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v t e

First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on gaining the right to vote.

The term first-wave was coined in March 1968 by Martha Lear writing in The New York Times Magazine, who at the same time also used the term "second-wave feminism".^[1][2] At that time, the women's movement was focused on de facto (unofficial) inequalities, which it wished to distinguish from the objectives of the earlier feminists.

Origins

According to Miriam Schneir, Simone de Beauvoir wrote that the first woman to "take up her pen in defense of her sex" was Christine de Pizan in the 15th century.^[3]Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi worked in the 16th century.^[3]Marie le Jars de Gournay, Anne Bradstreet and François Poullain de la Barre's Equality of sexes came out in 1673.^[3]

Wollstonecraft

The period in which Mary Wollstonecraft wrote was affected by Rousseau and the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The father of the Enlightenment defined an ideal democratic society that was based on the equality of men, where women were often discriminated against. The inherent exclusion of women from discussion was addressed by both Wollstonecraft, and her contemporaries. Wollstonecraft based her work on the ideas of Rousseau.^[4] Although at first it seems to be contradictory, Wollstonecraft's idea was to expand Rousseau's democratic society but based on gender equality.

Wollstonecraft published one of the first feminist treatises, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she advocated the social and moral equality of the sexes, extending the work of her 1790 pamphlet, A Vindication of the Rights of Men. Her later unfinished novel, Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman, earned her considerable criticism as she discussed women's sexual desires. She died young, and her widower, the philosopher William Godwin, quickly wrote a memoir of her that, contrary to his intentions, destroyed her reputation for generations.

Wollstonecraft is regarded as the "fore-mother" of the British feminist movement and her ideas shaped the thinking of the suffragettes, who campaigned for the women's vote.^[5]

Early American efforts

Early Feminism was directly correlated with the abolitionist movements and as a result many famous feminists and activists began to have their voices heard. Some of these early activists include, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Blackwell, Jane Addams, and Dorothy Day.^[6] The first wave of feminism was primarily led by white women in the middle class, and it was not until the second wave of feminism that women of color began developing a voice.^[7] The term Feminism was created like a political illustrated ideology at that period. Feminism emerged by the speech about the reform and correction of democracy based on equalitarian conditions.^[8]

Australia

The first wave of Australian feminism, which dates back to the late 19th century, was chiefly concerned with suffrage (women's right to vote) and consequently with women's access to parliaments and other political activities.^[9]

In 1882, Rose Scott, a women's rights activist, began to hold a weekly salon meetings in her Sydney home left to her by her late mother. Through these meetings, she became well known amongst politicians, judges, philanthropists, writers and poets. In 1889, she helped to found the Women's Literary Society, which later grew into the Womanhood Suffrage League in 1891. Leading politicians hosted by Scott included Bernhard Ringrose Wise, William Holman, William Morris Hughes and Thomas Bavin, who met and discussed the drafting of the bill that eventually became the Early Closing Act of 1899.^[10]

Denmark

The first women's movement was led by the Dansk Kvindesamfund ("Danish Women's Society"), founded in 1871. Line Luplau was one of the most notable woman in this era. Tagea Brandt was also part of this movement, and in her honor was established the Tagea Brandt Rejselegat or Travel Scholarship for women. The Dansk Kvindesamfund's efforts as a leading group of women for women led to the existence of the revised Danish constitution of 1915, giving women the right to vote and the provision of equal opportunity laws during the 1920s, which influenced the present-day legislative measures to grant women access to education, work, marital rights and other obligations.^[11]

New Zealand

Early New Zealand feminists and suffragettes included Maud Pember Reeves (Australian-born; later lived in London), Kate Sheppard and Mary Ann Müller. In 1893, Elizabeth Yates became Mayor of Onehunga, the first time such a post had been held by a female anywhere in the British Empire. Early university graduates were Emily Siedeberg (doctor, graduated 1895) and Ethel Benjamin (lawyer, graduated 1897). The Female Law Practitioners Act was passed in 1896 and Benjamin was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in 1897 (see Women's suffrage in New Zealand).

Netherlands

Although in the Netherlands during the Age of Enlightenment the idea of the equality of women and men made progress, no practical institutional measures or legislation resulted. In the second half of the nineteenth century many initiatives by feminists sprung up in The Netherlands. Aletta Jacobs (1854–1929) requested and obtained as the first woman in the Netherlands the right to study at university in 1871, becoming the first female medical doctor and academic. She became a lifelong campaigner for women's suffrage, equal rights, birth control, and international peace, travelling worldwide for, e.g., the International Alliance of Women. Wilhelmina Drucker (1847–1925) was a politician, a prolific writer and a peace activist, who fought for the vote and equal rights through political and feminist organisations she founded. In 1917–1919 her goal of women's suffrage was reached. Cornelia Ramondt-Hirschmann (1871–1951), President of the Dutch Women's International League for Peace and Freedom [WILPF]Selma Meyer (1890–1941), Secretary of the Dutch Women's International League for Peace and Freedom [WILPF]

