Women in Politics: A Timeline

[MUKHTIAR ALI]

Women in Politics: A Timeline

1872: Susan B. Anthony is the first U.S. woman to register to vote; subsequently she becomes the first to make a ballot, for which she is arrested.

1882: Aletta Jacobs is the first woman in the Netherlands to attempt to register to vote; her application is denied.

1893: New Zealand is the first country in the world in which women gain the right to vote.

1906-1907: Finland becomes the first European nation to give women the vote, and 19 women are elected to the new 200-person Finnish parliament.

1917: Jeanette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

1928: Women ages 21 to 29 in Britain are able to vote for the first time, as women's suffrage is reduced from age 30 to 21.

1930: Alexandra Kollontai is appointed Ambassador from the Soviet Union to Sweden, becoming the first woman Ambassador in modern history.

1933: Frances Perkins, the first U.S. female Cabinet member, is appointed Secretary of Labor.

1946: Women vote and stand for election to the House of Representatives for the first time in Japan. Of the 79 women running for office, 39 are elected.

1960: Nakayama Masa is appointed Minister of Health and Welfare in Japan, becoming Japan's first female cabinet member.

1960: Siramavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) becomes the world's first female Prime Minister.

1966: Indira Gandhi becomes the first Prime Minister of India.

1969: Golda Meir becomes the first female Prime Minister of Israel.

1974: Maria Estela (Isabela) Martinez de Peron becomes the first woman President of Argentina and the first female head of state in the Americas.

1979: Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo becomes the first woman Prime Minister of Portugal.

1979: Lidia Geiler is the first woman elected President of Bolivia.

1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman Prime MInister of the United Kingdom. She served in that position -- winning re-election in 1983 and in 1987 -- until resigning in 1990.

1979: Simone Weil of France is the first woman elected President of the European Parliament.

1980: Vigdis Finnbogadottir is the first woman elected President of Iceland.

1980: Jeanne Sauve is the first woman appointed Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada.

1981: Gro Harlem Brundtland is the first woman to become Prime Minister of Norway.

1982: Milka Planinc is the first woman to become Prime Minister of Yugoslavia.

1982: Eugenia Charles, Doinica, is the first woman to become Prime Minister in the Caribbean.

1982: Rosario Ibarra de Piedra is the first woman to run for President of Mexico.

1984: Geraldine Ferraro is the first woman nominated for Vice-President by either major political party in the United States.

1985: Maria Liberia-Peters is the first woman to become Prime Minister of the Netherlands Antilles.

1986: Corazon Aquino is the first woman elected president of the Philippines.

1988: Benazir Bhutto is the first woman elected Prime Minister of Pakistan and becomes the first woman elected to head a Muslim country.

1989: Violeta Barrios de Chamorro elected President of Nicagagua

1990: Mary Robinson is the first woman elected President of Ireland.

1990: Ertha Pascal-Trouillot is the first woman elected President of Haiti.

1990: Carmen Lawrence is Australia's first female premier.

1991: Edith Cresson is the first woman elected Prime Minister of France.

1991: Khaleda Zia Rahman is the first woman to become Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

1991: Rita Johnston is Canada's first female Premier.

1992: California elects two women, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, to the U.S. Senate.

1992: Betty Boothroyd is the first woman chosen to be Speaker of the House of Commons in Great Britain.

1992: Hanna Suchocka is the first woman to become Prime Minister of Poland.

1993: Toujan Faisal is the first woman elected to the Parliament of Jordan.

1993: Tansu Ciller is the first woman elected Prime Minister of Turkey.

1993: Agathe Uwilingiyimana is the first woman to become Prime Minister of Rwanda (she was assassinated in 1994).

1993: Anson Chan is the first woman, also the first Chinese person, to be appointed Chief Secretary, the number two position in Hong Kong.

1993: Sylvia Kinigi is the first woman to become Prime Minister of Burundi. (She has since been assassinated.)

1993: Canada received first female Prime Minister Kim Campbell.

1994: Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga elected President of Sri Lanka.

1995: Two women run for President and 8 for Vice President of Peru, the first time women have been candidates for these offices.

1997: Mary McAleese elected President of Ireland.

1999: Vaira Vike-Freiberga elected to President of Latvia. She is the first woman to president of a country in Eastern Europe of the former Soviet Union.

1999: Mireya Elisa Moscoso de Arias becomes first female President of Panama.

