Suffrage

Worksheets

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Suffrage Facts

EARLY RISE OF SUFFRAGE

Suffrage is a right to vote given in assent to a proposal or in favor of the election of a particular

person or persons or political group.

● The word suffrage dates back to the 13th century and originates from Medieval Latin suffragium meaning "support, ballot, vote; right of voting; a voting tablet”.

● In ancient Greece, the right to vote was held only by adult, male citizens who owned land. This property qualification was adopted in the succeeding centuries.

● Wealth, tax, and social class also determined the right to vote in countries ruled by monarchs.

● In Early Europe, religious denominations were soon denied civil and political rights including the right to vote.

Afghanistan: 2004 presidential electionIn preparation for the 2004 election, an Afghan woman obtains her voter registration card in Kabul.

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Suffrage Facts● Roman Catholics were denied the right to vote from 1728 to

1793 in Great Britain and Ireland.● In the late 1700s the right to vote in the United States was

denied to Jews, Quakers, and Catholics. Other states only allowed protestants to vote.

● Other countries, such as France and Ireland, prohibited all army personnel from voting.

● In some countries, minorities were not given the same rights as the dominant race. Natural-born citizens were eligible for election to higher political positions.

● The basic qualifications for suffrage are similar, with minor variations per country. Usually only adult citizens, aged 18 and above, are eligible to vote.

● Canada’s right to suffrage was documented in 1871, initially denying non- Canadians the right to vote. The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by 1970.

● Universal suffrage for men was introduced in France on August 11, 1792.

● The Indian Constitution introduced universal suffrage for all adult citizens aged 21 or older in 1951-52.

● After World War II, Japan instituted Universal Suffrage in 1947.

SUFFRAGE AROUND THE WORLD

Commonwealth clerks counting votes at a federal election, West Sydney

Electoral Office, circa 1930s

Suffrage rights in Australia began in 1855 for male British subjects. Female suffrage began in 1899 and the Aborigines finally secured their rights to suffrage by 1965.

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Suffrage Facts● The 1918 constitution of Norway

gave male landowners or officials above the age of 25 full voting rights. This was lowered to 18 by 1978.

● The United Kingdom (Kingdom of England) introduced suffrage to select men beginning 1265.

● Property ownership determined the right of British men to vote and this went on until the 20th century.

● By 1918, all men over 21 and some women over 30 won the right to vote, and in 1928 all women over 21 won.

● American suffrage in the 17th-century Thirteen Colonies was often restricted by property qualifications or a religious test.

● When the first United States Constitution was approved, it did not define who was eligible to vote, allowing each state to decide.

● Only white men were originally allowed to vote. Women and non-whites were not allowed to vote.

● But by the entry of the 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th and 26th amendments, every citizen aged 18 and above eventually obtained the right to vote.

The First Vote, drawing by A.R. Waud, 1867, depicting African Americans voting for

the first time in the United States

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital file

no. 3a52371)

Coloured gathering in South Africa, with large banners demanding

votes for all, 1954

The first legitimate voters in South Africa were 85% white. It was only in 1994 when every South African citizen over the age of 18 were given the right to vote.

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Suffrage Facts

● Ancient Greece and Republican Rome as well as some democratic countries in Europe excluded women from voting by the end of the 18th century.

● Women’s voting rights became an issue in the 19th century, and the struggle was fiercely debated in Great Britain and the United States.

● Outside these two countries, women had already earned the right to vote in national elections in New Zealand (1893), Australia (1902), Finland (1906), and Norway (1913).

LEFT: Women began to question the equality of the right to vote in United States. RIGHT: The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) was founded in the United

States by women opposed to the suffrage movement in 1911.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

LEFT: South Australian suffragist Catherine Helen Spence stood for office in 1897.

RIGHT: Marie Stritt (1855–1928), German suffragist, co-founder of the International

Alliance of Women

● Members of militant women's organisations, called suffragettes, fought for the right to vote in public elections, known as women's suffrage.

“There never will be complete equality until women themselves

help to make laws and elect lawmakers.”

― Susan B. Anthony

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Suffrage Facts

Women’s suffrage took a lot of time before nations eventually recognized the right.LEFT: (before) British suffragette under arrest after participating in an attack on Buckingham

Palace, London, 1914. MIDDLE: Women casting their votes in New York City, c. 1920s. RIGHT: (now) A Saudi woman casts her ballot in a polling station in the coastal city of Jeddah

Saturday, as women were allowed to vote in Saudi Arabia's elections for the first time ever.

● The women’s suffrage movement in the United States began with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, convened by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.

● Suffragists utilized strategies such as marches, quiet vigils, and yearning strikes, to name a few.

● Finally, Soviet Russia (1917), Canada, Germany, Austria, and Poland (1918), Czechoslovakia (1919), the United States and Hungary (1920), Great Britain (1918 and 1928), Burma (Myanmar; 1922), Ecuador (1929), South Africa (1930), Brazil, Uruguay, and Thailand (1932), Turkey and Cuba (1934), and the Philippines (1937) allowed women to vote.

● After World War II, France, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, and China gave voting rights to women. In 1949, full suffrage was introduced in India, and in 1956 in Pakistan.

