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, Britain, Finland 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. The women in South Australia achieved the same right in 1894 but became the first to obtain 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.

History[link]

Woman Suffrage Headquarters, Cleveland, 1913

The modern movement for women's suffrage originated in France in the 1780s and 1790s, where Antoine Condorcet and Olympe de Gouges advocated women's suffrage in national elections.

In 1756, Lydia Chapin Taft became the first legal woman voter in colonial America. This occurred under British rule in the Massachusetts Colony.^[7] This was in a New England town meeting and she voted on at least three occasions in Uxbridge, Massachusetts.^[8] Unmarried women who owned property could vote in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807.

Eighteen female MPs joined the Turkish Parliament in 1935

In the 1792 elections in Sierra Leone, all heads of household—one-third of whom were African women—could vote.^[9]

The female descendants of the Bounty mutineers who lived on Pitcairn Islands could vote from 1838, and this right transferred with their resettlement to Norfolk Island (now an Australian external territory) in 1856.^[5] Various countries, colonies and states granted restricted women's suffrage in the latter half of the 19th century, starting with South Australia in 1861.

The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, the conference that refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from America because of their sex. In 1851, Stanton met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women. In 1868 Anthony encouraged working women from the printing and sewing trades in New York, who were excluded from men's trade unions, to form Workingwomen's Associations. As a delegate to the National Labor Congress in 1868 Anthony persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work, although the men at the conference deleted the reference to the vote.^[10]

Women in the Wyoming Territory voted as of (1869). Other possible contenders for first "country" to grant female suffrage include the Corsican Republic, the Isle of Man (1881), the Pitcairn Islands, and Franceville, but some of these had brief existences as independent states and others were not clearly independent.

The 1871 Paris Commune recognized women's right to vote, but with its fall women were again deprived of the right, which would only be recognized again in July 1944 by Charles de Gaulle (at that time most of France—including Paris—was under Nazi occupation; Paris was liberated the following month). The Pacific colony of Franceville, declaring independence in 1889, became the first self-governing nation to adopt universal suffrage without distinction of sex or color;^[11] however, it soon came back under French and British colonial rule.

In 1881 the Isle of Man, an internally self-governing dependent territory of the British Crown, enfranchised women property owners and delivered the first installment of women’s right to vote in parliamentary elections within the British Isles.^[5]

Of currently existing independent countries, New Zealand was the first to acknowledge women's right to vote in 1893 when it was a self-governing British colony.^[12] Unrestricted women's suffrage in terms of voting rights (women were not initially permitted to stand for election) was adopted in New Zealand in 1893. Following a successful movement led by Kate Sheppard, the women's suffrage bill was adopted mere weeks before the general election of that year. The women of the British protectorate of Cook Islands obtained the same right soon after and beat New Zealand's women to the polls in 1893.^[13]

The self-governing British colony of South Australia enacted universal suffrage and enabled women to stand for the colonial parliament in 1894.^[14] The Commonwealth of Australia federated in 1901, with women voting and standing for office in some states. The Australian Federal Parliament extended voting rights to all adult women for Federal elections from 1902 (with the exception of Aboriginal women in some states).^[15]

The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland. Amidst the administrative reforms following the 1905 uprising, Finnish women's demand for both the right to vote (universal and equal suffrage) and the right to stand for election were met in 1906. The world's first female members of parliament were also Finnish, when on 1907, 19 women took up their places in the Parliament of Finland as a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections.

Soviet poster celebrates women's right to vote and to be elected.

In the years before World War I, women in Norway (1913) and Denmark (1915) also won the right to vote, as did women in the remaining Australian states. Near the end of the war, Canada, Soviet Russia, Germany and Poland also recognized women's right to participate in the elective franchise. British women over 30 had the vote in 1918, Dutch women in 1919, and American women won the vote in 1920. Women in Turkey won voting rights in 1926. In 1928, British women won suffrage on the same terms as men, that is, for persons 21 years old and older. One of the most recent jurisdictions to acknowledge women's full right to vote was Bhutan in 2008 (its first national elections).^[16]

Voting rights for women were introduced into international law by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, whose elected chair was Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that the Commission wrote. As stated in Article 21 "(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (3) 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."