1999: Helen Clark elected Prime Minister of New Zealand.

2000: Tarja Kaarina Halonen elected to be Finland's first female President.

2001: Maria Gloria Macapagal Arroyo elected President of the Phillippines.

2001: Megawati Sukarnoputri elected as the first woman President of the Republic of Indonesia.

2002: Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as the House Democratic Whip - the highest-ranking leadership position ever held by a women in the United States Congress.

2005: Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson elected Africa's first female president as Liberia's head-of-state in November.

2005: Angela Merkel elected chancellor of Germany.

2006: Portia Simpson Miller elected first Prime Minister of Jamaica

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Women's Political Participation

Women In Parliaments
-Women occupy only 15.8% of parliamentary seats around the world.

- Regional averages of the percentage of women in parliament vary greatly.

Nordic countries - 39.9%
Americas - 18.8%
Europe (excluding Nordic countries) - 16.9%
Sub-Saharan Africa - 15.8%
Asia - 15.2%
Pacific - 11.2%
Arab states - 8.8%
-The U.S. ranked 63rd world wide with only 15.2% women in the House and 14% women in the Senate.

- In September 2003, Rwanda became the country closest to reaching parity between men and women of any national legislature. In the Lower House, 391 of the 801 seats were won by women (48.8%). In the Upper House, 6 of the 20 seats were won by women (30.0%).

- From 1945 to 1995, the number of sovereign states with parliaments increased seven-fold but the percentage of women members in parliament worldwide increased only four-fold. From 1945-1997 only 42 of the 186 States with a legislative institution have at one time or another selected a woman to preside over Parliament or a House of Parliament; 18 European, 19 of Americas, 3 Africa, 1 Asia, 1 Pacific.

Women Ministers-

Women ministers remain concentrated in social areas (14%) rather than legal (9.4%), economic (4.1%), political (3.4%) and executive (3.9%) areas.

Women Heads of Government

- Of the 180 heads of government. only 11 are women as of January 2005.

Valeria Ciavatta, Captain Regent of San Marino
Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand
Tarja Halonen, President of Finland
Chandrika Kumaratunga, President of Sri Lanka
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, President of the Philippines
Mary McAleese, President of Ireland
Maria do Carmo Silveira, Prime Minister of Sao Tome and Principe
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia
Khaleda Zia, Prime Minister of Bangladesh
Luisa Dias Diogo, Prime Minister of Mozambique
Yuliya Tymosnenko, Prime Minister of Ukraine

Women's Suffrage

- Countries such as Brunei Darussalam, Kuwait, the Sultanate of Omam, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates still do not have universal suffrage.

Quota Systems

- In 1994, South Africa ranked 141st in the world in the percentage of legislative seats held by women. After the African National Congress enacted a 30% quota for female candidates, South Africa jumped to 13th place in 2004 with women elected to 32.8% of its lower parliamentary seats.

- The Panchayat Raj Act in India reserves 33% of the three-tiered panchayats (village council, council of cluster villages and the district council) for women. Today there are close to one million elected women leaders at the village level. A recent assessment revealed that corruption has gone down and transparency has greatly increased because of women's participation in the panchayats.

- Finland's law requiring that at least 40% of each sex should be represented in the membership of various decision-making bodies led to an increase in women's membership from 25% in 1980 to 48% in 1996.

- Argentina has a 30% quota for women on electoral lists. As a result, the number of women in the House has remained the same from 2001 to 2003 at 34.1% in the lower house. Women have made no significant impact in Senate commissions where they are still traditionally represented in the social and family commissions while their male counterparts are in the commissions for industry, custom revenues, mining, energy, defense and foreign relations.

- The French Constitution was reformed in 1999 to state that "the law favors the equal access of women and men to electoral mandates and elective functions." In 2000, French law was changed so that political parties must present equal numbers of men and women (within two percent) for most elections.


Women's Suffrage: A Timeline

Unless otherwise indicated, the date signifies the year women were granted the right both to vote and to stand for election. The countries listed below currently have a Parliament or have had one at some point in their history.

