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Period: 1569 to
Italy
In the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and in Veneto, women participated in local political elections but could not be elected. In Tuscany a decree in 1850 sanctioned the administrative right to vote for women through a ballot sent to the polling station with a sealed envelope. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in Italy, was the first European state to have a law that provided for the vote of women, for administrative elections, taking up a tradition that was already informally sometimes present in Italy. -
USA
The first convention for women’s rights
What started out as an idea over tea to hold a two-day meeting to discuss women’s rights turned into a convention attended by hundreds in Seneca Falls, New York. In total, 300 attended the convention and 68 women and 32 men signed a “Declaration of Sentiments,” making the first formal demand in the U.S. for women to have the right to vote. The convention did not address the racism and oppression faced by Black women. -
Italy
Kingdom of Italy: Women are excluded from political life -
USA
Suffrage parades begin
The first women’s suffrage parade takes place in New York City. Within three years, the parade would garner around 10,000 participants and hundreds of thousands of onlookers down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. -
India
The Governement of India act of 1919 allowed provincial councils to determine if women could vote, only if they met strict requirements : such as having high income or advanced educational levels. The first province to implement it was the City of Madras in 1919. -
Period: to
India
Between 1919 and 1929, all of the Indian Provinces granted women the right to vote. -
USA
The Nineteenth Amendment :
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Because of the Nineteenth Amendment, women are guaranteed the right to vote. But the restrictions that would keep non-white men from voting would now carry over to non-white women. It would stay this way for years. -
Saudi Arabia
First municipal elections in Saudi Arabia in the Hijaz cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Yanbu and Taif, as King Abdulaziz ibn Saud established local governments to replace Ottoman and Hashemite rule. The right to vote was extended to rich and powerful men, women were not allowed to vote. -
Colombia
In 1932 Colombia's governement started guaranteeing legal majority to women after marriage, and they also could attend universities. That's the beginning of feminist' movements to lobby the parliament for the right to vote. -
India
The Government of India Act 1935 extended the electoral eligibility to a wider group of women. Even though, it still only allowed 2.5% of the women in India to vote. -
Colombia
A female lawyer was rejected from her quest to become a judge in 1944, women organized in the Liberal Union Femenina de Colombia and the Socialist Aliazna Femenina to demand women's suffrage. -
Italy
Women’s suffrage in Italy was finally introduced on the 1st of February 1945 because of a due right and was achieved by women participating in the struggle for liberation from fascism. The legislative decree n. 23 conferred the right to vote to Italian women who were at least 21 years old. -
Italy
On the 2nd of June 1946, the Italian women voted for the first time for the Institutional referendum (the choice between monarchy and republic) and for the constituent Assembly. 21 women were elected and took part in the drafting of the Italian Constitution. The women elected sustained the all-levels equality principle, obtaining important results mainly in regards to labour, wage, and protection of maternity. -
India
Assembly agreed on full universal suffrage, which allowed 100% of women to vote. -
Period: to
Saudi Arabia
Election for other municipalities during the reing of King Saud. The vote was still available only for influent men. -
Colombia
After long and public debates since 1945, in 1955 was established the women's suffrage during the dictatorship of Gustavo Pinilla. -
Republic of Fiji
General elections were held in Fiji between 17 April and 4 May 1963. For the first time, women and indigenous Fijians were given the right to vote alongside the male European and Indo-Fijian population. -
USA
The Voting Rights Act is amended to protect “language minority citizens”
The landmark legislation was amended to include protections for Americans who had a “history of exclusion from the political process” because of the primary languages they spoke, including Native Americans and immigrants from Latin America and Asia. -
Period: to
Republic of Fiji
In 1987, a coup d'état replaced both the Fijian monarchy and the Governor General by a non-executive president and the name of the country changed from Dominion of Fiji to Republic of Fiji and then in 1997 to Republic of the Fiji Islands. After that moment, in Fiji island suffrage is universal. -
Saudi Arabia
After the municipal elections during '50s and '60s, where women were not allowed to vote, no further elections were held until 2005. Despite some expectation that women would be allowed to participate on that occasion, Saudi officials decided that they would not. It was argued that not enough women would be available to staff female polling stations (gender segregation is normal in the country) and that only a small number of women held ID cards, which would be required in order to vote. -
Saudi Arabia
In September 2011, King Abdullah announced that women would be granted the right to both vote and stand for election from 2012, meaning that they will be entitled to participate in the scheduled 2015 municipal elections. He also stated that women would become eligible to take part in the unelected shura (the consultative assembly of Saudi Arabia).