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, which went into force in 1954, enshrining the equal rights of women to vote, hold office, and access public services as set out by national laws.

Suffrage movements[link]

After selling her home, British activist Emmeline Pankhurst travelled constantly, giving speeches throughout Britain and the United States. One of her most famous speeches, Freedom or death, was delivered in Connecticut in 1913.

The suffrage movement was a very broad one which encompassed women and men with a very broad range of views. One major division, especially in Britain, was between suffragists, who sought to create change constitutionally, and suffragettes, led by iconic English political activist Emmeline Pankhurst, who in 1903 formed the more militant Women's Social and Political Union.^[17] Pankhurst would not be satisfied with anything but action on the question of women's enfranchisement, with "deeds, not words" the organisation's motto.^[18] There was also a diversity of views on a 'woman's place'. Some who campaigned for women's suffrage felt that women were naturally kinder, gentler, and more concerned about weaker members of society, especially children. It was often assumed that women voters would have a civilizing effect on politics and would tend to support controls on alcohol, for example. Societies believed that although a woman's place was in the home, she should be able to influence laws which impacted upon that home. Other campaigners felt that men and women should be equal in every way and that there was no such thing as a woman's 'natural role'. There were also differences in opinion about other voters. Some campaigners felt that all adults were entitled to a vote, whether rich or poor, male or female, and regardless of race. Others saw women's suffrage as a way of canceling out the votes of lower class or non-white men.

Table of international women's suffrage[link]

Date listed is the first date women were allowed to participate (by voting) in elections, not the date that women were granted universal suffrage without restrictions.

Note: The table can be sorted alphabetically or chronologically using the icon.

