Women's History Book Reviews

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Suffrage & Beyond
International Feminist Perspectives
Edited by Caroline Daley & Melanie Nolan
New York University Press, ©1994.

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These series of essays reassess women’s suffrage movements in an attempt to overcome history’s unfortunately marginalized of the struggles for women’s vote. Although most works focus on the United States, Europe, Australian and New Zealand, there are informative pieces from Japan and South America, and some non-Western references in the essay by Ellen Dubois on suffragist internationalism. What strikes the reader is the long, frustrating struggle of the women’s efforts to achieve what should be considered a basic human right. The causes of resistance, of final successes, and the various tactics used by women of different economic, religious, and political contexts are explored, as is the tangible effect the right to vote had on women’s lives.

This resource is particularly valuable given the recent granting of the right to vote to women in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.