Persia

While in some distance in culture and language, the events of the Conference of Badasht (1848) presented progress on the concerns of first-wave feminism. There is a synchronicity in time and a likeness in theme and events between Persia (later named Iran) and the United States between the conference at Badasht and the Seneca Falls Convention.^[12][13] First the conference happened over three weeks from late June to mid-July 1848 and the Seneca Falls Convention happened in mid-July 1848. Both conferences had women (Tahirih and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) take strong stances on the role of women in the public arena that some attending reacted to harshly. And lastly leading men present (Quddús and Frederick Douglass) supported these calls during the meetings healing the breach. Some even see a parallel in the background discussions that are partially documented to arrange how things would be brought up and settled.

The conference of Badasht is considered by Bahá'ís as a signal moment that demonstrated that Islamic Sharia law had been abrogated^[14][15] as well as a key demonstration of the thrust of raising the social position of women.^[16] Although the unveiling led to accusations of immorality^[17][18]the Báb responded by supporting her position and naming her the Pure (Táhirih).^[19] Modern women scholars review this kind of accusation as part of a pattern faced by women leaders and writers then and since^[20] in a way that Azar Nafisi says "the Islamic regime today ... fears them and feels vulnerable in the face of a resistance that is not just political but existential."^[21]
See the Bahá'í Faith and gender equality.

Sweden

Feminist issues and gender roles were discussed in media and literature during the 18th century by people such as Margareta Momma, Catharina Ahlgren, Anna Maria Rückerschöld and Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, but it created no movement of any kind. The first person to hold public speeches and agitate in favor of feminism was Sophie Sager in 1848,^[22] and the first organization created to deal with a women's issue was Svenska lärarinnors pensionsförening (Society for Retired Female Teachers) by Josefina Deland in 1855.^[23]

In 1856, Fredrika Bremer published her famous Hertha, which aroused great controversy and created a debate referred to as the Hertha Debate. The two foremost questions was to abolish coverture for unmarried women, and for the state to provide women an equivalent to a university. Both questions were met: in 1858, a reform granted unmarried women the right to apply for legal majority by a simple procedure, and in 1861, Högre lärarinneseminariet was founded as a "Women's University". In 1859, the first women's magazine in Sweden and the Nordic countries, the Tidskrift för hemmet, was founded by Sophie Adlersparre and Rosalie Olivecrona. This has been referred to as the starting point of a women's movement in Sweden.

The organized women's movement begun in 1873, when Married Woman's Property Rights Association was co-founded by Anna Hierta-Retzius and Ellen Anckarsvärd. The prime task of the organization was to abolish coverture. In 1884, Fredrika Bremer Association was founded by Sophie Adlersparre to work for the improvement in women's rights. The second half of the 19th century saw the creation of several women's rights organisations and a considerable activity within both active organization as well as intellectual debate. The 1880s saw the so-called Sedlighetsdebatten, were gender roles were discussed in literary debate in regards to sexual double standards in opposed to sexual equality. In 1902, finally, the National Association for Women's Suffrage was founded.

In 1921, women's suffrage was finally introduced. The women suffrage reform was followed by the Behörighetslagen of 1923 (Act of Access of 1923), in which males and females were formally given equal access to all professions and positions in society, the only exceptions being military and priesthood positions.^[24] The last two restrictions were removed in 1958, when women were allowed to become priests, and in a series of reforms between 1980 and 1989, when all military professions were opened to women.^[25]

United Kingdom

The early feminist reformers were unorganized, and including prominent individuals who had suffered as victim of injustice. This included individuals such as Caroline Norton whose personal tragedy where she was unable to obtain a divorce and was denied access to her three sons by her husband, led her to a life of intense campaigning which successful led to the passing of the Custody of Infants Act 1839 and the introduced the Tender years doctrine for child custody arrangement.^[26][27][28] The Act gave married women, for the first time, a right to their children. However, because women needed to petition in the Court of Chancery, in practice few women had the financial means to petition for their rights.^[29]

The first organized movement for English feminism was the Langham Place Circle of the 1850s, which included among others Barbara Bodichon (née Leigh-Smith) and Bessie Rayner Parkes.^[30] The group campaigned for many women's causes, including improved female rights in employment, and education. It also pursued women's property rights through its Married Women's Property Committee. In 1854, Bodichon published her Brief Summary of the Laws of England concerning Women,^[31] which was used by the Social Science Association after it was formed in 1857 to push for the passage of the Married Women's Property Act 1882.^[32] In 1858, Barbara Bodichon, Matilda Mary Hays and Bessie Rayner Parkes established the first feminist British periodical, the English Woman's Journal,^[33] with Bessie Parkes the chief editor. The journal continued publication until 1864 and was succeeded in 1866 by the Englishwoman's Review edited until 1880 by Jessie Boucherett which continued publication until 1910. Jessie Boucherett and Adelaide Anne Proctor joined the Langham Place Circle in 1859. The group was active until 1866. Also in 1859, Jessie Boucherett, Barbara Bodichon and Adelaide Proctor formed the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women to promote the training and employment of women.^[34] The society is one of the earliest British women's organisations, and continues to operate as the registered charity Futures for Women.^[35]Helen Blackburn and Boucherett established the Women's Employment Defence League in 1891, to defend women's working rights against restrictive employment legislation.^[36] They also together edited the Condition of Working Women and the Factory Acts in 1896. In the beginning of the 20th century, women's employment was still predominantly limited to factory labor and domestic work. During World War I, more women found work outside the home. As a result of the wartime experience of women in the workforce, the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 opened professions and the civil service to women, and marriage was no longer a legal barrier to women working outside the home.

