Women's Suffrage in Australia

Figure 1: Women's suffrage picket demonstrating for the freedom of Alice Paul, 1917. Assumed English; source unknown.
Figure 1: Women's suffrage picket demonstrating for the freedom of Alice Paul, 1917. Assumed English; source unknown.
Women’s Suffrage
The fight for equal rights of women is thought to have begun with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). As male suffrage extended in many countries, women became increasingly active in the pursuit for their suffrage. However it was not until 1893, in New Zealand, that women achieved suffrage on a national level. Australia followed in 1902, but American, British and Canadian women did not gain the same rights until the aftermath of World War I.
“Suffragettes” was a term used around the world to describe all women who campaigned for the right to vote in elections (Big Black Dog Communications Pty Ltd australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-suffragettes, 5th March 2010). Each Australian state had at least one suffrage society during the 1880s and 1890s that published leaflets; organised debates, public meetings and letter-writing campaigns and arranging deputations to members of their colonial parliaments. In 1891, suffragettes gathered 30, 000 women’s signatures and presented them as a petition to the Victorian Parliament. Another petition was presented to the South Australian and Northern Territory government in 1894.
It was argued by the suffragettes that women should be able to vote and stand for election not only because they thought the wishes of women should be reflected in parliament but because they were tax payers. They argued that a government “by the people” should include women, since laws affected women as much as men. Figure 2: Headquarters of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage 1911. Library of Congress.
Figure 2: Headquarters of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage 1911. Library of Congress.

During the 19th century small numbers of women attended university or sort a career, however, most women were restricted to the homes they maintained while raising a family. The thought that a woman was capable of focusing her attention to matters such as politics was incomprehensible to many men, and some women, who opposed the fight for female suffrage. They portrayed women as emotional, weak and unable to make decisions as well as being consumed with domestic and trivial matters (Big Black Dog Communications Pty Ltd australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-suffragettes, 5th March 2010). Politics were seen as a purely male responsibility; women were trapped by laws they were unable to influence or change.
The Electoral Act 1864 gave Victorian women the right to vote in local and state elections due to an error in the wording of the Act in which the phrase “all persons” was used to refer to people on the municipal voting rolls that were based on property ownership. However, the Electoral Act was soon amended (in 1865) on the grounds that women were never intended to gain the vote, despite the wording “all persons”.
Nineteenth century civilisation has accorded to women the same political status as to the idiot and the criminal. Such is the basis of our reverence for the person of women and of our estimate of her work. (1889) – May Lee leading South Australian suffragist and social reformer.
Figure 3: Sixteen Reasons For Supporting Woman's Suffrage September 1895. State Library of South Australia
Figure 3: Sixteen Reasons For Supporting Woman's Suffrage September 1895. State Library of South Australia
Rose Scott in Sydney, Henrietta Dugdale in Melbourne and Edith Cowan in Western Australia began to organise themselves after the amendment. Their goal was to educate men and women about the rights of women and their right to vote and effect social and political change. Australia women were very vocal and forceful in delivering their message. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union of South Australia printed leaflets in September 1895 entitled Sixteen Reasons for Supporting Women’s Suffrage that circulated the community.
In many nations, the fight for the right to vote and stand in elections was a long, desperate and violent battle. In the United Kingdom many suffragettes were imprisoned and went on self-enforced hunger strikes which often resulted in force-feeding and occasionally ended in death. Others set fire to building and/or heckled politicians. Emily Davison threw herself under the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby in 1913 in a bid to draw attention to “the cause”. She later died as a result. In spite of this radical action, it was note for another five years that women in the United Kingdom were given limited rights to vote and note until 1928 that women’s voting rights were equal to men’s.
Australia women, in comparison, used peaceful and legal means to put their case for political enfranchisement forward. They gained equal status with men at the ballot box at a relatively early stage in the history of women’s suffrage (1902). Despite achieving the vote in Australia women did what they could to support women in the United Kingdom. This was depicted by the banner ‘Trust the Women Mother, As I Have Done” by Dora Meeson which was painted in London and carried by Australians in a street rally held there on 17th of June 1911.
Figure 4: Women's Suffrage Petition ("Monster Petition") 1891; Parliament of Victoria.
Figure 4: Women's Suffrage Petition ("Monster Petition") 1891; Parliament of Victoria.
In the efforts to gain the right to vote in Victoria, a handful of dedicated women took to the streets in 1891 to collect signatures for a petition to present to the Parliament of Victoria. They gained close to 30, 000 signatures. With the support of Premier James Munro the petition was tabled in parliament. The petition sought that “Women should Vote on Equal terms with Men”. The petition was approximately 260 metres long and 200mm wide.
A later petition was collected in 1894 in South Australia. Mary Lee amongst a number of women’s rights groups, after three failed attempts to have bills passed to grant women’s suffrage, redoubled their efforts. They were encouraged by the recent enfranchisement of women in New Zealand, which was the first country to grant women’s suffrage. Their aim was to travel all over the state collecting as many signatures as possible to support granting women the vote.
On August 23, 1894, when the Adult Suffrage Bill was read in the South Australian Parliament the suffragettes presented a petition with 11, 600 signatures and was 122 metres long with success. On the 18th of December women were granted the right to vote and stand for Parliament. South Australian women were able to participate in the general elections of 1896.
As a result of hearty lobbying by the suffragettes of Australia, the Commonwealth of Australia became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote in the federal election as well as be elected to federal parliament when they passed the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902. However, the act specifically excluded indigenous women (and men) who had to wait until they were formally given the right to vote in 1962. Although women were granted the right to vote in federal elections the same did not apply for state elections until 1924.
Although Australian women were the first in the world to gain both the vote and the right to stand for election, Australia had the longest time span of western democratic countries between the right being granted and their actual election (a period of 41 years).

Bibliography http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-suffragettes http://www.samemory.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?c=6217&mode=singleImage http://www.zazzle.com/suffragette_for_alice_paul_1917_post_cards-239033269964101339 http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Women's_suffrage
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/pic/bl_p_opposed_suffrage_hq.htm