This article qualitatively compares the processes that led to women's suffrage in Japan, France, and Italy after the Second World War, identifying both commonalities and differences. In all three cases, existing regimes collapsed due to the war, and new political systems allowed women to gain the vote. To explain cross-country variation, the analysis focuses on three factors: the direct influence of occupying powers, women's suffrage movement and parliament, and the partisanship of decision makers. The comparison highlights the central role of war and regime collapse, showing that while both were important, regime collapse played a more decisive role in enabling women's suffrage. The study uses quantitative analysis, covering 1850–1950, to examine broader conditions for suffrage establishment, confirming the key role of regime collapse.

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the women's suffrage movement in the Philippines through a feminist perspective informed by scholarship in critical discourse analysis and rhetorical criticism. It examines Filipina suffragists’ public addresses published in women's magazines in the early twentieth century by looking at metaphorical expressions that formed conceptualizations utilized by women to argue for the right to vote. These conceptualizations constituted the schema of homemaking as a civic duty, the most salient aspect of the discourse whether for or against suffrage. While it is expected of the anti-suffragists to use women's traditional role as a homemaker to argue against granting women the right to vote, the idea of homemaking has also been used by the suffragists to prove that women deserve to be enfranchised. The suffragists framed their rhetoric by strategically affirming their gender role as homemakers during this critical period in women's history. This study posits that examining women's rhetorical strategies through the analysis of the particular metaphors used to frame their conceptualization of the Filipino woman reveals that both pro and anti suffragists sought to define the idea of homemaking, with the former adopting an expanded definition of homemaking and the latter taking a limited definition of the term.

Songs of Suffrage - The Role of Music in the Struggle for Women’s Suffrage in Sweden 1902–1921 This study examines the role of music in the organized struggle for women’s suffrage in Sweden from 1902 to 1921. The research questions investigate the music that circulated within the movement, including its performance contexts and the individuals involved. Furthermore, the study explores how songs articulated the movement’s collective ideals and goals, and how arguments for women’s political rights were expressed through musical practices. The source material has been collected from archives and women’s periodicals. The literature includes studies on the history and development of the Swedish suffrage movement, international research on the role of music in the struggle for women’s suffrage, and theoretical perspectives on music’s broader significance in social and political movements. Music in the Swedish women’s suffrage organizations (FKPR) throughout the country primarily consisted of patriotic songs, specially composed suffrage songs, and various types of vocal and instrumental music used in social interactions. The findings indicate that music served several functions within the movement, including forming and expressing collective identity, promoting solidarity, raising the fighting spirit, instilling pride, and articulating the movement’s values and goals. At the Sixth Congress of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, held in Stockholm in 1911, music played a prominent role, contributing to a sense of solemnity, strength, and confidence in victory. Suffrage songs emphasized themes such as women’s right to full citizenship and their right and duty to serve the nation. Often, these songs were marches with combative messages, somewhat contrasting with the peaceful diplomatic strategy of the Swedish suffragists. Unison singing served as a unifying tool for a broad and socially diverse movement. Additionally, women’s (collective) motherliness, along with their peaceful and nurturing qualities, was highlighted as an attribute that could improve politics.

In Indian mythology, feminist theory significantly shapes cultural narratives and practices. By challenging the male-dominated power structures prevalent in individual relationships and society at large, feminist interpretations shed light on the roles and concerns of female characters, questioning traditional patriarchal views. This feminist re-examination influences practices such as women's participation in rituals and worship and advocates for women's rights and gender equality. It also critiques patriarchal customs and traditions. Feminist perspectives have inspired new literary and artistic works, further amplifying feminist voices in Indian mythology. Epics like the Ramayana and Mahabharata portray mothers in complex and diverse ways, reflecting both patriarchal and feminist themes. A feminist approach to these texts acknowledges the empowering and restrictive aspects of these depictions, recognizing their historical and cultural contexts. Feminist attributes include complexity, refinement, critique of patriarchal values, and the recognition of nurturing and self-sacrificing motherhood as sources of strength. Mothers like Kausalya (Rama’s mother), Gandhari (Dhritarashtra’s wife), and Kunti (the mother of the Pandavas) wield significant influence over their sons, shaping their actions and decisions. These mothers are often portrayed as selfless caregivers, prioritizing their children’s needs above their own. While these portrayals highlight their strength and devotion, they also reinforce traditional feminine ideals. The epics critique the expectation of maternal self-sacrifice, as seen in Kunti’s sacrifices for her sons. Feminist theory reshapes cultural narratives and practices, promoting a more equitable society. Its influence continues to evolve, driving social change and challenging existing norms. The feminist movement has played a pivotal role in advocating for women's suffrage, greater access to education, and confronting societal injustices linked to class, culture, religion, sexuality, gender, race, and nationality. Feminist literary theory has deliberately transgressed traditional boundaries across literature, social sciences, and philosophy, helping us understand how gender has been constructed and represented through language.

