Votes for Women

Women’s right to vote, suggested by British author Mary Wollstonecraft in her book  A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), was a long time coming. Groups campaigning for political reform in the 1830s were only concerned with obtaining the vote for all men. Women were not included.

In the mid-1800s, however, a movement was started in the US that aimed to win voting rights for women across the world. It held its first meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Many other public meetings followed, often fiercely opposed by those who did not want women to have the right to vote. Speakers included Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, both of whom had been born slaves.

The movement grew, and in 1890 Wyoming became the first US state to allow women to vote in local elections. Three years later, New Zealand became the first country to allow women to vote in national elections. In Britain, this triumph encouraged various women’s suffrage (right to vote) societies to unite in 1897.

At first, their campaigns were peaceful, but in 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst set up a new society, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), which advocated action rather than words. The WSPU held demonstrations and attacked property in protest against women’s lack of rights. Many members were sent to prison, and went on hunger strike to draw attention to their cause.

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, many women took on men’s jobs, proving that they were just as capable as men. In 1918, the vote was given to all British women over the age of 30 (the voting age for men was only 21). Women in the US were given the right to vote in 1920. In 1928, the voting age for British women was lowered to 21.