Suffragette Movement

suf·fra·gette/ˌsəfrəˈjet/

Noun:

A woman seeking the right to vote through organized protest.

suf·frage/ˈsəfrij/

Noun:

The right to vote in political elections.

Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or marital status.** (What is missing here? Treats to those who can guess.) The movement's modern origins can be attributed to late-18th century France, although full suffrage did not come to France or the province of Quebec until much later. Limited voting rights were gained by some women in Sweden, Britain, and some western U.S. states in the 1860s. In 1893, the British colony of New Zealand became the first self-governing nation to extend the right to vote to all adult women, and the women of the nearby colony of South Australia achieved the same right in 1895. The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was Finland and that country produced the world's first female members of parliament in 1907.

In 1979, women’s suffrage was explicitly stated as a right under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, adopted by the United Nations.

Canadian Suffragettes

The Famous Five were five Canadian women who asked the Supreme Court of Canada to answer the question, "Does the word 'Persons' in the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?" in the case Edwards vs. Canada (Attorney General). The petition was filed on August 27, 1927,  and on 24 April 1928, Canada's Supreme Court summarized its unanimous decision that women are not persons.  The last line of the judgement reads as follows: "Understood to mean 'Are women eligible for appointment to the Senate of Canada,' the question is answered in the negative."

The Famous Five were:

• Emily Murphy (the British Empire's first female judge);
• Irene Marryat Parlby (farm women's leader, activist and first female Cabinet minister in Alberta);
• Nellie Mooney McClung (a famous suffragist and member of the Alberta legislature)
• Louise Crummy McKinney (the first woman elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, or any legislature in Canada or the British Empire) and
• Henrietta Muir Edwards (an advocate for working women and a founding member of the Victorian Order of Nurses).

Suffrage in Canada

Widows and unmarried women were granted the right to vote in municipal elections in Ontario in 1884. Such limited franchises were extended in other provinces at the end of the 19th century, but bills to enfranchise women in provincial elections failed to pass in any province until Manitoba finally succeeded in 1916. At the federal level in 1917, women gained a limited right to vote: women who were British subjects and had close relatives in the armed forces could vote on behalf of their male relatives. At the beginning of 1919, the right to vote was extended to all white women. The remaining provinces quickly followed suit, except for Quebec, which did not do so until 1940. Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to Parliament in 1921.





Look at the cartoons that were assigned to your group. What do you think the answers are to the following questions?

1. From whose point of view are these cartoons drawn?
2. What are the messages the cartoons are trying to convey?
3. Is there an underlying message that is not immediately obvious? If so, what is it?

Answer these questions on your blog for homework.

What are the themes that are common to all of these cartoons? What things have changed for women and what have not?  How far have women really come?

The information above and the cartoons tell us little of  the reality of the Suffragette Movement in Britain, Canada, and the US.  We will be watching the film "Iron-Jawed Angels" which gives a much clearer picture of what the suffragettes faced.