In many ways, World War I was a watershed when it came to women’s political rights. Before the war, women had the right to vote in only a few countries. In 1893, New Zealand became the first country in the world in which women won the right to vote, although in Sweden some women had voting rights since the 18th century. The first female members of parliament were elected in Finland in 1907. Yet thanks to the suffragette movement – the 1910s saw the first International Women’s Days –, women’s contribution to the war economies, and revolutionary worker’s movements around the world, many national parliaments adopted universal suffrage during or following the war.
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