1788 -- United States of America (to stand for election)
1893 -- New Zealand (to vote)
1902 -- Australia*
1906 -- Finland
1907 -- Norway (to stand for election)*
1913 -- Norway**
1915 -- Denmark, Iceland
1917 -- Canada (to vote)*, Netherlands (to stand for election)
1918 -- Austria, Canada (to vote)*, Estonia, Georgia, Germany,
Hungary, Ireland*, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Poland, Russian
Federation, United Kingdom*
1919 -- Belarus, Belgium (to vote)*, Luxembourg, Netherlands (to
vote), New Zealand (to stand for election), Sweden*, Ukraine
1920 -- Albania, Canada (to stand for election)*, Czech Republic, Slovakia, United States of America
(to vote)
1921 -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium (to stand for election)*, Georgia, Lithuania, Sweden**
1924 -- Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Saint Lucia, Tajikistan
1927 -- Turkmenistan
1928 -- Ireland**, United Kingdom**
1929 -- Ecuador*, Romania*
1930 -- South Africa (Whites), Turkey (to vote)
1931 -- Chile*, Portugal*, Spain, Sri Lanka
1932 -- Maldives, Thailand, Uruguay
1934 -- Brazil, Cuba, Portugal*, Turkey (to stand for election)
1935 -- Myanmar (to vote)
1937 -- Philippines
1938 -- Bolivia*, Uzbekistan
1939 -- El Salvador (to vote)
1941 -- Panama*
1942 -- Dominican Republic
1944 -- Bulgaria, France, Jamaica
1945 -- Croatia, Guyana (to stand for election), Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Senegal, Slovenia, Togo
1946 -- Cameroon, D.P.R. of Korea, Djibouti (to vote), Guatemala, Liberia, Myanmar (to stand for
election), Panama**, Romania**, The F.Y.R. of Macedonia, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela,
Vietnam, Yugoslavia
1947 -- Argentina, Japan, Malta, Mexico (to vote), Pakistan, Singapore
1948 -- Belgium**, Israel, Niger, Republic of Korea, Seychelles, Suriname
1949 -- Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile**, China, Costa Rica, Syrian Arab Republic (to vote)*
1950 -- Barbados, Canada (to vote)**, Haiti, India
1951 -- Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Nepal, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines
1952 -- Bolivia**, Côte d'Ivoire, Greece, Lebanon
1953 -- Bhutan, Guyana (to vote), Mexico (to stand for election), Syrian Arab Republic**
1954 -- Belize, Colombia, Ghana
1955 -- Cambodia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru
1956 -- Benin, Comoros, Egypt, Gabon, Mali, Mauritius, Somalia
1957 -- Malaysia, Zimbabwe (to vote)**
1958 -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Lao P.D.R., Nigeria (South)
1959 -- Madagascar, San Marino (to vote), Tunisia, United Republic of Tanzania
1960 -- Canada (to stand for election)**, Cyprus, Gambia, Tonga
1961 -- Bahamas*, Burundi, El Salvador (to stand for election), Malawi, Mauritania, Paraguay,
Rwanda, Sierra Leone
1962 -- Algeria, Australia**, Monaco, Uganda, Zambia
1963 -- Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Kenya, Morocco, Papua New Guinea
(to stand for election)
1964 -- Bahamas**, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Papua New Guinea (to vote), Sudan
1965 -- Afghanistan, Bostwana, Lesotho
1967 -- Democratic Republic of the Congo (to vote), Ecuador**, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Yemen (D.P. R.)
1968 -- Nauru, Swaziland
1970 -- Andorra (to vote), Democratic Republic of the Congo (to stand for election), Yemen (Arab
Republic)
1971 -- Switzerland
1972 -- Bangladesh
1973 -- Andorra (to stand for election), Bahrain, San Marino (to stand for election)
1974 -- Jordan, Solomon Islands
1975 -- Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Vanuatu
1976 -- Portugal**
1977 -- Guinea Bissau
1978 -- Nigeria (North), Republic of Moldova, Zimbabwe (to stand for election)
1979 -- Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Fed. States), Palau
1980 -- Iraq, Vanuatu
1984 -- Liechtenstein, South Africa (Coloureds + Indians)
1986 -- Central African Republic, Djibouti (to stand for election)
1989 -- Namibia
1990 -- Samoa
1993 -- Kazakhstan, Republic of Moldova
1994 -- South Africa (Blacks)

Women in Kuwait do not yet have the right to vote or to stand for election. In the United Arab Emirates, where the Parliament is officially appointed, neither men nor women have the right to vote or to stand for election.

Reference to several dates for one country reflects the stages in the granting of rights.

* Right subject to conditions or restrictions
** Restrictions or conditions lifted

http://www.iwdc.org/programs/CAMP_history.htm