Women could not participate in elections for much of human history, dating back to the
ancient Greeks and Romans.
In the 1800s, women began fighting for the right to vote, petitioning their governments
and rallying fellow citizens to the cause.
In 1893, New Zealand became the first country to allow women to vote, after almost 25% of
the country’s women of European descent signed petitions.
All New Zealand women – including Maori women – gained the right to vote.
Australia followed suit in 1902.
Enfranchisement did not extend to all Australian women, however.
Aboriginal women and men could not vote for another sixty years.
In Europe and North America, suffrage supporters submitted petitions, gave speeches, and held
rallies.
Some women were arrested and engaged in hunger strikes while in jail.
One advocate, the American Alice Paul, served six prison terms.
Other leaders of the suffrage movement included Millicent Garrett Fawcett and Emmeline and
Christabel Pankhurst in the United Kingdom; and Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
and Matilda J. Gage in the United States.
When World War I spread across Europe, many woman suffrage organizations shifted their
energies to aiding the war effort.
The role that women played during that war helped sway public support behind enfranchisement.
In 1918, women in the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, and Canada, among other countries,
gained the right to vote.
In Canada, however, First Nations women and men had to wait more than another forty years
until they could vote.
In 1920, women in the United States won their battle.
Native Americans were barred from voting for four more years on the federal level, while
some states withheld their voting rights even longer.
Ecuador became the first South American country to enfranchise women, granting full voting
rights to all women in 1929.
The next year, South Africa began enfranchisement of women – but only those of European descent.
This was due to apartheid – the white government’s policy of segregation and discrimination against
the country’s nonwhite majority.
Voting rights did not extend to all South Africans until 1994.
In 1931, women in Spain gained the right vote, but this lasted only five years, until Francisco
Franco came to power in 1936.
The end of World War II brought liberation to many European and Asian countries, and
with that, enfranchisement of women.
In 1947, India and Pakistan gained independence from Britain, and both of their constitutions
granted women the right to vote.
Chinese women gained voting rights in 1949, after a new government took power following
a civil war.
During the late 1940s and 1950s, women across Latin America gained the right to vote.
The end of World War II brought decolonization in Africa.
As African countries gained independence, voting rights for women followed.
By the end of the 1960s, women across most of Africa could participate in elections.
As the 1970s began, there were still a few European countries that did not allow women
to vote.
Over the course of the decade, Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, and Moldova all enfranchised
women.
Liechtenstein followed in 1984.
Some conservative Middle Eastern countries did not enfranchise women until the twenty-first
century.
In Bahrain, women won the right to vote in 2002; in Qatar, 2003; and in Kuwait, 2005.
Saudi Arabia was the last country, besides Vatican City, that still denied women the
right to vote because of their sex.
In 2011 the Saudi king announced that women would be allowed to vote in later elections.