Alyse Gregory: Finding her “Voice” through Woman's Suffrage

This study investigates the role of women in politics in developed and developing countries, focusing on the challenges and opportunities that have shaped their political engagement over time. It explores the historical context, theoretical underpinnings, and contemporary issues that influence the participation of women in political processes across the globe. The study is anchored in the Gender and Development (GAD) Theory, which emphasizes addressing systemic gender inequalities in political, social, and economic structures. Through a qualitative research approach and content analysis of secondary sources, this study examines how the socio-cultural, economic, and political factors have either facilitated or hindered women's political involvement. The findings reveal that while historical barriers like patriarchal systems and colonialism significantly hindered women's political engagement, contemporary advancements such as women's suffrage movements, feminist advocacies, gender quotas, and increased political activism have provided significant opportunities for women in politics across the globe, with more participation in developed countries. Despite these advancements, the study highlights persistent challenges, including gender-based violence, economic disparities, and cultural norms in developing countries, and family responsibilities, economic disparities in developed countries that limit women’s full participation in governance. The conclusion underscores the transformative impact of women in political institutions, particularly in developed countries like the USA, UK, Germany, France, etc., and developing countries like Rwanda, where women hold a significant portion of legislative seats. The study recommends continued support for gender-inclusive policies, educational programs, and financial resources to empower more women to participate in politics. The study calls for broader structural reforms and cultural shifts to ensure that women can compete on equal footing with men in the political sphere.

From 2000 to 2020, more than 20 countries marked a century of women's suffrage. These anniversaries occurred alongside a period of rich theoretical innovation in the democratization literature, producing a decade of research on the causes and consequences of women's suffrage. This body of research pushes against the narrative that suffrage happened automatically with modernization and the claims that early women voters were apathetic and conservative and did not get what they wanted out of politics. New scholarship reveals how political competition and suffragists’ strategies were key components of suffrage reform and how women, who often cast the largest number of votes in any given context, could shift the balance toward left parties if they were highly mobilized in cities. Finally, a growing body of scholarship has shown how suffrage led to expansions of early welfare state policies. Future work should examine these dynamics in suffrage's second wave and outside of the global North.

Women's voting rights are part of human rights guaranteed by modern democratic systems and the Indonesian Constitution. However, women's political participation is often hindered by social, cultural, and conservative religious interpretations. This article aims to analyze women's suffrage from two perspectives: the constitutional democratic system and Islamic constitutional law. The study employs a normative-juridical approach through literature review of both positive legal documents and classical as well as contemporary Islamic texts. The findings show that the Indonesian Constitution—particularly the 1945 Constitution and the Election Law—ensures equal political rights without gender discrimination. From the Islamic perspective, although some classical scholars rejected women's political roles based on certain hadiths, many contemporary scholars permit their participation based on maqasid al-shari'ah, such as justice and public interest (maslahah). Islamic history also records women's involvement in significant events like the Pledges of Aqabah and Ridwan. This article recommends a contextual reinterpretation of religious texts so they do not become barriers to women's political engagement. Thus, women's suffrage can be legitimately accepted in both the constitutional democratic system and a progressive, inclusive interpretation of Islamic constitutional law.

Abstract Sir Robert Newman was MP for Exeter from 1918 to 1931, initially sitting as a Conservative, but from 1927 as an independent. His role in supporting legislation for women is examined in detail, from his early enthusiasm for women's suffrage to his decade‐long relationship with the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship (NUSEC). He spoke powerfully for the 1919 Women's Emancipation Bill and voted in favour of every subsequent attempt to bring in an equal franchise. On NUSEC's behalf, he introduced in 1921 what eventually became the Summary Jurisdiction (Separation and Maintenance) Act, worked with MP Margaret Wintringham on the Guardianship of Infants Bill, put forward an important amendment drafted by NUSEC on the Lead Paint (Protection against Poisoning) Bill in 1926, and introduced in 1927 a major attempt by NUSEC to overturn the marriage bar, the Married Women (Employment) Bill. His last significant act in support of legislation for women was to sponsor the Married Women Teachers (Employment) Bill in 1930. He left the Commons in 1931 when he was created Lord Mamhead.

