When was women allowed to vote

The revolutionaries — middle and working classes, as well as students — demanded a constitution with an elected parliament for the first time.

In the constitutional committee of parliament debated the conditions for obtaining the right to vote, which included payment of tax. These debates rejected political rights for women. When the revolution ended, the right to vote remained linked to education and a specific tax revenue , but not to gender.

Women who owned property foremost in the form of land or had business earnings could vote in many municipalities under the provisional electoral regulations of , and from on for the diets of the crownlands as well.

But female voters were often not allowed to go to the polls themselves, their votes had to be cast by a male representative — the husband in the case of married women. With the exception of a small number of large landowners, women were not eligible to vote for the most important political institution, the parliament.

The idea of an individual right to vote regardless of property and education was slow to gain ground. Millions of white women already possessed voting rights when the 19th Amendment was ratified, and millions more gained that right on August 18, However, the spirit of Jim Crow legislation and a women's rights movement that often discriminated against non-white women prevented all women from gaining voting rights that day. Black women had to fight for another forty-five years to gain their own right to vote through the Voting Rights Act of The story of women's voting rights in the United States cannot be fully explained in one moment or one day on a calendar.

Genuine progress on this issue was limited, piecemeal, and slow-moving. Explore This Park. Library of Congress Did women earn the right to vote on August 18, ? Further Reading. New York: Oxford University Press, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, You Might Also Like.

Loading results The movement for women to vote started when India was a British colony, and some women were able to vote following reforms passed in the s.

But universal suffrage only really came into play after India gained independence in , and when the Indian constitution was enacted in Previously, women who were educated and over the age of 30 could vote in local elections, but could not participate on a national level. In Greece elected Katerina Sakellaropoulou as president, making her the first woman to fill that role. Colombian dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla granted women the right to vote in , despite opposition from the Catholic Church.

Women were able to exercise that right in elections in , and Colombia has since gone on to elect women for various government offices, although they are still underrepresented as a whole. Honduras was the last Latin American country to allow women to vote, granting suffrage in After years of campaigning by the Egyptian Feminist Union, which was founded by activist Huda Sharawi , Egypt granted women the right to vote in Naguib on Aug. Women in Malaysia, along with all other Malaysian citizens, were granted the right to vote in , after the country gained political independence from the British regime.

Despite continued lobbying for women to have more power in politics, the percentage of women holding seats has remained small. Algeria was under the rule of France until , at which time it obtained its independence. With that freedom came independence for women as well, and they were awarded the right to vote. Despite this, women had to continue fighting for equal rights and are still underrepresented politically. The group held public demonstrations and petitioned the secretary of state for the colonies, until a bill giving women the right to vote was eventually enacted in Women in Iran won the right to vote and run for parliament in , as well as rights to obtain a divorce and keep custody of their children.

By , 22 women had seats in parliament and more than served on local councils. That all ended with the revolution. Women were removed from office, made to observe the Islamic dress code, and could only work in more traditionally female fields.

Iran is now under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, who appointed four women as vice presidents and had cabinet members appoint women as deputy ministers. Iran still ranks near the bottom of the World Bank's global index of equality by country, coming in at out of countries in , the last time rankings were released.

Women in Libya were given the right to vote in , and a prohibition against gender bias was issued. After the military coup of the Gaddafi regime, women were encouraged to become more involved in politics, but few women were elected or appointed to parliamentary seats. Ecuador originally granted women the right to vote in , when President Isidro Ayora allowed for literate Ecuadorian women to vote. Voting was required for men, but remained optional for women until , when a new constitution made voting obligatory for both women and men.

In , the literacy requirement was removed, and in a law was passed that also gave women equality in divorce and property rights. Bangladesh gave women the right to vote in , after women fought alongside men in the Liberation War, helping the country to gain independence. Over time, women have become more prominent in Bengali politics, with female prime ministers regularly elected since While women in Portugal were awarded the right to vote in , that right was restricted to women who had completed secondary or higher education, as opposed to men who only had to know how to read and write.

Women in Namibia won the right to vote in , after a campaign that was tied to universal suffrage rights and racial equality. Namibia recently implemented training in female representation in politics as part of its goal to obtain full gender equality by Samoa, originally known as Western Samoa, gave women the right to vote under universal suffrage in In , just