In 1918 Marie Stopes published the very influential Married Love,^[37] in which she advocated gender equality in marriage and the importance of women's sexual desire. (Importation of the book into the United States was banned as obscene until 1931.)

The Representation of the People Act 1918 extended the franchise to women who were at least 30 years old and they or their husbands were property holders, while the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 gave women the right to sit in Parliament, although it was only slowly that women were actually elected. In 1928, the franchise was extended to all women over 21 by the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1928, on an equal basis to men.^[38]

Many feminist writers and women's rights activists argued that it was not equality to men which they needed but a recognition of what women need to fulfill their potential of their own natures, not only within the aspect of work but society and home life too. Virginia Woolf produced her essay A Room of One's Own based on the ideas of women as writers and characters in fiction. Woolf said that a woman must have money and a room of her own to be able to write.

United States

Woman in the Nineteenth Century by Margaret Fuller has been considered the first major feminist work in the United States and is often compared to Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.^[39] Prominent leaders of the feminist movement in the United States include Lucretia Coffin Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Susan B. Anthony; Anthony and other activists such as Victoria Woodhull and Matilda Joslyn Gage made attempts to cast votes prior to their legal entitlement to do so, for which many of them faced charges. Other important leaders included several women who dissented against the law in order to have their voices heard, (Sarah and Angelina Grimké), in addition to other activists such as Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Margaret Sanger and Lucy Burns.^[40]

First-wave feminism involved a wide range of women, some belonging to conservative Christian groups (such as Frances Willard and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union), others such as Matilda Joslyn Gage of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) resembling the radicalism of much of second-wave feminism. The majority of first-wave feminists were more moderate and conservative than radical or revolutionary—like the members of the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) they were willing to work within the political system and they understood the clout of joining with sympathetic men in power to promote the cause of suffrage. The limited membership of the NWSA was narrowly focused on gaining a federal amendment for women's suffrage, whereas the AWSA, with ten times as many members, worked to gain suffrage on a state-by-state level as a necessary precursor to federal suffrage. The NWSA had broad goals, hoping to achieve a more equal social role for women, but the AWSA was aware of the divisive nature of many of those goals and instead chose to focus solely on suffrage. The NWSA was known for having more publicly aggressive tactics (such as picketing and hunger strikes) whereas the AWSA used more traditional strategies like lobbying, delivering speeches, applying political pressure and gathering signatures for petitions.^[41]

During the first wave, there was a notable connection between the slavery abolition movement and the women's rights movement. Frederick Douglass was heavily involved in both movements and believed that it was essential for both to work together in order to attain true equality in regards to race and sex.^[42] Different accounts of the involvement of African-American women in the Women's Suffrage Movement are given. In a 1974 interview, Alice Paul notes that a compromise was made between southern groups to have white women march first, then men, then African-American women.^[43] In another account by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), difficulties in segregating women resulted in African-American women marching with their respective States without hindrance.^[44] Among them was Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who marched with the Illinois delegation.

The first wave of feminists, in contrast to the second wave, focused very little on the subjects of abortion, birth control, and overall reproductive rights of women. Though she never married, Anthony published her views about marriage, holding that a woman should be allowed to refuse sex with her husband; the American woman had no legal recourse at that time against rape by her husband^[45].

The end of the first wave is often linked with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1920), granting women the right to vote. This was the major victory of the movement, which also included reforms in higher education, in the workplace and professions, and in health care.
Women started serving on school boards and local bodies, and numbers kept increasing. This period also saw more women gaining access to higher education. In 1910, "women were attending many leading medical schools, and in 1915 the American Medical Association began to admit women members."^[46] A Matrimonial Causes Act 1923 gave women the right to the same grounds for divorce as men.

The rise in unemployment during the Great Depression which started in the 1920s hit women first, and when the men also lost their jobs there was further strain on families. Many women served in the armed forces during World War II, when around 300,000 American women served in the navy and army, performing jobs such as secretaries, typists and nurses.

State laws

1860, New York passed a revised Married Women's Property Act which gave women shared ownership of their children, allowing them to have a say in their children's wills, wages, and granting them the right to inherit property.^[47] Further advances and setbacks were experienced in New York and other states, but with each new win the feminists were able to use it as an example to apply more leverage on unyielding legislative bodies.

