Thank you, sisters!
Women's suffrage
U.S. women suffragists demonstrating for the
right to vote, February 1913
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage[1] is the right of women to
vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and
political reform movement aimed at extending these
rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property
ownership, payment of tax, or marital status. The movement's modern origins can
be attributed to late-18th century France.
Limited voting
rights were gained by women in Sweden and some western U.S. states in the late
19th century.[2] International organizations were formed to coordinate efforts,
especially the International Council of Women (1888) and the International
Woman Suffrage Alliance (1904).[3] In 1893, New Zealand became the first nation to extend
the right to vote to all adult women, and the women in South
Australia achieved the same right in 1895 but became the first to
obtain also the right to stand (run) for Parliament.[4][5] The first European country
to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland—then a part of the Russian
Empire with autonomous powers—which also produced the world's first
female members of parliament as a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections.
In most
Western nations woman suffrage came at the end of World
War I, with some important late adopters such as France in 1944 and
Switzerland in 1971.[6]
Women's
suffrage has generally been recognized after political campaigns to obtain it
were waged. In many countries it was granted before universal
suffrage. Women’s suffrage is explicitly stated as a right under the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the United
Nations in 1979.
(From Wikipedia)
I think Glynis Johns said it best, in this great
scene from Mary Poppins!
