Influence of Unite State and British Womens

Suffrage Movements in Chilean feminists during

the early Twentieth Century.

Paulina Enero Segovia

Presesional English Course
ULC

Introduction

The aim of this research project is to try to establish what was the influence
of the United States and United Kingdom womens suffrage movements in the
rise and development of the Chilean feminist movement, in the early 20th
century.
Extensive research has been carried out on the influence of these
movements in Latin America, as a single region. Nevertheless, so far no study
exists which examines the particular influence of these movements in Chile. In
view of the historical and cultural diversity of each Latin American country, it is
important to distinguish the particularities of the Chilean women's movement,
and their struggle for the right to vote for women during the early 20th century.
This study is exploratory and interpretative in nature. Firstly, a review of
relevant conceptual background about suffrage and politic in a gender
perspective was carried out. Then it moves to analyze landmarks of the feminist
suffrage movements struggle in the United States and United Kingdom.
Secondly, the influence of these womens movements under an analytical
perspective was investigated.
The assumption supporting this study is that the US and UK influence on the
Chilean women's movement was not limited only to copy the pressure
mechanisms in order to grant womens suffrage. Conversely, the US and UK
influence was largely intellectual. The main idea of universal claim of human
rights, freedom, equality and recognition for women spread by British and

American feminists raised a deeply politicized womens emancipation

movement in Chile.
1. Background: Women, Politic Participation and Activism

1.1 Suffrage

To begin with, will performed a review of relevant concepts. First, the

etymologic meaning of the word suffrage comes from the Latin suffragium,
"support, ballot, vote; right of voting; a voting tablet," and from suffragari "lend
support, vote for someone,"1. According to the Oxford Encyclopedia, suffrage is
defined as the right or privilege of voting. The notion of divine right granted to
the kings lasted until the French Revolution in 1789. This lead the conception
that the power of government derives from the citizen power to decide.
As can be seen the idea of suffrage is strongly connected with the
concept of citizen. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, citizenship was
restricted by gender, race, belief, wealth, or social status. Therefore, only a
small part of the population had the right to vote. Today, most democratic nation
confers the right to vote to all their citizens, without any exclusions.

1.2 Politic and suffrage in a gender perspective

In this subsection, the meaning of gender will be applied according to

Simone de Beauvoirs: Gender is variable and constructed, the product of a
1

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=suffrage

particular construction that is politically motivated. Gender is an imposition of

meaning onto biological differences (De Beauvoir, 1949, p).
Through our history, women have often been clossed as separate from
worlds cultural history. There is the world, and then are women (Gelb and
Palley, 2008). The dualism between woman-people as defined the womens
work as unimportant and invisible. Only in the second half of the 20th century,
the world has begun to recognize the contribution of women to society.
The womens reproductive capacity has been delegated to duties like
childrearing and houseworking. This gender view has become a determinant of
their role in the political economy. Womens contribution to society had often
been diminished or ignored as womens work or natural role, implying a minor
relevance. Consequently, women were excluded from political activities for so
long, despite their role in transcendental social movements such as the
antislavery campaign in the US, global suffrage movements, anticolonial
movements in India, Algeria, Latin America and South Africa.
The historical process of the right to vote for all citizens, as mentioned
early, is relatively new. In particular, the womens vote started to develop in the
late 19th century, and continue until today.
In Switzerland, women only got the vote in 1971 - 123 years after men.
In Kuwait, women were only allowed to vote at national level in 2006. In
South Africa, white women were allowed to vote in 1931, Indian and
colored women in 1984 and black women in 1994 (Van der Gaag,
2008, p.65).

According to Eltit (1994), multiple social factors during the first half of the
20th century had been involved in the changing of political structures, opening
the way to women's suffrage. Rising industrialization, mass migration of rural
dwellers into the city, revolutionary political movements, armed conflicts (World
War I and II), economics crisis, politicized population, increased access to
education, were the main factors that stimulated the incorporation of women
into a wider world of developing opportunities, unlike their preceding
generations.