Timeline

It has been suggested that this list be split into a new article titled Timeline of first-wave feminism. (Discuss) (September 2018)

1809

• US, Connecticut: Married women were allowed to execute wills.^[48]

1810

• Sweden: The informal right of an unmarried woman to be declared of legal majority by royal dispensation was officially confirmed by parliament.^[49]

1811

• Austria: Married women were granted separate economy and the right to choose their professions.^[50]


• Sweden: Married businesswomen were granted the right to make decisions about their own affairs without their husband's consent.^[51]

1821

• US, Maine: Married women were allowed to own and manage property in their own name during the incapacity of their spouse.^[52]

1827

• Brazil: The first elementary schools for girls and the profession of school teacher were opened.^[53]

1829

• India: Sati was banned.^[54]


• Sweden: Midwives were allowed to use surgical instruments, which were unique in Europe at the time and gave them surgical status.^[55]

1832

• Brazil: Dionísia Gonçalves Pinto, under the pseudonym Nísia Floresta Brasileira Augusta, published her first book, and the first in Brazil to deal with women's intellectual equality and their capacity and right to be educated and participate in society on an equal basis with men, which was Women's rights and men's injustice.^[56] It was a translation of Woman not Inferior to Man, often attributed to Mary Wortley Montagu.^[57][58]

1833

• US, Ohio: The first co-educational American university, Oberlin College, was founded.^[59]


• Guatemala: Divorce was legalized; this was rescinded in 1840 and reintroduced in 1894.^[60]

1835

• US, Arkansas: Married women were allowed to own (but not control) property in their own name.^[61]

1838

• US, Kentucky: Kentucky gave school suffrage (the right to vote at school meetings) to widows with children of school age.^[62]


• US, Iowa: Iowa was the first U.S. state to allow sole custody of a child to its mother in the event of a divorce.^[62]


• Pitcairn Islands: The Pitcairn Islands granted women the right to vote.^[63]

1839

• US, Mississippi: Mississippi was the first U.S. state that gave married women limited property rights.^[62]


• Great Britain: The Custody of Infants Act 1839 made it possible for divorced mothers to be granted custody of their children under seven, but only if the Lord Chancellor agreed to it, and only if the mother was of good character.^[64]


• US, Mississippi: The Married Women's Property Act 1839 granted married women the right to own (but not control) property in their own name.^[65]

1840

• US, Texas: Married women were allowed to own property in their own name.^[65]

1841

• Bulgaria: The first secular girls school in Bulgaria was opened, making education and the profession of teacher available for women.^[66]

1842

• Sweden: Compulsory elementary school for both sexes was introduced.^[67]

1844

• US, Maine: Maine was the first U.S. state that passed a law to allow married women to own separate property in their own name (separate economy) in 1844.^[68]


• US, Maine: Maine passed Sole Trader Law which granted married women the ability to engage in business without the need for their husbands' consent.^[62]


• US, Massachusetts: Married women were granted separate economy.^[69]

1845

• Sweden: Equal inheritance for sons and daughters (in the absence of a will) became law.^[70]


• US, New York: Married women were granted patent rights.^[71]

1846

• Sweden: Trade- and crafts works professions were opened to all unmarried women.^[72]

1847

• Costa Rica: The first high school for girls opened, and the profession of teacher was opened to women.^[73]

1848

• US, State of New York: Married Women's Property Act grant married women separate economy.^[74]


• US, on June 14–15, third-party presidential candidate Gerrit Smith made women's suffrage a plank in the Liberty Party platform.^[75]


• Persia (now called Iran): The Conference of Badasht was held June–July.^[76][77]


• US, State of New York: A women's rights convention called the Seneca Falls Convention was held in July. It was the first American women's rights convention.^[78]

1849

• US: Elizabeth Blackwell, born in England, became the first female medical doctor in American history.^[79]

1850

• England: The first organized movement for English feminism was the Langham Place Circle of the 1850s, including among others Barbara Bodichon (née Leigh-Smith) and Bessie Rayner Parkes.^[30] They also campaigned for improved female rights in employment, and education.^[80]


• Haiti: The first permanent school for girls was opened.^[81]


• Iceland: Equal inheritance for men and women was required.^[82]


• US, California: Married Women's Property Act granted married women separate economy.^[83]


• US, Wisconsin: The Married Women's Property Act granted married women separate economy.^[83]


• US, Oregon: Unmarried women were allowed to own land.^[50]


• The feminist movement began in Denmark with the publication of the feminist book Clara Raphael, Tolv Breve, meaning "Clara Raphael, Twelve Letters," by Mathilde Fibiger.^[84][85]

1851

• Guatemala: Full citizenship was granted to economically independent women, but this was rescinded in 1879.^[86]


• Canada, New Brunswick : Married women were granted separate economy.^[87]