Country	Year	Voting age
22x20px Kingdom of Afghanistan	1963	18 years
Principality of Albania	1920	18 years
Algeria	1962	18 years
Andorra	1970	18 years
People's Republic of Angola	1975	18 years
Argentina	1947[19]	18 years
Armenia	1917 (by application of the Russian legislation) 1919 March (by adoption of its own legislation)[20]	18 years (currently) 20 years (initially)
Aruba	(a)	18 years
Australia	1902	18 years
German Austria	1919	16 years (since 2007) 20 years (initially)
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic	1918	18 years
Bahamas	1960	18 years
Bahrain	2002	18 years
Bangladesh	1972 (since independence)	18 years
Barbados	1950	18 years
British Leeward Islands (Today: Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla)	1951	18 years
British Windward Islands (Today: Grenada, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica)	1951	18 years
Belarusian People's Republic	1919	18 years
Belgium	1919/1948(b)	18 years
British Honduras (Today: Belize)	1954	18 years
Dahomey (Today: Benin)	1956	18 years
Bermuda	1944	18 years
Bhutan	1953	18 years
Bolivia	1938	18 years
Botswana	1965	18 years
Brazil	1932	16 years (optional since 1988, otherwise 18)
Brunei	1959	18 years (village elections only)
Kingdom of Bulgaria	1938	18 years
Upper Volta (Today: Burkina Faso)	1958	18 years
Burma	1922	18 years
Burundi	1961	18 years
Kingdom of Cambodia	1955	18 years
British Cameroons (Today: Cameroon)	1946	20 years
Canada	1917	18 years (since 1970) 21 years (initially)
Cape Verde	1975	18 years
Cayman Islands	(a)	18 years
Central African Republic	1986	21 years
Chad	1958	18 years
Chile	1934	18 years (currently) 25 years initially, able to read and write (local elections only)
China	1947	18 years
Colombia	1954	18 years
Comoros	1956	18 years
Zaire (Today: Democratic Republic of the Congo)	1967	18 years
Congo, Republic of the	1963	18 years
Cook Islands	1893	18 years
Costa Rica	1949	18 years
Côte d'Ivoire	1952	19 years
Cuba	1934	16 years
Cyprus	1960	18 years
Czechoslovakia (Today: Czech Republic, Slovakia)	1920	18 years
Kingdom of Denmark (Including Greenland, the Faroe Islands and, at that time, Iceland)	1915	18 years
Djibouti	1946	18 years
Dominican Republic	1942	18 years
Ecuador	1929	18 years
Egypt	1956	18 years
El Salvador	1939	18 years
Equatorial Guinea	1963	18 years
Estonia	1917	18 years
Ethiopia (Then including Eritrea)	1955	18 years
Falkland Islands	(a)	18 years
Fiji	1963	21 years
Finland	1906	18 years
France	1944	18 years
French Polynesia	(a)	18 years
Gabon	1956	21 years
Gambia, The	1960	18 years
Democratic Republic of Georgia	1918	18 years
Germany	1918	18 years
Ghana	1954	18 years
Gibraltar	(a)	18 years
22x20px Greece	1930 (Local Elections, Literate Only), 1952 (Unconditional)	18 years (since 1952), 30 years (in 1930)
Guam	(a)	18 years
Guatemala	1946	18 years
Guernsey	(a)	18 years
Guinea	1958	18 years
Guinea-Bissau	1977	18 years
Guyana	1953	18 years
Haiti	1950	18 years
Honduras	1955	18 years
Hong Kong	1949	18 years
Hungarian Democratic Republic	1918	18 years
India	1947 (Since the state's inception)	18 years
Indonesia	1937 (for Europeans only), 1945	17 years (married persons regardless of age)
Iran	1963	18 years, was 15
Iraq	1980	18 years
Ireland	1918	18 years
Isle of Man	1881	16 years
Israel	1948 (Since the state's inception)	18 years
Italy	1946	18 years (except in senatorial elections, where minimum age is 25)
Jamaica	1944	18 years
Japan	1947	20 years
Jersey	(a)	16 years
Jordan	1974	18 years
Kazakh SSR	1924	18 years
Kenya	1963	18 years
Kiribati	1967	18 years
Korea, North	1946	17 years
Korea, South	1948	19 years
Kuwait	2005	21 years
Kyrgyz SSR	1918	18 years
Kingdom of Laos	1958	18 years
Latvia	1917	18 years
Lebanon	1952[21]	21 years
Lesotho	1965	18 years
Liberia	1946	18 years
Kingdom of Libya	1964	18 years
Liechtenstein	1984	18 years
Lithuania	1917	18 years
Luxembourg	1919	18 years
Macau	(a)	18 years
Madagascar	1959	18 years
22x20px Malawi	1961	18 years
Federation of Malaya (Today: Malaysia)	1957	21 years
Maldives	1932	21 years
Mali	1956	18 years
Malta	1947	18 years
Marshall Islands	1979	18 years
Mauritania	1961	18 years
Mauritius	1956	18 years
Mexico	1947	18 years
Micronesia, Federated States of	1979	18 years
Moldavian SSR	1940	18 years
Monaco	1962	18 years
Mongolian People's Republic	1924	18 years
Morocco	1963	18 years
People's Republic of Mozambique	1975	18 years
Namibia	1989	18 years
Nauru	1968	20 years
Nepal	1951	18 years
Netherlands	1919	18 years
New Zealand	1893	18 years
Nicaragua	1955	16 years
Niger	1948	18 years
Nigeria	1958	18 years
Norway	1913	18 years
Oman	2003	21 years
Pakistan	1947 (Since the state's inception)	18 years
Palau	1979	18 years
Panama	1941	18 years
Papua New Guinea	1964	18 years
Paraguay	1961	18 years
Peru	1955	18 years
Philippines	1937	18 years
Pitcairn Islands	1838	18 years
Poland	1917	18 years
Portugal	1931	18 years
Puerto Rico	1929	18 years
Qatar	1997	18 years
Kingdom of Romania	1938	18 years
Russian Provisional Government	1917	18 years (currently) 20 years (initially, for city dumas)[22] 21 year (initially, for RCA)[23]
Rwanda	1961	18 years
Saint Helena	(a)	(a)
Samoa	1990	21 years
San Marino	1959	18 years
São Tomé and Príncipe	1975	18 years
Saudi Arabia	2015 (expected)	21 years
Senegal	1945	18 years
Seychelles	1948	17 years
Sierra Leone	1961	18 years
Singapore	1947	21 years
Solomon Islands	1974	21 years
Somalia	1956	18 years
South Africa	1930 (white women only; women of other races were enfranchised at the same time as men)	18 years (since 1958) 21 years (initially)
Spain	1931	18 years
Ceylon (Today: Sri Lanka)	1931	18 years
Sudan	1964	17 years
Suriname	1948	18 years
Swaziland	1968	18 years
Sweden	1921	18 years
Switzerland	1971	18 years
Syria	1949	18 years
Taiwan	1947	20 years
Tajik SSR	1924	18 years
Tanzania	1959	18 years
Thailand	1932	18 years
Timor-Leste	1976	17 years
Togo	1945	18 years
Tonga	1960	21 years
Trinidad and Tobago	1946	18 years
Tunisia	1959	18 years
Turkey	1930 (for local elections), 1934 (for national elections)	18 years
Turkmen SSR	1924	18 years
Tuvalu	1967	18 years
Uganda	1962	18 years
Ukrainian SSR	1919	18 years
United Arab Emirates	2006	(a)
United Kingdom (Then including Ireland)	1918 and 1928	18 years, was 30 and then 21 years
United States	1920	18 years
Uruguay	1917/1927 (c)	18 years
Uzbek SSR	1938	18 years
Vanuatu	1975	18 years
Venezuela	1946	18 years
Vietnam	1946	18 years
South Yemen (Today: Yemen)	1967	18 years
Zambia	1962	18 years
Southern Rhodesia (Today: Zimbabwe)	1919	21 years
Yugoslavia (Today: Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia)	1945	18 years

