O movementsuffragist claimed the rights politicals for women, more specifically, the right to vote and to be voted on. It appeared in England, in the 19th century, and reached the world in the 20th century, a period in which the claim was met by most countries.
It is important to note that there may be a disparity between the period in which the right to vote and the period of election is achieved. There are also differences in suffrage amplitude in relation to education, income and color, restrictions that, in many cases, were lifted years after the sanction of the female vote.
Today, when the expansion of political rights has taken place in different parts of the world, there are still under-representation of women in parliaments and the executive branch, which demonstrates a long path to be traversed.
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History of the suffragists
The demand movement for women's vote developed in the context of the so-called first wave of
feminism, along with other demands for political, social and legal rights, in the second half of the 19th century.In a context of consolidation of modern States, in a Europe marked by profound political, cultural and social changes, especially in the world of work, fostered by the French Revolution and for Industrial Revolution, the group of feminist activists who starred in the first wave sought legal equality between women and men in the field of education and possessions, the right to divorce and the right to vote. The latter was the great flag that characterized the movement in that period.
Therefore, it is a movement that, at the same time, characterized and sought to modify the emerging modern society, marked by urbanization and industrialization, but with a still very restricted democratization and labor relations marked by exploitation and lack of protection and rights.
First wave feminists are called liberal feminists. They were middle-class and upper-middle-class women. Upper-middle-class women, property owners, were the driving force behind their demands Do not bein oppressed by men of their class removing the differences between them and men who also owned property.
Middle-class women, in turn, had as a central point the equal opportunities in professional training and in the labor market in relation to men of their class, who generally had a skilled labor force and good jobs.
On the other hand, the poor women who worked in the factories in exhausting hours, in precarious conditions and for very low salaries, worked outside and they left their children at home, they had a double shift because they also did the housework, they had another experience and starting point to fight for rights.
Anyway, the suffragette movement united different groups of women, of different Social classes, different levels of education and with different agendas, as they all had a common experience: the exclusion of political rights. This exclusion interfered with the achievement of their goals, whether they were related to wealth management, formal education, divorce or better living and working conditions. The right to vote and to be voted was, above all, a recognition of women's citizenship.
In England, Mary Wallstone Çraft he published, in 1792, the article “Reclaiming the rights of women”. She and other theorists have published several texts advocating women's political participation and also women's broad access to formal education. the educator Millicent Fawcett in 1897 he founded the National Union for Suffrage, an important association for the suffrage struggle. In the United Kingdom, the suffragist struggle was allied to the agenda of the labor movement against the exploitation of female workers.
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In 1903, the suffragettes founded the Women's Social and Political Union, whose great leader was emmelinePankhurst, and the main methods of militancy were propaganda, civil disobedience, non-violent activities and, later, violent activities. This group exerted immense influence on other women's movements in the Western world. At suffragettes, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, were a dissent from the British suffragette movement Pacific. With the motto “Actions, not words”, they carried out acts of political violence and were willing to be arrested and killed for the cause.
The event that marked the suffragette struggle and was one of its main propagators from England to the world took place in 1913, when a teacher named Emily Davison played-if in front of the horse of the rhey George V during a race, which caused her death, making her a martyr to the suffragette movement. The movement spread to other countries in Europe and also reached the United States, where it received a new breath of global reach.
the first country to guarantee the right to vote for women was the New Zealand, at 1893, the greatest suffragist leader was the feminist KateSheppard, and one of the main agendas that stimulated women's interest in politics was legislation on control in the use of alcoholic beverages in the country, with the aim of ending domestic violence by men drunks.
O second country wasFinland, in 1906, which had the first elected parliamentarians in the next election. England, a great protagonist of the suffrage movement, had the right to vote for women achieved in 1918, after the First World War, and only by women who own property. Universal suffrage in England would only materialize 10 years later (1928). the last country to guarantee the right to vote for women was Saudi Arabia in 2015.
Acting in the suffragette movement
The performance of the participants of the suffrage movement included several activities:
press publications
conferences
political meetings
negotiation attempts in parliaments
peaceful demonstrations
civil disobedience
legal disputes
violent protests
THE attempt to inhibit and constrain women to conform exclusively to their role in the domestic environment was marked by the diffusion of the idea that they would be unable to exercise leadership and manage public affairs, as they would be too emotional and little rational. THE coercion and intimidation it took place on several fronts, from cartoons and anecdotes in the press to violent repression and imprisonment. Some leaders of the suffrage movement, such as EmmelinePankhurst, were arrested several times.
See too: Social minorities - groups excluded from the socialization process
What are the suffragists' demands?
The main demand of the suffragettes is in the field of political rights: the right to vote and be voted on. Why is it so important to have political rights? In the field of politics, laws are made and public resources allocated and transformed into government programs. Thus, having rights and being reached by public policies is something that depends on being politically represented by elected legislators and executors.
When women noticed that the economic inequalities, educationthere and legal that affected them were directly related to their lack of representation in the political class, and that their reparation would not be made. by politicians who were not accountable to a female electorate, they actively sought to be included in the rights politicians. Therefore, voting and eligibility would not be ends in themselves, but means to equalize-if the female demands disregarded in decision-making spheres.