1852

• US, New Jersey: Married women were granted separate economy.^[69]

1853

• Colombia: Divorce was legalized; this was rescinded in 1856 and reintroduced in 1992.^[60]


• Sweden: The profession of teacher at public primary and elementary school was opened to both sexes.^[88]

1854

• Norway: Equal inheritance for men and women was required.^[50]


• US, Massachusetts: Massachusetts granted married women separate economy.^[83]


• Chile: The first public elementary school for girls was opened.^[89]

1855

• US, Iowa: The University of Iowa became the first coeducational public or state university in the United States.^[90]


• US, Michigan: Married women were granted separate economy.^[66]

1857

• Denmark: Legal majority was granted to unmarried women.^[50]


• Denmark: A new law established the right of unmarried women to earn their living in any craft or trade.^[85]


• UK: The Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 enabled couples to obtain a divorce through civil proceedings.^[91][92]


• Netherlands: Elementary education was made compulsory for both girls and boys.^[93]


• Spain: Elementary education was made compulsory for both girls and boys.^[94]


• US, Maine: Married women were granted the right to control their own earnings.^[69]

1858

• Russia: Gymnasiums for girls were opened.^[95]


• Sweden: Legal majority was granted to unmarried women if applied for; automatic legal majority was granted in 1863.^[70]

1859

• Canada West: Married women were granted separate economy.^[87]


• Denmark: The post of teacher at public school was opened to women.^[96]


• Russia: Women were allowed to audit university lectures, but this was retracted in 1863.^[95]


• Sweden: The posts of college teacher and lower official at public institutions were opened to women.^[97]


• US, Kansas: The Married Women's Property Act granted married women separate economy.^[83]

1860

• US, New York: New York passed a revised Married Women's Property Act which gave women shared legal custody of their children, allowing them to have a say in their children's wills, wages, and granting them the right to inherit property.^[47]

1861

• South Australia: South Australia granted property-owning women the right to vote in local elections.^[98]


• US, Kansas: Kansas gave school suffrage to all women. Many U.S. states followed before the start of the 20th century.^[62]

1862

• Sweden: Restricted local suffrage was granted to women in Sweden. In 1919 suffrage was granted with restrictions, and in 1921 all restrictions were lifted.^[99]

1863

• Finland: In 1863, taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the country side, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities.^[100]

1869

• United Kingdom: The UK granted women the right to vote in local elections.^[101]


• US, Wyoming: Wyoming granted women the right to vote, the first US state to do so.^[102]

1870

• US, Utah: The Utah territory granted women the right to vote, but it was revoked by Congress in 1887 as part of a national effort to rid the territory of polygamy. It was restored in 1895, when the right to vote and hold office was written into the constitution of the new state.^[103]


• England: The Married Women's Property Act was passed in 1870 and expanded in 1874 and 1882, giving English women control over their own earnings and property.^[68]

1871

• Denmark: In 1871 the worlds very first Women's Rights organization was founded by Mathilde Bajer and her husband Frederik Bajer, called Danish Women's Society (or Dansk Kvindesamfund. It still exists to this day).


• Netherlands: First female academic student Aletta Jacobs enrolls at a Dutch university (University of Groningen).

1872

• Finland: In 1872, taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the cities.^[100]

1881

• Isle of Man: The right to vote was extended to unmarried women and widows who owned property, and as a result 700 women received the vote, comprising about 10% of the Manx electorate.^[104]

1884

• Canada: Widows and spinsters were the first women granted the right to vote within municipalities in Ontario, with the other provinces following throughout the 1890s.^[105]

1886

• US: All but six U.S. states allowed divorce on grounds of cruelty.^[62]


• Korea: Ewha Womans University, Korea's first educational institute for women, was founded in 1886 by Mary F. Scranton, an American missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church.^[106]

1891

• Australia: The New South Wales Womanhood Suffrage League was founded.^[107]

1893

• US, Colorado: Colorado granted women the right to vote.^[108]


• New Zealand: New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections.^[109]


• Cook Islands: The Cook Islands granted women the right to vote in island councils and a federal parliament.^[110]

1894

• South Australia: South Australia granted women the right to vote.^[110]


• United Kingdom: The United Kingdom extended the right to vote in local elections to married women.^[111]

1895

• US: Almost all U.S. states had passed some form of Sole Trader Laws, Property Laws, and Earnings Laws, granting married women the right to trade without their husbands' consent, own and/or control their own property, and control their own earnings.^[62]

1896

• Argentina: A group of anarcha-feminist women, headed by Virginia Bolten, publish La Voz de la Mujer, one of the first feminist newspapers of Latin America.^[112]


• US, Idaho: Idaho granted women the right to vote.^[113]

1900

• Western Australia: Western Australia granted women the right to vote.^[114]


• Belgium: Legal majority was granted to unmarried women.^[115]


• Egypt: A school for female teachers was founded in Cairo.^[116]


• France: Women were allowed to practice law.^[117]


• Korea: The post office profession was opened to women.^[118]


• Tunisia: The first public elementary school for girls was opened.^[116]


• Japan: The first women's university was opened.^[119]


• Baden, Germany: Universities opened to women.^[120]


• Sweden: Maternity leave was granted for female industrial workers.