● More than 100 countries joined the support for women’s suffrage and to date, Saudi Arabia (2015) and other Middle Eastern Countries have begun to allow women to vote.

“Why is a woman to be treated differently? Woman suffrage will succeed, despite this miserable guerilla opposition.”

― Victoria Claflin Woodhull

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___________________ is the right of women to vote in elections.

Suffrage can be expressed in many ways. Identify the kind of suffrage defined. Does your country

express this right?

NAME:_______________________________

SUFFRAGE WORKSHEETS

___________________ consists of the right to vote without restriction due to sex, race, social status, education level, or wealth.

___________________ is the removal of graded votes, wherein a voter could possess a number of votes in accordance with income, wealth, or social status.

___________________ means that votes cast by those eligible to vote are not equal,

but are weighted differently according to the person’s rank in the census.

Where ___________________ exists, those who are eligible to vote are required by law to do so. Thirty-two countries currently practice this form of suffrage.

Practicing Suffrage

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To practice suffrage, a voter should know the process. Interview an adult voter and ask them about the process of national elections. Draw a simple comic illustration, using

yourself as the main character and narrator.

NAME:_______________________________

SUFFRAGE WORKSHEETS

The Process

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There will come a time when you will become a voter. Your decision will determine who your leaders will be. List your personal

preferences for a good leader, and then ask an adult who among your current leaders meets your expectations and how they serve.

NAME:_______________________________

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Grounds to Choose

1. _____________________________________________________2. _____________________________________________________3. _____________________________________________________4. _____________________________________________________5. _____________________________________________________6. _____________________________________________________7. _____________________________________________________8. _____________________________________________________

Color the box yellow for the primary qualities politicians/leaders must have and blue for secondary qualifications.

HONESTY

WEALTH

COLLEGE DEGREE

INTEGRITY

POPULARITY

INTELLIGENCE

EMPATHY

CONNECTIONS

PRIOR POLITICAL

EXPERIENCE

FAMILY

DISCIPLINE

GOOD LOOKS

OLDER

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Suffrage may not be absolute since some public concerns do not need absolute public intervention. Fill in the table

below and see how suffrage works within your community.

NAME:_______________________________

SUFFRAGE WORKSHEETS

Public Concerns

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________ _______________________ ____________________

_____________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

______________________ ____________________

Public issues that need election

e.g. Local elections

Public issues that do not need election

e.g. National budget appropriation

In you answers above, why do some public issues/concerns need lesser or no public intervention?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Should there be chances of political abuse, how do you think the populace should intervene?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Imagine you were alive at the time when voting rights for women were yet to be achieved. You are asked to design a poster calling for women to join a march for

“Women’s Suffrage”. Illustrate and explain the concept of your poster.

NAME:_______________________________

SUFFRAGE WORKSHEETS

A Public Notice

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Emmeline Pankhurst was one of the pioneers of women’s suffrage. She and her daughters fought long and hard to

inspire women around the world. Get to know her by writing a short biography.

NAME:_______________________________

SUFFRAGE WORKSHEETS

Passionate Pankhurst

EARLY LIFE

WORKS AND LEGACY__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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NAME:_______________________________

SUFFRAGE WORKSHEETS

The SuffragettesAs early as the late 1800s, suffragettes began their plight to voting

equality. Millicent Fawcett, a campaigner who was the president of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage (NUWS) Societies, led persistent lobbying and educated the public to their cause.

With the outbreak of war in 1914, the Pankhursts and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) called for a halt to activities and rallied behind the war effort. Women worked many jobs during World War I when the men were away fighting, mainly the jobs left behind. They worked as members of the land army (farming), nurses, in munitions factories, in public transport, as policewomen, in post offices, and making weapons. By the end of the war, women were also being recruited into the armed forces as cooks, clerks, telephonists, electricians, instructors, and code experts to free up men to fight.

Recognizing the women’s effort, the Representation of the People Act in 1918 was passed. It decreed that women over the age of 30 who had a property qualification could vote. This was only 40% of UK women. By 1928, it was lowered once more to 21 under the Equal Franchise Act. https://prezi.com/yrse_qm95pe8/role-of-women-during-wwi-impact-of-the-war-on-womens-suffrage/, https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/history-of-war/band-of-brothers-star-james-madio-on-meeting-the-real-frank-perconte/

Discuss your answers to these questions in class or write your answers on a separate sheet of paper:

1. As you have seen in the picture on the left, protests were conducted just to gain the right to vote. Why do you think women had no prior right to vote?

2. How do you think society initially reacted to the plight of the suffragettes?

3. How do you think society accepted equal rights of men and women to vote?

4. Nowadays, Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, The Vatican, and some middle Eastern countries still do not provide women the definite right to vote and women are still denied of some rights other women enjoy abroad. What are the possible means to resolve this difficulty? Explain your stand on the current laws of these countries regarding women.

5. How has society for women in your community/country changed over the years? Has it been for good? Explain.

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Write an original quote or a short poem in the circle honoring the women who fought for suffrage enjoyed by

modern society.

NAME:_______________________________

SUFFRAGE WORKSHEETS

In Honor of...

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

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