In the 21st century, health care has been going through a paradigm shift called digital health. Due to major advances and breakthroughs in information technologies, most recently artificial intelligence, the patriarchy of the doctor-patient relationship has started evolving toward an equal-level partnership with initial signs of patient autonomy. Being an underused resource for centuries, patients have started to contribute to their care with information, data, insights, preferences, and knowledge. It is important to recognize that at its core, digital health represents a cultural transformation, where patient empowerment has likely played the most significant role in driving these changes. This viewpoint paper traces the remarkable journey of patient empowerment from its nascent stages to its current prominence in shaping health care's future. Spanning over two and a half decades, we explore pivotal moments and technological advancements that have revolutionized the patient's role in health care. We dive into a few historical milestones, mainly in the United States, that have challenged and redefined societal norms around agency, drawing parallels between patient empowerment and broader social movements, such as the women's suffrage and civil rights movements. Through these lenses, we argue that patient empowerment is not solely a function of knowledge or technology but requires a fundamental shift in societal attitudes, policies, health care culture, and practices. As we look to the future, we posit that the continued empowerment of patients will play a pivotal role in the development of more equitable, effective, and personalized health care systems. This paper calls for an ongoing commitment to fostering environments that support patient agency, access to resources, and the realization of patient potential in navigating and contributing to their health outcomes with an emphasis on the emerging significance of patient design.

Staged as part of Dublin's St Patrick's Day celebration 2024, CoisCéim Dance Theatre's Palimpsest weaves together an embodied assortment of Ireland's recent pasts. From the War of Independence and women's suffrage to the post-2008 recession and the Troubles, significant historical events and Irish imageries are interwoven with the mundane, quotidian scenes of contemporary life and fleshed out through the ensemble of dancers’ collegial yet idiosyncratic bodies and movements. This article contends that through its defigurative choreographic archiving, Palimpsest stages the iterative contemporaneity of Ireland, where the past continues to frame present experiences and the present is incessantly conflated with the past. Focusing on the dramaturgical structuring, the article first examines how, instead of a chronology, the narrative episodes in the show are encountered through motifs that remain relevant in contemporary Ireland, creating a stream of scenes to open up contact zones between the historical and the contemporary. These motifs of gender, religion, emigration and immigration, and social class, among others, oscillate intersectionally via the dancers’ bodies, which disturb cultural inscriptions and generate new meanings through eclectic movements and fluid corporeality. The essay explores how choreographic movements and the dancers’ embodiment fosters a kinaesthetically empathetic co-presence between the performers and audience, and injects liveness into the archive. Based on these analyses, this essay investigates how Palimpsest presents an Irish history as iterative contemporaneity, which is both remembered and lived, past and present, here and elsewhere, and both consistent and fluid.

ABSTRACT Prior to the ratification of the Nineteenth (Woman Suffrage) Amendment, women could vote in some state, municipal, and school elections. Previous research suggests that large voluntary associations such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union may have played an important role in mobilizing women’s political participation in these contests. However, primary and secondary accounts cast potential doubt on this activity. Using data compiled from Massachusetts state reports on women registered and voting by community for school committee elections and local WCTU chapters, this study tests the relationship quantitatively. We find that the WCTU’s effect on women voters’ turnout is conditional on community size. Specifically, stronger local WCTU unions had the greatest positive effect on women voters’ turnout in moderately urban communities. The findings of this first-of-its-kind study validate both previous literature and firsthand accounts and suggest that the WCTU’s influence on women voters’ turnout in school elections was nuanced and context-dependent.

Abstract: In the 1930s, the Communist Party of Costa Rica (PCCR), also known as the Bloque de Obreros y Campesinos (BOC), paved the way for the first massive victories for workers, including women, a population often overlooked within Costa Rica's early twentieth century historiography, especially its feminist labor history. In this article, I argue that Costa Rican women, particularly schoolteachers, were influential figures in the formative years of Costa Rica's first communist party. Moreover, by focusing on the political and literary contributions of Carmen Lyra and Luisa González, I argue that it was militant communist women—building from what I call an inconspicuous "socialist feminist" lens—who influenced the PCCR's political program on women's and children's rights, making it one of the first political parties in Central America to explicitly develop a stance and platform around these issues. They did this by challenging and critiquing traditionally "taboo" issues around gender, sexuality, and reproductive rights, including engaging debates around prostitution, child labor, gender roles, abortion, traditional bourgeois family structures and dynamics, education, and women's suffrage. The groundbreaking organizing of these militant communist women, inspired by their socialist feminist values, was fundamental to the trajectory of the first communist party of Costa Rica.

