Inequality The march for women’s suffrage in Switzerland

Frau mit Trillerpfeife und Schlapphut an einer Demonstration, Schwarzweiss — A different kind of whistle blower
(Keystone)

An hour of making noise in front of the Swiss parliament buildings was enough to find its way into the history books.

On March 1, 1969, thousands of women loudly demanded the vote.

On that day exactly 50 years ago, 5,000 women and men stood in the square and at 3pm gave a concert of whistles.

Demonstration mit Fahnen vor dem Bundeshaus, Schwarzweiss — Marching to parliament in the capital, Bern.
(Keystone)

The event was controversial. Although the two main women's associations supported the cause, they did not take part in the rally, fearing riots and revenge by men at the ballot box who might be provoked to reject women's suffrage.

Frauen schauen aus Zugfenstern, Schwarzweiss — Many women travelled from across the country to take part.
(Keystone)

The protestors read out a resolution in all four Swiss national languages, demanding full voting rights at the federal and cantonal level.

Rednerin und Transparente an einer Demonstration, Schwarzweiss — Emilie Lieberherr, the head of the committee behind the "March to Bern", would eventually become a politician, winning a seat in the Senate.
(Keystone)

It would take two years before a bill was finally presented to the (male) electorate and adopted by a two-thirds majority. However, it took another 20 years for women's suffrage to be implemented in all cantons.

Frauen an einer Demonstration, Schwarzweiss — Young and old took part.
(Keystone)

International Women's Day Swiss women’s ‘absurd’ struggle hits the big screen

Switzerland’s women didn’t win the right to vote until 1971, not usually considered a laughing matter. But a new film puts a comedic spin on it.

By Sibilla Bondolfi

swissinfo.ch and agencies/raf

Tags

Sign up for our free newsletters and get the top stories delivered to your inbox.

Copyright

All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.

As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.

Navigation

Skiplink Navigation

Main Features

Search function

Inequality The march for women’s suffrage in Switzerland

International Women's Day Swiss women’s ‘absurd’ struggle hits the big screen

Tags

Neuer Inhalt

SWI swissinfo.ch on Instagram

subscription form

Copyright

Function	Example	Search result
Search for exact term	"money-laundering", "Roger Federer"	Results include exact spellings of "money-laundering" and "Roger Federer"
Search for all terms	Roger Federer	Results include "Roger" and "Federer"
Either-or search	money-laundering	Results include "money" or "laundering"
Search for one term and not the other	money -laundering	Results include "money" but NOT "laundering"
Search for word stem	sun*	Results include words with the same base like "sun", "suns", "sunshine", "sunny"
Search with placeholder for letter	wom*n	Results include all possible words: "woman", "women"