A Century Since the 19th Amendment: Women’s Suffrage and Representation Across the Globe

A hundred years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, where do political rights for women stand today in the United States and across the globe?

American women fight for the right to vote outside the White House in Washington, D.C. Photo: Harris & Ewing, Library of Congress.

American women fight for the right to vote outside the White House in Washington, D.C. Photo: Harris & Ewing, Library of Congress.

By: Alexis C. Archer, staff member

 

This year marked the centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment — a momentous event which granted American women the legal right to vote.  One hundred years later, women’s voices are resounding.  Early exit polls from this year’s election show that roughly 52% of all voters identified as women.  In fact, women have been voting at slightly higher rates than men in every U.S. presidential election since 1984.

The right to vote was hard-earned.  For nearly a century, activists associated with the women’s rights movement protested and lobbied before emerging victorious in 1920.  

However, even after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, state laws barring Black Americans from the polls remained in effect, leaving most Black women disenfranchised.  They would struggle for nearly five more decades to cast their ballots equally.  The battle was especially difficult because the organizations leading the charge for women’s suffrage were largely disbanded after the passage of the 19th Amendment.  It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Black women secured their right to vote.  Notably, fifty-five years later, in 2020, the first Black woman was elected Vice President of the United States.

Evidently, the United States has come a long way.  About half of all adults in the United States identify the 19th Amendment as the single most important milestone in furthering the position of American women, and understandably so:  voting often determines significant issues impacting everyday life, from the economy to health care to Supreme Court appointments to abortion.

Yet despite this progress, a majority of Americans believe that the United States has not achieved total gender equality.  While women make up just over half of the U.S. population, only about one-fourth of Congress is female, as are just over 20% of mayors of large U.S. cities, and no woman has ever been elected to the presidency.  In a global tabulation of the percentage of seats in national legislatures held by women, the United States takes eighty-fourth place, sandwiched between Armenia and Tajikistan.  (Rwanda, Cuba, Bolivia, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico, earned the top spots.)

Early Victories for Women’s Rights Across the Globe

Women’s suffrage is a global issue.  Historically, how has the United States compared with the rest of the world?

Notably, the United States was not at the forefront of the movement:  it was roughly in the middle of the pack in granting women the right to vote.  The honor of getting there first belongs to New Zealand.  

During the late nineteenth century, as the British were settling and colonizing New Zealand, a certain liberalism reigned, encouraging a societal equality that set the stage for the achievement of women’s suffrage.  The suffrage movement there gained general support with demands for equal pay, prevention of violence, economic autonomy, and rights to divorce, education, and vote.  In 1893, twenty-seven years before the 19th Amendment, New Zealand passed the Electoral Act, granting voting rights to women. The victory of suffrage activists in New Zealand was likely the product of a number of advantages:  the country was geographically small, as was the population, and settlers were willing to depart from tradition to preserve only what they perceived to be the better parts of their British culture. 

Finland followed a little over a decade later with the 1906 Parliament Act. And soon enough, in the midst of World War I, a global wave of suffrage ensued: Denmark and Iceland in 1915; Canada in 1917; Britain, Poland, and Germany in 1918; and Austria and the Netherlands in 1919.

In fact, World War I served as a major catalyst for these historic changes.  For starters, the suffrage movement benefited from the significant role women played in the war effort.  Not only did women directly assist in the wartime efforts, but they stepped into traditionally “masculine” roles when the men left, including serving as head of the household.  

A month before the war ended, President Woodrow Wilson expressed support for the U.S. suffrage movement: “We have made partners of the women in this war.  Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege?”

Yet it would still take another year for Congress to heed this call and pass the 19th Amendment in 1919, ultimately paving the way for its ratification by three-fourths of the States in 1920.

Countries That Have Lagged Behind in Voting Rights

While many global suffrage movements culminated around the same period, some countries granted women the vote many years later, including Switzerland in 1971, Iraq in 1980, and Oman in 1994.  Most notable is Saudi Arabia, the latest — and last — country to grant women the vote. 

In 2015, Saudi Arabian women were allowed to partake in municipal elections for the first time (but such elections are rare).  Women were allowed to vote and run as candidates.  

While this marked tremendous progress, it was not an unqualified advance.  A rigid system of male guardianship, which applies to all women, regardless of age or social class, has still made it logistically difficult for women in the country to vote.  This system is the likely reason why women make up less than ten percent of registered voters in Saudi Arabia.  

Then again, there has been notable progress over the past few years.  Women now serve on municipal councils and the Shura Council — the King’s highest advisory body.  A 2017 order by King Salman of Saudi Arabia allowed women to drive.  And perhaps most promisingly, in 2019 authorities began to reform the guardianship system.  The dramatic changes allow women over twenty-one to obtain a passport, travel, and work without a man’s permission, and to act as head of a household. 

Given its ability to constrain women’s suffrage, the breakdown of the male guardianship system certainly seems as momentous for Saudi Arabia as the 19th Amendment was for the United States.  While the credit should be given to the brave women who fought for these rights, the changes may also owe their existence to an apparent royal plan to modernize the Kingdom, perhaps in an attempt to gain an international reputation as a more liberal state.  Women’s suffrage in Saudi Arabia — while arguably merely symbolic in 2015 — has opened the door to more opportunity.  And perhaps that is what suffrage ultimately exemplifies:  opportunity.

Women’s Representation in Government Across the Globe

Despite women in the United States gaining the right to vote in 1920, it took until 2020 for a woman to win one of the nation’s highest offices.  Unsurprisingly, the countries that beat the United States in the race for women’s suffrage a century ago seem to enjoy more substantial female representation in government even today.

New Zealand (which granted women the right to vote in 1893) takes twentieth place out of 180 on the global rankings of female representation in national legislatures.  Finland (1906) ranks eleventh, Denmark (1915) ranks twenty-fourth, and Iceland (1915) ranks thirty-third.  Those are all significantly higher up on the list than the United States which, as noted earlier, comes in at a staggering eighty-fourth. 

Globally speaking, here are some key statistics on female representation in government worth knowing: 

  • As of February 2019, roughly 24.3% of all national legislators were women, compared to 11.3% in 1995.  Although the proportion of women in national legislatures may have doubled over that 24-year period, there is obviously much more room for that to grow.

It is perplexing that a nation could ignore half its voice for any amount of time, especially given how important participatory democracy has been to the founding of so many modern nation-states.  Despite the challenges of the past and present, the trend is still towards equality, with each nation proceeding at its own pace.

Alexis C. Archer is a second-year student at Columbia Law School and a Staff member of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law. She graduated from Michigan State University in 2015 with a Master of Science in Intelligence and Analysis. Before law school, Alexis worked as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst with the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa, Japan, and as a Special Investigations Unit Manager in San Diego, California.

 
Joshua Bean