OxHRH Special Blog Series: Celebrating the Global Women’s Suffrage Movement

In celebration of the centenary of the women’s suffrage movement in the UK and Ireland, we ran a series of blogs on the women’s suffrage movement around the world. This series comes at a time when a global women’s movement has been revitalised. From the #womensmarch, to the #metoo movement and #rureferencelist in South Africa, women across the globe are sounding the call for an intersectional and radical gender justice movement.

These blogs serve as a reminder of how women all over the world organised for their equal participation and recognition as voting citizens. They explore the connections between gender and class oppression, the decolonization movement and the difficult decisions posed to women who had to choose between national decolonisation movements and the feminist struggle for gender equality. They explore the persisting poor representation of women in politics and other positions of power. At the same time, they call to the limitations that the mere representation of women in positions of power has had, reminding us that without a feminist commitment to gender justice, representation means very little.

By showcasing the differences and similarities of women’s struggle for the right to vote, the blogs remind us of the importance of a global feminist movement against patriarchy, imperialism, capitalist exploitation and other structures and systems of oppression. Aluta Continua!

Mari Takayanagi – The Representation of the People Act 1918: A Democratic Milestone in the UK and Ireland

Christa Tobler – Women’s Suffrage in Switzerland

Paz Irarrázabal – Women’s Suffrage in Chile

Hannah Maruci – Women’s struggle to vote in Brazil: same fight, different strategies

Isabel C. Jaramillo Sierra – Women’s Suffrage in Colombia: Saving Face While Remaining the Same

Priya Ravichandran – The Indian Suffragists: Claiming Their Rights in Britain And India

Maja Beisenherz – Women’s Suffrage in Germany