Podcast: Why women’s suffrage took so long

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Three women discuss how women got the right to vote in Switzerland.

Switzerland is celebrating a rather awkward anniversary this year. It was only 50 years ago that women got the right to vote at the federal level. What was the hold-up? And what’s still holding women back today?

In this episode host Susan Misicka talks with Regula StämpfliExternal link, a Swiss political scientist and co-host of “Die Podcastin” – a German-language feminist podcast. As Stämpfli points out, not having the right to vote also meant that Swiss women were unable to study, choose a profession, have a bank account, or even to retain their own citizenship if they married a foreigner. “Not having suffrage meant women were stuck in a half-way slave status. And I think that kind of violence is only recognized 50 years afterwards.”

We also hear from Irish author and SWI swissinfo.ch contributor Clare O’DeaExternal link. Her historical novella, Voting Day, is set in and around the Swiss capital, Bern. It takes place on a cold, damp Sunday in February 1959 – a national referendum day – when Swiss men rejected women’s right to vote.

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