Note:

(a) Data unavailable

(b) Was granted in the constitution in 1919, for communal voting. Suffrage for the provincial councils and the national parliament only came in 1948.

(c) Women's suffrage was broadcast for the first time in 1927, in the plebiscite of Cerro Chato.^[24]

Women's suffrage by country[link]

Australian women's rights were lampooned in this 1887 Melbourne Punch cartoon: A hypothetical female member foists her baby's care on the House Speaker

Asia[link]

India[link]

Basu shows that the Women's Indian Association (WIA) was founded in 1917. It sought votes for women and the right to hold legislative office on the same basis as men. These positions were endorsed by the main political groupings, the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League.^[25] British and Indian feminists combined in 1918 to publish a magazine Stri Dharma that featured international news from a feminist perspective.^[26] In 1919 in the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms, the British set up provincial legislatures which had the power to grant women's suffrage. Madras in 1921 granted votes to wealthy and educated women, under the same terms that applied to men. The other provinces followed, but not the princely states (which did not have votes for men either).^[25] In Bengal province, the provincial assembly rejected it in 1921 but Southard shows an intense campaign produced victory in 1921. The original idea came from British suffragettes. Success in Bengal depended on middle class Indian women, who emerged from a fast-growing urban elite that favoured European fashions and ideas. The women leaders in Bengal linked their crusade to a moderate nationalist agenda, by showing how they could participate more fully in nation-building by having voting power. They carefully avoided attacking traditional gender roles by arguing that traditions could coexist with political modernization.^[27]

In the Government of India Act of 1935 the British Raj set up a system of separate electorates and separate seats for women. Most women's leaders opposed segregated electorates and demanded adult franchise. In 1931 the Congress promised universal adult franchise when it came to power. It enacted equal voting rights for both men and women in 1947.^[28]

Pakistan[link]

Pakistan was part of India until 1947, when it became independent. Women received full suffrage in 1947. Ali points out that Muslim women leaders from all classes actively supported the Pakistan movement in the mid-1940s. Their movement was led by wives and other relatives of leading politicians. Women were sometimes organized into large-scale public demonstrations. Before 1947 there was a tendency for the Muslim women in Punjab to vote for the Muslim League while their menfolk supported the Unionist Party.^[29]

Bangladesh[link]

Bangladesh was (mostly) the province of Bengal in India until 1947, then it became part of Pakistan. It became an independent nation in 1971. Women have had equal suffrage since 1947, and they have reserved seats in parliament. Bangladesh is notable in that since 1991, two women, namely Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda Zia, have served terms as the country's Prime Minister continuously. Women have traditionally played a minimal role in politics beyond the anomaly of the two leaders; few used to run against men; few have been ministers. Recently, however, women have become more active in politics, with several prominent ministerial posts given to women and women participating in national, district and municipal elections against men and winning on several occasions. Choudhury and Hasanuzzaman argue that the strong patriarchal traditions of Bangladesh explain why women are so reluctant to stand up in politics.^[30]