1901

• Bulgaria: Universities opened to women.^[121]


• Cuba: Universities opened to women.^[122]


• Denmark: Maternity leave was granted for all women.^[123]


• Sweden: The first Swedish law regarding parental leave was instituted in 1900. This law only affected women who worked as wage-earning factory workers and simply required that employers not allow women to work in the first four weeks after giving birth.^[124]


• Commonwealth of Australia: The First Parliament was not elected with a uniform franchise. The voting rights were based on existing franchise laws in each of the States. Thus, in South Australia and Western Australia women had the vote, in South Australia Aborigines (men and women) were entitled to vote and in Queensland and Western Australia Aborigines were explicitly denied voting rights.^[125][126]

1902

• China: Foot binding was outlawed in 1902 by the imperial edicts of the Qing Dynasty, the last dynasty in China, which ended in 1911.^[127]


• El Salvador: Married women were granted separate economy.^[128]


• El Salvador: Legal majority was granted to married women.^[128]


• New South Wales: New South Wales granted women the right to vote in state elections.^[129]


• England: A delegation of women textile workers from Northern England presented a petition to Parliament with 37,000 signatures demanding votes for women.^[130]

1903

• Bavaria, Germany: Universities opened to women.^[120]


• Sweden: Public medical offices opened to women.^[131]


• Australia: Tasmania granted women the right to vote.^[132]


• England: The Women's Social and Political Union was founded.^[130]

1904

• Nicaragua: Married women were granted separate economy.^[128]


• Nicaragua: Legal majority was granted to married women.^[128]


• Württemberg, Germany: Universities opened to women.^[120]


• England: The suffragette Dora Montefiore refused to pay her taxes because women could not vote.^[133]

1905

• Australia: Queensland granted women the right to vote.^[134]


• Iceland: Educational institutions opened to women.^[50]


• Russia: Universities opened to women.^[50]


• England: On October 10, Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney became the first women to be arrested in the fight for women's suffrage.^[133]

1906

• Finland granted women the right vote.^[135] It was the first country in Europe to do so.^[136]


• Honduras: Married women were granted separate economy.^[128]


• Honduras: Legal majority was granted to married women.^[128]


• Honduras: Divorce was legalized^[60]


• Korea: The profession of nurse was allowed for women.^[137]


• Nicaragua: Divorce was legalized.^[60]


• Sweden : Municipal suffrage, since 1862 granted to unmarried women, was granted to married women.^[138]


• Saxony, Germany: Universities opened to women.^[120]


• England: A delegation of women from both the Women's Social and Political Union and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies met with the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.^[130]


• England: The word suffragette, intended as an insult to women in the Women's Social and Political Union, was used for the first time, by the Daily Mail.^[136]


• Britain: The National Federation of Women Workers was established by Mary Reid MacArthur.^[136]

1907

• France: Married women were given control of their income.^[139]


• France: Women were allowed guardianship of children.^[117]


• Norway: Women were granted the right to stand for election, although this was subject to restrictions until 1913.^[140]


• Finland: The first female members of parliament in world history were elected in Finland in 1907.^[135]


• Uruguay: Divorce was legalized.^[141]


• England: The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies organized its first national demonstration, which became known as the "Mud March" because of the terrible weather at the time.^[136]


• England: Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence and her husband Frederick launched the suffragette newspaper Votes for Women.


• England: The Women's Freedom League was formed when Charlotte Despard and others broke away from the Women's Social and Political Union.^[136]


• England: The Qualification of Women Act 1907 allowed women to be elected as mayors and to borough and city councils.^[136]

1908

• Belgium: Women were allowed to act as legal witnesses in court.^[50]


• Denmark: Unmarried women were made legal guardians of their children.^[123]


• Peru: Universities opened to women.^[142]


• Prussia, Alsace-Lorraine and Hesse, Germany: Universities opened to women.^[120]


• Denmark: Denmark granted women over 25 the right to vote in local elections.^[143]


• Australia: Victoria granted women the right to vote in state elections.^[144]


• England: On January 17, suffragettes chained themselves to the railings of 10 Downing Street.^[136]Emmeline Pankhurst was imprisoned for the first time.^[136] The Women's Social and Political Union also introduced their stone-throwing campaign.^[136]

1909

• Sweden: Women were granted eligibility to municipal councils.^[138]


• Sweden: The phrase "Swedish man" was removed from the application forms to public offices and women were thereby approved as applicants to most public professions.^[131]


• Mecklenburg, Germany: Universities opened to women.^[120]


• England: In July, Marion Wallace Dunlop became the first imprisoned suffragette to go on a hunger strike. As a result, force-feeding was introduced.^[136]


