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Votes for Women: the Global Story

Women in Britain started to get voting rights in 1918, but what were the contradictions and tensions that arose with women in the colonised parts of Asia and Africa?

It was exactly a hundred years ago that women in the UK won the right to vote: though at first it was only for property owning women over thirty. But Britain wasn’t the trail blazer. Seven countries were ahead of it including two of its colonies. So what were the deciding factors? Was it the changing circumstances created by wars and the collapse of Empires? Or was it the suffragettes’ sometimes violent tactics? And why did Switzerland take as long as 1971 to enfranchise women? Joining Bridget Kendall to look at the global story of how women got the vote is the Indian social scientist Nikita Sud, Jad Adams the author of β€œWomen and the Vote”, and Lindie Naughton the biographer of the first woman elected to the British parliament Constance Markievicz.

Photo: Women voting (Reuters)

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41 minutes

Last on

Tue 10 Apr 2018 23:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Sat 7 Apr 2018 19:06GMT
  • Tue 10 Apr 2018 08:06GMT
  • Tue 10 Apr 2018 17:06GMT
  • Tue 10 Apr 2018 23:06GMT

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