Indonesia[link]

In the first half of the 20th century, Indonesia (pre-independence era) was one of the slowest moving countries to gain women’s suffrage. They began their fight in 1905 by introducing municipal councils that included some members elected by a restricted district. Voting rights only went to males that could read and write, which excluded many non-European males. At the time, the literacy rate for males was 11% and for females 2%. The main group who pressured the Indonesian government for women’s suffrage was the Dutch Vereeninging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (VVV-Women’s Suffrage Association) which was founded in the Netherlands in 1894. They tried to attract Indonesian membership, but had very limited success because the leaders of the organization had little skill in relating to even the educated class of the Indonesians. When they eventually did connect somewhat with women, they failed to sympathize with them and thus ended up alienating many well-educated Indonesians. In 1918 the colony gained its first national representative body called the Volksraad, which still excluded women in voting. In 1935, the colonial administration used its power of nomination to appoint a European woman to the Volksraad. In 1938, the administration introduced the right of women to be elected to urban representative institution, which resulted in some Indonesian and European women entering municipal councils. Eventually, the law became that only European women and municipal councils could vote,^{[clarification needed]} which excluded all other women and local councils. September 1941 was when this law was amended and the law extended to women of all races by the Volksraad. Finally, in November 1941, the right to vote for municipal councils was granted to all women on a similar basis to men (with property and educational qualifications).^[31] There are a lot of women that supports the rights for women. The famous one is Raden Ajeng Kartini. She is also famous for her quote, "Habis Gelap, Terbitlah Terang" or in English, "After Dark, Comes the Light". It means that after bad days or dark days, there will always be hope everything including the success of the Women's Suffrage. Raden Ajeng Kartini did succeed. The other women that also fights for women's right also succeed. Raden Ajeng Kartini is so famous, Indonesians made a special date just for her, Hari Kartini, or Kartini's Day on 21 April, which is Kartini's birthday.

Iran[link]

In 1963, a referendum overwhelmingly approved by voters gave women the right to vote, a right previously denied to them under the Iranian Constitution of 1906 pursuant to Chapter 2, Article 3.

Japan[link]

Women's Rights meeting in Tokyo, to push for women's suffrage.

Although women were allowed to vote in some counties in 1880, women's suffrage was enacted at a national level in 1945.^[32]

Kuwait[link]

Women's suffrage in Kuwait was recognized in an amendment to electoral law on May 17, 2005.^[33]

Saudi Arabia[link]

In late September 2011, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud declared that women would be able to vote and run for office starting in 2015. The franchise will apply to the only (semi-)elected bodies in the kingdom, the municipal councils. Half of the seats on municipal councils are elective, and the councils have few powers.^[34] The council elections have been held since 2005 (the first time they were held before that was the 1960s).^[35][36] The King also declared that women would be eligible to be appointed to the Shura Council, an unelected body that issues advisory opinions on national policy.^[37] '"This is great news," said Saudi writer and women's rights activist Wajeha al-Huwaider. "Women's voices will finally be heard. Now it is time to remove other barriers like not allowing women to drive cars and not being able to function, to live a normal life without male guardians."' Robert Lacey, author of two books about the kingdom, said, "This is the first positive, progressive speech out of the government since the Arab Spring.... First the warnings, then the payments, now the beginnings of solid reform." The king made the announcement in a five-minute speech to the Shura Council.^[36]

Sri Lanka[link]

Sri Lanka (at that time Ceylon) was one of the first Asian countries to allow voting rights to women over the age of 21 without any restrictions. Since then, women have enjoyed a significant presence in the Sri Lankan political arena. The zenith of this favourable condition to women has been the 1960 July General Elections, in which Ceylon elected the world's first woman Prime Minister, Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Her daughter, Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga also became the Prime Minister later in 1994, and the same year she was elected as the Executive President of Sri Lanka, making her the fourth woman in the world to hold the portfolio.

