Women's Suffrage in Switzerland (1971): A Late Federal Vote

Women’s suffrage in Switzerland was approved in a national referendum on 7 February 1971, when about two-thirds of male voters agreed that women should be able to vote and stand in federal elections. Switzerland was one of the last countries in Europe to take this step, decades after its neighbours. The long delay, and the even later holdout of one small canton until 1990, made the Swiss case a well-known example of how direct democracy can both slow and legitimise social change.

Background: why Switzerland waited

In most countries women’s suffrage was granted by a parliament. In Switzerland a change to the federal constitution requires a popular vote and a “double majority”: a majority of voters nationwide and a majority of the cantons. Until 1971 the only people who could vote in that referendum were men, so women’s political rights depended on persuading the male electorate directly.

Several factors made this hard. Many rural and Catholic areas held strongly to the idea that public life was a male duty linked to military service. Some cantons still governed themselves through the Landsgemeinde, an open-air assembly where citizens voted by raising their hands and men traditionally carried a sword or bayonet as proof of their citizenship. Switzerland’s neutrality also meant it had not gone through the upheavals of the two world wars, which had helped bring women the vote in countries such as Britain, Germany and the United States (see the Nineteenth Amendment).

The 1959 defeat and cantonal breakthroughs

Women’s organisations, notably the Swiss Association for Women’s Suffrage founded in 1909, campaigned for decades. The lawyer and writer Iris von Roten published a sharp critique of women’s position, Frauen im Laufgitter (“Women in the Playpen”), in 1958, which caused a public scandal but sharpened debate.

The first federal referendum on the question was held on 1 February 1959. Roughly 67 per cent of male voters rejected it, and only three cantons voted in favour: Vaud, Neuchâtel and Geneva. Those French-speaking cantons then introduced women’s suffrage at cantonal level, Vaud and Neuchâtel in 1959 and Geneva in 1960. Basel-Stadt followed in 1966, and other cantons in the late 1960s.

Pressure for change in the late 1960s

By the late 1960s the issue had become an international embarrassment. In 1968 the Federal Council proposed signing the European Convention on Human Rights with a reservation excluding women’s political rights. Women’s groups protested strongly, and on 1 March 1969 several thousand people joined a “March on Bern” outside the federal parliament, demanding the vote without delay.

The government withdrew the idea of a reservation and put a new constitutional amendment to the voters. The wider social changes of the period, including the growth of women’s employment and the protest movements of 1968, also shifted opinion.

The 1971 vote

On 7 February 1971 about 621,000 men voted yes and about 324,000 voted no, a yes share of roughly 65.7 per cent on a turnout of around 58 per cent. The amendment was approved by 15.5 of the 22 cantonal votes. It was rejected in Uri, Schwyz, Glarus, St Gallen and Thurgau and in the half-cantons of Obwalden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Appenzell Innerrhoden.

The change took effect quickly. In the federal elections of 31 October 1971, ten women were elected to the National Council and one, Lise Girardin of Geneva, to the Council of States.

Appenzell Innerrhoden’s holdout

The federal vote did not automatically change cantonal rules, and several cantons kept men-only voting for local matters. Appenzell Ausserrhoden’s Landsgemeinde finally accepted women’s suffrage in April 1989. In neighbouring Appenzell Innerrhoden the male assembly rejected it again on 29 April 1990.

Women from the canton took the case to the Federal Supreme Court. On 27 November 1990 the court ruled unanimously that the exclusion breached the equality guarantee in the federal constitution, and that the cantonal constitution must be read as including women. Women in Appenzell Innerrhoden voted at the Landsgemeinde for the first time in April 1991.

Consequences

The 1971 vote opened the way to further reforms. In 1981 voters approved an equal rights article in the constitution, and in 1984 Elisabeth Kopp became the first woman elected to the seven-member Federal Council. In later decades women’s representation in the Swiss parliament rose steadily, and in 2019 a nationwide women’s strike recalled the earlier campaigns.

Timeline

• 1909: Founding of the Swiss Association for Women’s Suffrage.
• 1 February 1959: Male voters reject federal women’s suffrage by about 67 per cent; Vaud, Neuchâtel and Geneva vote yes.
• 1 March 1969: “March on Bern” protests against a planned reservation to the European Convention on Human Rights.
• 7 February 1971: About 65.7 per cent of male voters approve federal women’s suffrage.
• 31 October 1971: First federal elections in which women vote; eleven women elected to parliament.
• 30 April 1989: Appenzell Ausserrhoden’s assembly approves cantonal women’s suffrage.
• 27 November 1990: Federal Supreme Court orders Appenzell Innerrhoden to admit women voters.

Why it matters

The Swiss vote of 1971 showed that a democracy with deep traditions of citizen participation could still exclude half its adults for generations. It remains a reference point in European debates about equality, and a reminder of how recently full political rights were won in parts of the continent, as later moments such as the Icelandic Women’s Day Off also highlight.