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1920s suffragette movement
THEfirst Women's March in Washington for the right to vote, which took place on March 3, 1913, is a landmark in the rise of the feminist movement in the United States. The North Americans and, mainly, the British ones were the protagonists of this movement that spread around the world. This struggle went on for decades and suffered a lot of resistance, both from the political class and from society of the time. It was believed that the expansion of women's rights would undermine the institution of the family.
In the United States, the suffragette struggle was also combined with the struggle against slavery. HarrietTubman, known as BlackMoses, it was an African-American abolitionist who led many enslaved to freedom and it was one of the great orators of the suffragette movement North American. However, there was resistance on the part of white suffragists from the southern region, so much so that, in the protests of 1913, black women were compelled by Alice Paul, one of the march leaders, to stand at the end of the act.
In the United States, the female vote was approved in 1920, although women could apply since 1788. The achievement of the right to vote by black women and men only materialized in all US states in 1960.
Suffragette movement in Brazil
The first demands for women's vote in Brazil date back to the empireO. In 1932 Nísia Floresta published the article “Women's rights and men's injustices”, in which she defended equal access to education and political rights. At the Brazil republican, the first women's association seeking political rights was founded in 1910 in the federal capital at the time, Rio de Janeiro. Its leader was the teacher and indigenist Leolindaby Figueiredo Daltro, the name of the association was Partido Republicano Mulher.
At 1920s, a second association was founded, the League for the Intellectual Emancipation of Women, which would later be renamed the Brazilian Federation for Female Progress(GFPF). Its main leader, Bertha Lutz, allied-if to the international feminist movement. Maintained contact through letters with Carrie Chapman Catt, one of the top suffragette leaders, from whom she received advice.
This approach was also intended to strengthen and support the association on the national scene. The main purpose of this association was: "to assure women the political rights that our Constitution confers on them and to prepare them for the intelligent exercise of these rights"|1|.
Since 1917, some bills and constitutional amendments in favor of the female vote had arrived in the Brazilian Parliament. Within Parliament, the main ally of the cause, who maintained contact with Bertha Luz and her group, was the senator, from Rio Grande do Norte, Juvenal Lamartine.
The latter, upon assuming the position of governor of his state, in 1927, it extended the right to vote to women in Rio Grande do Norte, the first state in Brazil to approve the female vote. in this state the first mayor was elected, Alzira Soriano, in the city of Lajes, in 1928. Interestingly, Rio Grande do Norte is the only Brazilian state that, after redemocratization in 1985, elected three women as governors, representing a third of the total governors post-redemocratization.
THE from 1927, the performance of the suffragette movement, especially the GFPF, intensified. Thus, the association promoted lectures, radio advertisements, articles for the press, delivered letters to parliamentarians, he distributed pamphlets in the Senate and the Chamber, however, still not reaching his objective. Thus, the association started to offer legal advice to its participants, to enlist as voters, and to publicize favorable opinions.
In 1930, Getulio Vargas appointed a legislative subcommittee to propose the electoral law reform. Just like the GFPF, led by Bertha Lutz, two other dissident associations of her, João Pessoa Battalion Women's Association (MG), led by Elvira Komel, and National Women's Alliance (RJ), led by Nathércia da Cunha Silveira, acted so that the female vote was approved in the reform. They promoted two women's congresses in which they discussed the insertion of women in politics and handed over the deliberations of the meetings to the Federal Government.
At the first draft of the new electoral law, in 1931, was proposed by the subcommittee that the female vote was restricted to women who had an income, thus, financially dependent single women or married women who were housewives would be out of the proposal. The suffragettes protested, held conferences and took their deliberations to the electoral subcommittee, scheduled meetings with politicians, participated in congressional sessions, and sent telegrams to parliamentarians.
That pressure it worked, in part. With the approval of the new electoral law in 1932, all Brazilian women, over the age of 21, literate and salaried, now have the right to vote. The suffrage for all women occurred in 1965, and for illiterate people, in 1985.
Read too: Feminism in Brazil – how was the movement in the country?
suffragette movement in France
France was the first country to institute universal male suffrage, but it was one of the last countries in Europe to institute universal female suffrage.This country played a pioneering role in the struggle for the universalization of civil rights. It's the country of French Revolution (1789), which overthrew the absolutist monarchy and spurred democratic movements around the world. It is also the country of Declaration of Human and Citizen's Rights (1758), which inspired leaders of the feminist movement and other rights movements.
However, during the French Revolution, women were excluded from the right to vote, they were called "passive citizens", and some argued that the religiosity of many would be incompatible with the ideal of laic State, in addition to the classic justification that women voting would destroy the foundations of the family.
the french feminist OlympedeGouges elaborated, in 1791, the Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens in response to the first document, which excluded women from civil rights, and, as a result, she was beheaded. At French women voted for the first time on April 29, 1945, in the first election after World War II.
Summary on the suffragette movement
It took place in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Her main demand was to guarantee women the right to vote and be voted.
The country that starred it was England.
Their methods of militancy ranged from newspaper articles, conferences, advertisements, pressure on Parliament, peaceful demonstrations, even in the case of suffragettes British, violent acts.
In Brazil, the right to vote for women was sanctioned in 1932, during the Getúlio Vargas government.
Her great Brazilian reference was the biologist and feminist Bertha Lutz.
Note
|1| KARAWEJCZYK, Monica. The female vote in Brazil.
By Milka de Oliveira Rezende
Sociology Professor
