The History of Fighting

Women gained the right to vote at various times all over the world and in many places, they could vote in local elections long before they could become a part of the national electorate. In the nineteenth century, the issue was particularly contentious in Britain and the United States, but both were slow to allow women to participate in general elections. 

Women’s suffrage was being discussed in Britain as early as 1792 by Mary Wollstonecraft in her book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Politicians, such as John Stuart Mill, began debating the subject in Parliament from the 1850s, and the first suffrage societies formed in the following decade. As support for the movement grew, leaders such as Barbara Bodichon and Lydia Becker emerged, and petitions were presented to Parliament, demonstrations took place, and literature was produced to argue for the cause. Although this seems tame by the standards that were to follow, as it was women that were doing these acts of protest, they were considered radical at the time by many officials and members of the public. 

Most suffrage activism in Britain ceased with the onset of the First World War, and leaders of the movement redirected their efforts to support the war effort. When it was over, the contributions women made to the Allies' victory through their work in factories, as nurses, and in many other areas could not be denied. At least partly as a result of this, and the activism that preceded the Great War, the Representation of the People Act (1918) was passed, giving some women over thirty the right to vote and enfranchising around 1.5 million women in Britain. In the same year, the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act allowed women the opportunity to be voted in as members of Parliament. However, the goals of the suffrage campaigners were not fully met until the passing of the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act (1928), which gave women the vote on the same terms as men, as well as implementing universal adult suffrage. 

Women’s suffrage in the United States began in the early nineteenth century, during a period when antislavery sentiment was high. Antislavery campaigners Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton agreed that the rights of women in America needed to be improved along with the rights of African Americans. In 1848, they issued a declaration calling for women’s right to vote and for them to get improved education and employment opportunities. In 1852, Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony held their first joint convention on the subject and the two would go on to lead the suffrage movement in America for the next fifty years. 

One of the tactics employed was to attempt to gain suffrage through amending the constitutions of each state and with this objective in mind, Lucy Stone founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in 1869. Despite some success when the Territory of Wyoming granted women the right to vote in all elections in the same year, it was believed by some that progress would be too slow this way. As a result, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1869, with the objective of getting a female suffrage amendment added to the federal Constitution. 

The two organisations joined together in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In the same year, Wyoming became a part of the Union, making it the first state to afford women the right to vote. Over the next twenty-eight years, other states submitted to the demands of the NAWSA, and by 1918, women had equal voting rights as men in fifteen of the forty-eight states (Hawaii and Alaska were added to the Union in 1959). This meant that more and more members of Congress were elected, in part, by female voters and many felt obliged to their constituents to fight for a women’s suffrage amendment to be added to the Constitution. 

As it was in Britain, the contributions of American women during the First World War did not go unnoticed, and by 1918, both major political parties were in favour of votes for women. As a result, the Nineteenth Amendment was added to the US Constitution on 26 August 1920 which made the United States the twenty-seventh country to allow women to vote. Although the Nineteenth Amendment was a huge step in the right direction, there was still work to be done as some states still found ways to deny poorer women and women of colour the right to vote in general elections. 

In September 1893, New Zealand became the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote at a national level. A year later, South Australia granted women full suffrage, along with the right to stand as members of Parliament. By 1902, the whole of Australia had opted in to women’s suffrage although Aboriginal women, as well as men, did not get equal voting rights as their white counterparts until 1966. Other countries that were progressive early on in their pursuit of women's suffrage were Finland, which granted female suffrage in 1906, and Norway, where women could vote from 1913.  Between 1914 and 1939, twenty-eight countries gave women the right to vote in general elections, although not always on the same terms as men. They included: 

Women’s Suffrage. [Internet]. 2025. Britannica. Available From: www.britannica.com/topic/woman-suffrage [Accessed 7 July 2025]. 

Women’s Suffrage Movement — Facts and Information on Women’s Rights. [Internet]. 2025. History Net. Available From: www.historynet.com/womens-suffrage-movement [Accessed 7 July 2025].