
  • Widows granted right to vote in Canada
• 1893
  • New Zealand September 19, 1893 (although not to stand for election)
  • Cook Islands
• 1902
  • Australia (although gender-inspecific restrictions by race)
• 1906
  • Finland
• 1913
  • Norway
• 1915
  • Denmark (with Iceland)
• 1918
  • Austria
  • Canada on federal level (last province to enact women's suffrage was Quebec in 1940)
  • Estonia (the republican side in the civil war)
  • Poland
  • United Kingdom and Ireland (women above the age of 30, compared to 21 for men)
• 1919
  • Germany
  • Luxembourg
  • The Netherlands (right to stand in election granted in 1917)

American women earned the right to vote with the passage of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution

• 1920
  • Czechoslovakia (later divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia)
  • United States (Federal level and all remaining states)
• 1921
  • Lithuania
  • Sweden
• 1928
  • United Kingdom and Ireland: franchise equal as for men
• 1929
  • Ecuador
  • Romania (with restrictions)
• 1930
  • South Africa (although gender-inspecific restrictions by race)
• 1931
  • Spain (of practical effect until the Spanish Civil War)
  • Portugal (with restrictions following level of education)
• 1932
  • Brazil
• 1934
  • Turkey
• 1935
  • India (same year as men)
• 1937
  • Philippines
• 1939
  • El Salvador
• 1942
  • Dominican Republic
• 1944
  • Bulgaria
• 1945
  • Guatemala
  • Hungary
  • France (October 21)
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Romania
  • Slovenia
• 1947
  • China
• 1948
  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN includes Article 21: The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
  • Belgium
• 1949
  • Argentina
  • Greece
• 1955
  • Indonesia
• 1960
  • Cyprus
• 1962
  • Monaco
• 1963
  • Afghanistan (revoked under Taliban rule 1996-2001)
• 1970
  • Yemen
• 1971
  • Switzerland
• 1976
  • Portugal (restrictions lifted)
• 1984
  • Liechtenstein
• 1994
  • South Africa: franchise extended to black men and women
• 2001
  • Bahrain (same as men)
• 2003
  • Qatar (municipal elections in 2000)

Countries without women's suffrage

Some countries do not extend suffrage to women, or extend it differently from that extended to men (this list does not include countries where neither men nor women have suffrage):

• Bhutan -- One vote per family in village-level elections
• Kuwait -- Female suffrage at the municipal level only.
• Lebanon -- Proof of education required for women, not required for men. Voting compulsory for men, optional for women.
• Vatican City -- Voting restricted to all-male College of Cardinals.
• Oman -- limited to 175,000 people chosen by the government, mostly male

Suffragists and suffragettes

• Susan B. Anthony (US)
• Harriet Stanton Blatch (US)
• Amelia Bloomer (US)
• Carrie Chapman Catt (US)
• Abigail Scott Duniway (US)
• Julia Ward Howe (US)
• Nellie McClung (Canada)
• Lucretia Mott (US)
• Emmeline Pankhurst (UK)
• Alice Paul (US)
• Kate Sheppard (New Zealand)
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton (US)
• Lucy Stone (US)

See also: suffragette

Related topics

• League of Women Voters
• National Woman's Suffrage Association
• Seneca Falls Convention, Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments
• The New Northwest

External links

• Inter-Parliamentary Union: Women's Suffrage (http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/suffrage.htm)
• CIA Yearbook: Suffrage (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2123.html)
• Press release wrt. Qatar and Yemen (http://www.usembassy.ye/press/p30apr03b.htm)
• "Winning the Vote" International Woman Suffrage Timeline (http://womenshistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa091600a.htm)
• FemBio – Biographies of Notable Women International (http://www.fembio.org/default.shtml)