Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage, also known as woman suffrage, refers to the right of women to participate in national and local politics directly or indirectly.

It was in the nineteenth through to the end of the twentieth century that most countries in the West enfranchised women.

In world history, the first political entity to enfranchise women was the U.S. state of Wyoming.

History of women's suffrage in Japan until the point women won the right to vote

Beginning in the last year of the Meiji period, momentum toward women's suffrage had gradually increased through the Taisho democracy period.

Yet in prewar Japan, these campaigns were unable to reach their primary goal of acquiring women's suffrage.

It is reasonable to say that it was thanks to the legacy of those women's movements that women's associations were re-formed as early as a few days after the war ended, demands for women's suffrage began anew, and several female members were elected to the Diet during the general election held in the following year.

The first appearance of women's suffrage in Japan

On September 20, 1880, after a three-month campaign by the Kamimachi town assembly, the prefectural governor gave in and permitted women's suffrage (of heads of household only), the first such breakthrough in Japan's history.

Because in those days women's suffrage had been granted only in a few places worldwide, for example in Wyoming Territory in the U.S., British South Australia and the Pitcairn Islands, this movement was among only a handful of cases in the world where women's suffrage was won.

International timeline of passage of women's suffrage vis-a-vis national elections

Accordingly, only women who were householders became eligible to vote for the first time in Japan.