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By Anette Eklund Hansen | 23.02.2015
With the June Constitution in 1849, democracy was formally established in Denmark. But it would be 66 years before democracy gave all adults the right to participate in the election of political leaders.
In 1849, it was a democracy for the few, as only around 15% of the total population had the right to vote. Among other things, women were excluded from democracy and you had to be 30 years old to vote.
There was a broad consensus among political parties that women should not have the right to vote. The Danish politician and lawyer Algreen-Ussing, who was a member of the constitutional committee in 1849, expressed it very clearly:
Everywhere it is thus recognized that minors, children, wives and criminals should not have the right to vote
In 1908, women over the age of 25 whose husbands paid taxes were granted the right to vote, but the goal for most women was still the constitutional amendment that would give them the right to vote politically and thus provide them with a way to exert influence.
The tough fight – without a united front
The goal for many women was gaining the political right to vote. However, women did not fight together as a homogeneous group towards a common goal; there were divisions and groupings among women due to their different backgrounds and class divisions in society. These included bourgeois women and working-class women.
There were many arguments for introducing women’s political suffrage, but the trade union Kvindeligt Arbejderforbund demanded the right to vote on the grounds that women’s equality was inextricably linked to the liberation of workers and the resolution of social issues.
For the union, the right to vote was not an end in itself, but just as much a means to achieve a society where citizens were equal. It was also often believed that women had developed special ‘soft’ skills as a result of their role as mother and wife.
Johanne Meyer, one of the working-class women who advocated for political suffrage, did not try to oppose this, but pointed out in 1888 that these so-called “soft skills” were important for society:
It is political suffrage and the right to vote that women must have; for it is especially in the governance of the state that the female elements are lacking.
In 1888, women tried to get municipal suffrage on the agenda in the county parliament, but there were many opponents, particularly from the Right Party, which held the power of government and the majority in the county parliament. The Right was interested in maintaining the traditional gender division of labor, where the woman ruled the home and the man ruled society. They also believed that women were politically represented through their male family members.
Carl Plough’s conclusion was reached during the first reading of municipal suffrage for women in 1888:
“As the County Parliament is of the opinion that it would be neither in the interest of women nor in the interest of society to grant them the right to vote, it passes to the agenda.
Social Democracy and the right to vote
The Social Democratic Party was formed in 1871 by Louis Pio, Harald Brix and Paul Geleff. The party aimed to organize the rapidly growing group of workers in order to create a democratic and socialist society.
A democratic society could only be established if the majority of the population could vote, so women should have the right to vote. But it should not be a limited right to vote, it should apply to all women and men regardless of income and spouse.
The Social Democratic Party was the first Danish party to put women’s right to vote on the agenda, in the so-called Gimle Program from 1876, which stated that the foundation of the state should include
Universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot for every member of the state, both men and women, from the age of 22 for all state and municipal institutions. Election day must be on a Sunday or public holiday.
In the Social Democratic program of 1888, women’s right to vote was still mentioned. After its adoption, the then Social Democratic chairman, Peter Knudsen, encouraged working-class women to hold public women’s meetings to draw attention to the fact that they demanded equality with men in the political sphere. In addition, until 1908, the Social Democratic Party remained relatively passive on the issue of women’s right to vote.
Working women had already begun to organize themselves professionally in the 1880s, the very active union “De kvindelige Herreskrædderes Fagforening” was founded in 1883, and the forerunner of Kvindeligt Arbejderforbund was founded in 1885.
Some of the professional working women’s organizations collaborated with the bourgeois women in an attempt to win women’s political right to vote. When women were granted the right to vote in 1908, women and the Social Democratic Party received a much-needed boost. Immediately afterwards, the Social Democratic Women’s Association was founded. The purpose of the association was to:
Through informative lectures and meetings and discussions on important issues, to empower women politically.
In 1910, the working women, led by Clara Zektin, held a women’s conference where, among other things, they discussed “ways and means for the practical work for the conquest of universal women’s suffrage”. It was emphasized that women should be persistent in exercising their right to vote once they had obtained it.
For many, the goal was achieved in 1915, for others, the struggle was only whistled into life in 1915, because now women had to learn how to use the right to vote. The first time they had the opportunity to make their mark in a referendum was in 1916, when the question of whether or not the Danish West Indies should be sold to the USA was put to the vote. Neither the male nor the female turnout was flashy.
In 1918, parliamentary and county council elections were held, prompting the trade magazine of the Women’s Labor Union to publish the following in 1917 to get women to the polls:
Women must be involved in the work necessary to inform their fellow sisters of the crime they are guilty of by putting their hands in their laps and not worrying about how the society in which they live should be governed.
The female turnout in the 1918 general election was 67.6% compared to 84.0% for men, but by the 1920 general election, women’s turnout had already increased to 72.2% compared to 82.2% for men.
When did women get the right to vote and stand for election?
1906: Finland
1913: Norway
1915: Denmark & Iceland
1917: USSR
1918: Luxembourg & Poland
1919: Netherlands, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Germany & Austria
1920: Canada
1922: Ireland and England
1931: Spain
1934: Turkey
1944: France
1945: Italy & Hungary
1946: Yugoslavia
1947: Bulgaria & Malta
1948: Belgium & Romania
1950: India
1952: Greece
1959: Cyprus
1971: Switzerland
1975: Portugal