Review: <i>Votes for College Women: Alumni, Students, and the Woman Suffrage Campaign</i>, by Kelly L. Marino

This article analyzes the origin and objectives of the celebration of International Women's Day based on the study of North American and German socialists framed in the Socialist Women's International. The work focuses on discussions about the “woman question” and the fight for universal women's suffrage within the socialist parties of Germany and the United States, in particular about the relationship that socialists had to maintain with bourgeois feminist movements. Through qualitative documentary analysis, we will try to demonstrate that International Women's Day was an initiative of the Socialist Women's International, with great prominence of the German and American sections, as part of the fight for universal women's suffrage and to obtain better working and living conditions for workers. The commemoration of this date was articulated as an instance of agitation and propaganda of long-term political work that socialist women had been developing among working women since the end of the 19th century within the framework of the Second International.

Black Women and the Suffrage Movement: Margaret Walker and her Impact on Black Women's Suffrage in Virginia

Written culture encompasses diverse skills and techniques to develop reading and writing, from the basics to more specialized competencies. However, historically these practices were denied to various sectors of society, especially women, although this cannot be generalized. This text analyzes the specific case of a group of Mexican women from popular and up-per-middle class sectors who, between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, gained access to a written culture. Through this analysis, we will explore how these women used these skills to enter into national politics, in the struggle for their rights and citizenship demands, which would later lead to women's suffrage.

Feminism (also known as feminism), with the main connotation of ‘women’s demand for full rights as human beings’, first appeared in modern Europe, and then took liberalism’s theory of ‘freedom and equality’ as the starting point, and interpreted the ideas of women’s rights and gender equality, forming the liberal feminist thought. Later, the liberal theory of ‘freedom and equality’ was used as the starting point to explain the ideas of women’s rights and gender equality, forming the liberal feminist ideology. On this basis, the modern feminist movement emerged, with the main goal of fighting for political participation and the right to vote. Through analysing, interpreting and researching the film The Woman Suffrage Theorist, this paper explores the historical process of the gradual transformation of the women’s suffrage campaigners in Britain from a moderate way of struggle to a radical way of struggle at the beginning of the twentieth century, from the storytelling restoration of the historical events of the early twentieth century when women in Britain fought relentlessly for women’s right to vote. By analysing factors such as the social background of the time, the development of the women’s suffrage movement, important events and key figures, the deep-seated reasons for this transformation and its far-reaching impact on society are revealed.

Actress, novelist, playwright, and essayist Elizabeth Robins is one of the most examined British suffrage writers, and her play Votes for Women (1907) emerged from and participated in robust networks for women's enfranchisement that have been well studied. This essay takes as its focus other contexts that contributed to Robins's suffrage writing, namely her deep and enduring friendships with two people who opposed women's suffrage: the writers Henry James and Lady Florence Bell. Closely examining these connections provides a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the movement for women's empowerment in the theatre and the movement for women's political enfranchisement. It also provides a more nuanced understanding of Robins's motivations as she herself, like Bell and James, understood her artistic interests to be parallel with yet distinct from, rather than fully elided with, her political causes. These friendships speak to activist theatre's productive contiguities with the more conservative uses of the art forms in which they participate. Robins's correspondence with James and Bell provides us with an understanding of how the political theatre of the suffrage movement was supported by and in turn helped to build relationships across political differences.

In May 1923, women from more than forty countries descended on Rome to promote, articulate, and celebrate women’s global fight for suffrage and equal rights. The previous fall, board members of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) had traveled to Rome to oversee progress on the congress. Little did the organization’s American president Carrie Chapman Catt or the local Italian planning committee know that they would soon witness the Fascist seizure of power in Italy. For members of the Federazione Nazionale Pro Suffragio Femminile, the IWSA’s Italian affiliate, and the Egyptian Feminist Union, the Rome 1923 congress presented a pivotal moment to gain support in the aftermath of regime change. While the IWSA sought the participation of all women irrespective of their geography, race, and religion, its majority Protestant North Atlantic membership consistently marginalized Italian, Egyptian, and other Mediterranean women based on ethnoreligious and Orientalist prejudices and stereotypes. Often these views about Catholicism and Islam did not align with Pro Suffragio’s and the Egyptian Feminist Union’s views of themselves and their countries. Both Italian and Egyptian figures involved with the congress would engage with rhetoric about antiquity and modernity, whether from the IWSA’s leadership or as part of their own self-representation. Despite achieving some successes in Rome, Pro Suffragio and the Egyptian Feminist Union would remain marginalized within the international suffrage movement.