Democratisation of Denmark: The Inclusion of Women in Political Citizenship

Abstract

In Denmark, women gained suffrage relatively early and undramatically in 1915, when a constitutional reform granted suffrage rights to men and women over the age of 29. The struggle for women's vote lasted 66 years and was part of the broader struggle for women's formal equal rights. The history of female suffrage illuminates the close intersection between women's civil and political rights - between the private and public arenas. The key playing field was parliament, where male parliamentarians debated women's political citizenship. This chapter attempts to move beyond the emphasis that Danish gender research places on women's organizations as the main advocates of female suffrage, and instead stresses the role that male parliamentarians played in the struggle for universal suffrage that included women's vote. The main argument is that the Danish struggle for women's suffrage was part of the political and constitutional conflict between the political left and right over parliamentary democracy. Keywords:Danish parliament; Danish women; political citizenship; women's suffrage