Africa[link]

South Africa[link]

The franchise was extended to white women 21 years or older by the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930. The first general election at which women could vote was the election of 17 May 1933. At that election Leila Reitz (wife of Deneys Reitz) was elected as the first female MP, representing Parktown for the South African Party. The limited voting rights available to non-white men in the Cape Province were not extended to women, and were themselves progressively eliminated between 1936 and 1968.

The right to vote for the Transkei Legislative Assembly, established in 1963 for the Transkei bantustan, was granted to all adult citizens of the Transkei, including women. Similar provision was made for the Legislative Assemblies created for other bantustans. All adult Coloured citizens were eligible to vote for the Coloured Persons Representative Council, which was established in 1968 with limited legislative powers; the council was however abolished in 1980. Similarly, all adult Indian citizens were eligible to vote for the South African Indian Council in 1981. In 1984 the Tricameral Parliament was established, and the right to vote for the House of Representatives and House of Delegates was granted to all adult Coloured and Indian citizens, respectively.

In 1994 the bantustans and the Tricameral Parliament were abolished and the right to vote for the National Assembly was granted to all adult citizens.

Southern Rhodesia[link]

Southern Rhodesian women won the vote in 1919 and Ethel Tawse Jollie (1875–1950) was elected to the Southern Rhodesia legislature 1920-1928, the first woman to sit in any national Commonwealth Parliament outwith Westminster. The influx of women settlers from the United Kingdom and the British Dominions proved a decisive factor in the 1922 referendum that rejected annexation by a South Africa increasingly under the sway of traditionalist Afrikaner Nationalists in favor of Rhodesian Home Rule or 'responsible government'.^[38] Only 51 black Rhodesians qualified for the vote in 1923 (based upon property, assets, income and literacy) and it is unclear when the first black woman qualified for the vote.

Europe[link]

Austria[link]

After the revolution in 1848, the right to vote was bound to the ownership of property and thus paying of taxes. While it was also bound to being male, a small number of privileged women who owned property were actually allowed to vote as a result. In 1889 this "loophole" was closed in Lower Austria, which led some to mobilise for the struggle for political rights and the right to vote for women.^{[citation needed]}

It was only after the breakdown of the Habsburg monarchy, that the new Austria would grant the general, equal, direct and secret right to vote to all citizens, regardless of sex in 1919. ^[39]

Belgium[link]

Jane Brigode, Belgian suffragist, around 1910.

After a revision of the constitution in 1921 the general right to vote was introduced according to the "one man, one vote" principle. Women obtained voting rights at the municipal level. As an exception, widows of World War I were allowed to vote at the national level as well. The introduction of women's suffrage was already put onto the agenda at the time, by means of including an article in the constitution that allowed approval of women's suffrage by special law. This happened no sooner than after World War II, in 1948. In Belgium, people are obliged to appear at the polling station, however voting in itself is not mandatory.

Czech Republic[link]

In the former Bohemia, taxpaying women and women in "learned profession" were allowed to vote by proxy and made eligible to the legislative body in 1864.^[40] The general public obtained the right to vote and be elected, based on age but regardless of sex, when Czechoslovakia was established in 1918.^{[citation needed]}

Denmark[link]

In Denmark women were given the right to vote in municipal elections on April 20, 1909. However it was not until June 5, 1915 that they were allowed to vote in Rigsdag elections.^[41]

Finland[link]

13 of the total of 19 female MPs, who were the first female MPs in the world, elected in Finland's parliamentary elections in 1907.

Finland was a Swedish province until 1809, signifying that also women in Finland were allowed to vote during the Swedish age of liberty (1718–1771), when suffrage was granted to tax-paying female members of guilds^[42]

The predecessor state of modern Finland, The Grand Principality of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863, taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the country side, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities^[40] The Parliament Act in 1906 established the unicameral parliament of Finland and both women and men were given the right to vote and stand for election. Thus Finnish women became the first in the world to have unrestricted rights both to vote and to stand for parliament. In elections the next year, 19 female MPs, first ones in the world, were elected and women have continued to play a central role in the nation's politics ever since. Miina Sillanpää, a key figure in the worker's movement, became the first female minister in 1926.^{[citation needed]}