• Women were first elected to the procurer of the Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly of Chicago – the Bahai Temple Unity. Of the nine members elected by secret ballot three were women with Corinne True (later appointed as a Hand of the Cause) serving as an officer.^[145]

1910

• Argentina: Elvira Rawson de Dellepiane founded the Feminist Center (Spanish: Centro Feminista) in Buenos Aires, joined by a group of prestigious women.^[146]


• Denmark: The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honor the movement for women's rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women.^[147]


• US, Washington: Washington granted women the right to vote.^[148]


• Ecuador: Divorce was legalized.^[60]


• England: November 18 was "Black Friday", when the suffragettes and police clashed violently outside Parliament after the failure of the first Conciliation Bill. Ellen Pitfield, one of the suffragettes, later died from her injuries.^[133]

1911

• England: Dame Ethel Smyth composed "The March of the Women", the suffragette song.^[133]


• Portugal: Legal majority was granted to married women (rescinded in 1933.)^[149]


• Portugal: Divorce was legalized.^[149]


• US, California: California granted women the right to vote.^[150]


• Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland: International Women's Day was marked for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on the 19th of March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, hold public office and be free from discrimination.^[151]


• South Africa: Olive Schreiner published Women and Labor.^[133]

1912

• US, Oregon, Kansas, Arizona: Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona granted women the right to vote.^[152]


• England: Sylvia Pankhurst established her East London Federation of Suffragettes.^[133]


• The all-male administrative bodies in the United States of the Bahá'í Faith were completely dissolved by 'Abdu'l-Bahá during his visit to America replacing them with integrated institutions.^[145]


• Palestine: During the periods her brother was away in America, Bahíyyih Khánum was empowered as the acting head of the Bahá'í Faith, which was a rare position for a woman to be in at that time.^[153][154]

1913

• Russia: In 1913 Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February. Following discussions, International Women's Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Women's Day ever since.^[151]


• US, Alaska: Alaska granted women the right to vote.^[152]


• Norway: Norway granted women the right to vote.^[155]


• Japan: Public universities opened to women.^[156]


• England: The suffragette Emily Davison was killed by the King's horse at The Derby.^[133]


• England: 50,000 women taking part in a pilgrimage organized by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies arrived in Hyde Park on July 26.^[133]

1914

• Russia: Married women were allowed their own internal passport.^[95]


• US, Montana, Nevada: Montana and Nevada granted women the right to vote.^[152]


• England: The suffragette Mary Richardson entered the National Gallery and slashed the Rokeby Venus.^[133]

1915

• Denmark: Denmark granted women the right to vote.^[143]


• Iceland: Iceland granted women the right to vote, subject to conditions and restrictions.^[140]


• US: In 1915 the American Medical Association began to admit women as members.^[46]


• Wales: The first Women's Institute in Britain was founded in North Wales at Llanfairpwll.^[133]

1916

• Canada: Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan granted women the right to vote.^[157]


• US: Margaret Sanger opened America's first birth control clinic in 1916.^[158]


• England: The Cat and Mouse Act was introduced for suffragettes who refused to eat.^[133]

1917

• Cuba: Married women were granted separate economy.^[128]


• Cuba: Legal majority was granted to married women.^[128]


• Netherlands: Women were granted the right to stand for election.^[159]


• Mexico: Legal majority for married women.^[128]


• Mexico: Divorce was legalized.^[128]


• US, New York: New York granted women the right to vote.^[152]


• Belarus: Belarus granted women the right to vote.^[160]


• Russia: The Russian SFSR granted women the right to vote.^[161]

1918

• Cuba: Divorce was legalized.^[60]


• Russia: The first Constitution of the new Soviet State (the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic) declared that "women have equal rights to men."^[162]


• Thailand: Universities opened to women.^[163]


• England: In 1918 Marie Stopes, who believed in equality in marriage and the importance of women's sexual desire, published Married Love,^[37] a sex manual that, according to a survey of American academics in 1935, was one of the 25 most influential books of the previous 50 years, ahead of Relativity by Albert Einstein, Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud and The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes.^[164]


• US, Michigan, South Dakota, Oklahoma: Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma granted women the right to vote.^[152]


• Austria: Austria granted women the right to vote.^[157]


• Canada: Canada granted women the right to vote on the federal level (the last province to enact women's suffrage was Quebec in 1940.)^[165]


• United Kingdom: The Representation of the People Act was passed which allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote. Although 8.5 million women met this criterion, it only represented 40 per cent of the total population of women in the UK. The same act extended the vote to all men over the age of 21.^[166]


• United Kingdom: The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 was passed allowing women to stand as members of parliament.^[133]


• Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia granted women the right to vote.^[157]

1919

• Germany: Germany granted women the right to vote.^[157]


• Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan granted women the right to vote.^[167]


• Italy: Women gained more property rights, including control over their own earnings, and access to some legal positions.^[168]