Northumbria University. Suffrage in Britain and Abroad

https://makinghistoryatnorthumbria.wordpress.com/tag/suffragettes/

1.3 Early womens movements in United State and Great Britain

In retrospective, it can be stated that the pioneer in the fight for equality
between men and women was the English writer and philosopher Mary
Wollstonecraft, who in 1792 wrote A Vindication of the Right of Women. Her
work constitutes the foundation of modern feminism. In her book, Wollstonecraft
claims for equality of educational opportunities that would place women in their
rightful social status. At the same time, she makes a defense of fundamental
human rights for both, men and women.
After the publication of Wollstonecrafts book A Vindication of the Right of
Women, new voices were raised to demand equal rights. Consequently,
womens movement was increasingly active. In the United States, the demand
for women enfranchisement was formulated for first time at the Senecal Falls
Convention in 18482.

Senecal Fall Convention was the first women's rights convention. It took place during July 19-20, 1848, in
Seneca Falls (New York, United States). Dumenil, 2012, p. 56

Once the Civil War was over, two women organizations emerged: the
National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage
Association. The first one was the most politically radical, to request
institutional changes such as to grant to married women property rights. Finally,
both groups merged in 1890 under the National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA), which along to the National Womans Party were
victorious in their suffrage demands, by 1920 (Buechler, 1990).
In Great Britain, the feminists cause
attracted the attention mostly of literate
women and men. The philosopher John
Stuart Mill introduced the first petition to the
Parliament asking for women suffrage by
1867. At the same time, the first womens
committee was established in Manchester
for the amateur scientist Lydia Becker. In
1897 the National Union of Womens
Suffrage

Society

was

formed,

where

numerous womens organizations across

the country converged. In contrast to their American counterparts, the British
suffragist became more politically militant. In 1902, Emmeline Pankhurst, a wellknown activist from Manchester, founded the Womens Social and Political
Union the leading organization for the womens suffrage. She and her
supporters were arrested on numerous occasions for promoting civil
disobedience and organized fierce protests.

The first movements victory came in 1918 when the right to vote was
granted to women over the age of 30. Finally, the suffrage right was equal for
women and men in 1920.

2. The United States and British Womens Suffrage Movements

contributions to Chiles feminist: an historical and analytical
perspective.

In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of literature describing

the womens suffrage movements in Latin America, nevertheless, it believe that
only a limited number of studies has been approach the individual
characteristics of these movements in each Latin American country.
Molineux (2001) claimed that conservative-catholic thinking was the social
background for every Latin American country in the early 20th century.
According to this author, the religious context relegated women to a single role
within the family space. Social legitimacy of women was only possible within the
sacred sacrament of marriage, being inseparable the relationship between
marriage-maternity, mirroring the Holy Family symbolism.
Catholic dogmas assigned to the woman-mother the task of morality
administration within their family environment. This reduction to the private
sphere kept the Latin American women at the margin of political and social
dilemmas, until the rise of emancipatory movements.

In the Chilean case, it believe that this social-religious background was

important but not decisive for the feminist development. Chilean women who led
the suffrage movement came from wealthy liberal families, with a clear distance
of the religious influence and close to trade unionists movements in the United
States and the British Labour Party (Kirkwood, 1982).
In this sense, it can be assumed that the Chilean suffrage movement unlike
other Latin American suffragist movements has its foundation in the middle
class rather than in the working class. Middle-class women were the first to
have access to higher education through an act called Decreto Amunategui3,
which in 1877 enabled women the right to higher education.
That was how Chilean women who for the first time had access to higher
education were able to conceptualize effectively strong arguments to enter into
a dialogue with the tiers of power of their time. Simultaneously, this intellectual
empowerment helped the Chilean women to establish a direct dialogue with the
inter
natio
nal
femi
nism
mov
eme
nt,

Amuntegui Act in 1877 was one of the most important advances for women's education in Chile. It
granted to women the right to access to university, in the same terms than men.
http://www.dibam.cl/Recursos/Contenidos%5CMuseo%20Hist%C3%B3rico%20Nacional%5Carchivos%5C
Decreto%20Amun%C3%A1tegui.pdf

especially with the British and American suffragist movements.

Conclusion