WOMEN OF PROTEST!

19TH CENTURY – PRESENT: THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT

The right of women, by law, to vote in national and local elections has been a topic of discussion since ancient times. But serious campaigning for female suffrage in the modern world can really be seen to have begun in the late-19th century, with New Zealand, in 1893, becoming the first self-governing country in the world to give all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. The fight by suffrage campaigners in New Zealand, such as Kate Sheppard, inspired women across the world to take up the fight in their own countries.

In Britain, late 19th-century parliamentary reforms, which had given more men the right to vote, yet rejected petitions to enfranchise women at the same time, led to the creation of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), which boasted more than 50,000