• Great Britain: The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 became law. In a broad opening statement it specified that, "[a] person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation". The Act did provide employment opportunities for individual women and many were appointed as magistrates, but in practice it fell far short of the expectations of the women's movement. Senior positions in the civil service were still closed to women and they could be excluded from juries if evidence was likely to be too "sensitive".^[169]


• Luxembourg: Luxembourg granted women the right to vote.^[170]


• Canada: Women were granted the right to be candidates in federal elections.^[171]


• Netherlands: The Netherlands granted women the right to vote. The right to stand in election was granted in 1917.^[172]


• New Zealand: New Zealand allowed women to stand for election into parliament.^[173]


• England: Nancy Astor became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons.^[133]

1920

• China: The first female students were accepted in Peking University, soon followed by universities all over China.^[174]


• Haiti: The apothecary profession was opened to women.^[81]


• Korea: The profession of telephone operator, as well as several other professions, such as store clerks, were opened to women.^[137]


• Sweden: Legal majority was granted to married women and equal marriage rights were granted to women.^[70]


• US: The 19th Amendment was signed into law, granting all American women the right to vote.^[62]


• England: Oxford University opened its degrees to women.^[136]

1921

• England: The Six Point Group was founded by Lady Rhondda to push for women's social, political, occupational, moral, economic, and legal equality.^[136]

1922

• China: International Women's Day was celebrated in China from 1922 on.^[175]


• United Kingdom: The Law of Property Act 1922 was passed, giving wives the right to inherit property equally with their husbands.^[136]


• England: The Infanticide Act was passed, ending the death penalty for women who killed their children if the women's minds were found to be unbalanced.^[136]

1923

• Nicaragua: Elba Ochomogo became the first woman to obtain a university degree in Nicaragua.^[176]


• England: The Matrimonial Causes Act gave women the right to petition for divorce on the grounds of adultery.^[177]

1925

• UK: The Guardianship of Infants Act gave parents equal claims over their children.^[136]

1928

• UK: The right to vote was granted to all UK women equally with men in 1928.^[178]

1934

• Turkey: Women gained the right to vote and to become a nominee to be elected equally in 1934 after reformations for a new civil law.^{[citation needed]}

Criticism

Problems of conflicting interests, of the always-permeable dichotomies of hegemony and resistance, of internal contradictions and inadequacies within the notions of the "human," "rights," "freedom," and "liberalism," shaped 19th- and early 20th-century feminist ideology and praxis and continue to resonate in debates over gender, "race," class, and sexuality today. For Kyla Schuller in The Biopolitics of Feeling: Race, Sex, and Science in the Nineteenth Century, "biopower is feminism's enabling condition ... movements for gender equality have materialized amid a field of power in which, at least since Malthus, the interdependence of reproduction and economics forms the primary field of the political."^[179] Schuller argues that "[the] evolutionary notion of the distinct sexes of male and female, understood as specialized divergences in physiology, anatomy, and mental function that only the most civilized had achieved, was itself a racial hierarchy ... the very idea of sex as a biological and political subjectivity is a product of the biopolitical logics unfolding hand in hand with the sciences of species change."^[179] Schuller quotes Canadian philosopher Michelle Murphy in Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Entanglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience: "Historicizing feminisms as a biopolitics that has taken 'sex,' and its subsidiary, 'reproduction,' as central concerns requires that we understand feminisms in all their variety and contradiction as animated within - and not escaping from - dominant configurations of governance and technoscience."^[179] From this perspective, 19th- and early 20th-century feminisms reproduced the very social hierarchies they had the potential to struggle against, exemplifying the claim of Michel Foucault in his The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction that "resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power."^[180]

First-wave feminism did not offer an intersectional perspective. Gender was not thought of as a social construction, nor was the roles that each gender plays thought of as sexist.^[181] This time period also focused on biological differences, and that only the way to be considered a woman was through biology or sex.^[182] It did not consider and fight for women of color, or women of lower socioeconomic status.^[183] It also reinforced and made colonization stronger, as well increasing the eroticization of women from different nations.^[183] First-wave theorists also leave out all of the activism women of color contributed. Activists like Maria Stewart, and Frances E. W. Harper are hardly mentioned with any credit for the abolitionist or suffrage movements during this time period.^[184][185] First wave feminism is male centric meaning it was made in the form of the way men see women.^[183] Another issue with First-Wave feminism is that the white, middle class, women were able to decide what is a woman problem and what is not.^[186] First-wave lacked the sexual freedom women aspired to have but could not have while men could.^[187] It is also said that many of the white fundamental First Wave feminists were in alliance with women of color but stayed silent when they figured they could reach progression for middle class, white women.^[188]

See also

• History of feminism


• Protofeminism


• Second-wave feminism


• Third-wave feminism


• Timeline of women's legal rights (other than voting)


• Timeline of women's suffrage


• 
  The Subjection of Women (1869) by John Stuart Mill

References

Notes

Bibliography

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