Women's Suffrage
The long fight for women's right to vote, from New Zealand's 1893 breakthrough to the global spread of women's political participation.
The First Wave
The organized campaign for women's suffrage began in the mid-19th century. The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in the United States, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which declared that 'all men and women are created equal' and demanded the right to vote. In Britain, John Stuart Mill presented a women's suffrage petition to Parliament in 1866, and organizations like the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (led by Millicent Fawcett) campaigned through legal and peaceful means.
New Zealand became the first self-governing country to grant women the national vote in 1893, followed by Australia in 1902 and Finland in 1906. These early victories showed that women's suffrage was achievable, but progress elsewhere was slow. Opponents argued that women were too emotional for politics, that the family (represented by the male head of household) was the proper unit of political representation, and that women themselves did not want the vote.
