[Xmca-l] Re: Women's right to elect and to stand for election in general elections

[David Kellogg]

Ulvi:

The arc of history does not simply bend only very very slowly towards
justice; it's more of a zig-zag than a curve.

In 1718, Swedish women could vote and be elected, so long as they were
taxpayers. But of course most women could not own property unless their
menfolk dropped dead first, and only property holders paid taxes, so
essentially this was the world's first suffrage for widows.

In the 1870s, New Zealand became the first "self-governing colony" where
women could both vote and hold office in elections, but since New Zealand
didn't actually become a country until 1907 this was essentially a sandbox
democracy (like the oxymoron "self governing colony".

I think it's worth noting that the complexity of human progress is also
reflected on the other side of the barricades: in my own country, the
movement for women's suffrage in the late nineteenth century had a strongly
racist wing (the argument was that WHITE women would allo white men to
overcome the revolutionary reconstruction that was happening after black
suffrage became law in the South, because women were more conservative than
men).

Note that even in Turkey, the Kurdish areas have always had women's
suffrage in direct measure to their autonomy from Ankara--today, the
Kurdish ruled republics in Northern Syria and Northern Iraq are probably
the only place in the whole middle east where women can truly vote and be
elected, and there are actually quotas that ensure that this happens. These
areas exist mostly because the Kurds who run them (PKK sympatheizers now
influenced more by feminism and anarchism than by Marxism!) were forced out
of Turkey during  Erdogan's genocidal campaign against Kurds.

And now, a question for YOU. I am reading about Basil Bernstein's theories
of the intersection of class and pedagogy, and it turns out that quite a
bit of this has to do with MUSIC education. Do you know anything about this?

David Kellogg
Macquarie University

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 4:03 AM, Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please.
>
> When and where in human history.
>
> I know.
>
> The first is different than the second, stand for.
>
> And also, there is the differentiation between local and general elections.
>
> But the question is there: When and where did women obtain the full right
> to elect and to stand for election?
>
> Best,
> Ulvi
>
> P.S. Claimed to be in first in my native country, Turkey! Nowadays
> unbelievable!! That in 1934, for both to stand for and in general
> elections. It is true. But is it the first in world history, as is taught
> today in primary education in Turkey? Hint: No, it isn't.
> Then, in Britain, in Germany, in US, in France, in Russia, when?
>