The Swiss parliament in 1969: “as along as women can’t vote, Switzerland is not a democracy”. Promoting universal suffrage on the Limmatplatz in Zurich, 1969. “Human rights” demanded at the march in Bern, 1969. RDBĪ march to the capital Bern to whistle in front of the parliament in 1969. Marching in Bern for female suffrage, 1969. Swiss women calling for voting rights in 1969 RDB

KeystoneĪt a 1969 demonstration, banners include “opponents of women’s right to vote don’t belong in parliament”. In 1968, a woman not yet entitled to vote waits outside a polling station in the city of Zurich for her husband to cast his ballot on women's suffrage. KeystoneĪ statue of symbolic Swiss figure Helvetia in Basel, holding a sign reading “I’m not allowed to vote!”, 1966.

Japanese tourists take in the 'No' slogan on a poster for the referendum on women's suffrage in Zurich in 1966. “The right to vote is a human right”: banner on a rooftop in Zurich, 1966. Women campaigning for women's suffrage at the 1964 Expo. Heinz Baumann / Eth-Bibliothek ZürichĪssembly gathering of the Swiss association for women's voting rights, 1963. Torche-led parade calling for the right to vote, Zurich, 1963. Ernst Köehli / Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv Parade of postal workers in Zurich, May 1, 1956: the banner denounces Switzerland and Portugal as being the European laggards on women’s suffrage. May Day procession: Marching with banners proclaiming 'Women's suffrage: We keep fighting!' Zurich, 1948. Women protesting the lack of suffrage with a giant snail representing the delay in granting them the vote (1928). The boldest move, she said, was an advertisement where the women of Inner Rhodes publicly declared their support for universal suffrage. “(At the time) there were individual activists like Ottilia Paky-Sutter and artist Sibylle Neff, who threw plates out of the window in protest during the Landsgemeinde,” art historian Agathe Nisple remembered. But when the national social democratic women’s organisation held its annual meeting in Appenzell at the end of the 1980s, it was met with strong resistance. On Swiss television, feminists from the big cities called the canton ‘piece of Walt Disney’ and said they needed their own feminist movement. Whilst feminist movements demanding more rights for women, formed through Switzerland, after the 70s, Appenzell Inner Rhodes, remained secluded. “In Appenzell, people ask: ‘Who do you belong to?’,” she explained, adding that attitudes like this are part of the reason why women have been excluded from gaining political rights for so long. Rupal assumed that women’s suffrage prevailed in all western democracies. “My girlfriends sent me clippings from the The New York Times and The Guardian about it,” she remembered. When she first arrived, she had no idea that women were not allowed to vote. Rupal, has lived in “the village”, the capital of Appenzell Inner Rhodes, since the late 1980s. I guess mine were the only dark hands going up in the air that day,” she recalled.Īnju Rupal was informed about Appenzell's laggard status by her friends in New York. “I was so excited that I raised both hands. Simply talking about the historic day still fills her with joy. End of insertionĪnju Rupal, a Briton of Indian descent who gained Swiss citizenship through marriage, was part of the first women to ever enter the square and participate in the Landsgemeinde.

On March 4, 2021, SWI swissinfo.ch will conduct a digital panel discussion on “50 years of women's suffrage: old question of power, new struggle with new minds”. This first report is about Appenzell Inner Rhodes which became the last Swiss canton to introduce women’s suffrage at cantonal and communal level in 1991. SWI swissinfo.ch devotes a special feature to this inglorious anniversary. This makes it a young liberal democracy even though it is widely viewed as a model of direct democracy. Switzerland was one of the last countries to introduce universal suffrage. On February 7, 1971, women finally gained the right to vote in national elections. Celebrating 50 years of voting rights for women

El ultimo bastion