Swiss Review 1/2021

Swiss Review / February 2021 / No.1 5 give women the vote. In her 2020 book “Jeder Frau ihre Stimme”, historian Caroline Arni argues that women in Switzerlandwere deliberately deprived of political rights, and that this status quo was reinforced time and again. “This was no accident,” she writes. Political scientist Werner Seitz believes that Switzer- land’s “male chauvinist culture” had a part to play, influ- enced by the old myths and legends surrounding the na- tion’s founding fathers. An entrenched idea of gender roles riddled all social classes too – as lawyer Emilie Kempin- Spyri found out to her dismay back in 1887 when she was Half a century later – a round of applause for Hanna Sahlfeld- Singer in the National Council chamber during a special event devoted to women. Archive photo: Keystone, 2019 ter social security for women and reducing the speed limit on roads. Sahlfeld-Singer had an indirect impact outside the chamber simply by virtue of the fact that womenwere now entering parliament. She had her second child in 1972 – the first-ever National Councillor to give birth while in office. The press covered the story, mentioning that her children were not Swiss citizens on account of their foreign father. Sahlfeld-Singer herself had had to apply to remain Swiss when shewasmarried. This discrimination against women affected many binational families. The ruling was abol- ished in 1978. “After that, many Swiss women living abroad could also make their children Swiss citizens,” she says. “Both novel and audacious” Switzerland, Portugal and Liechtenstein were the last Eu- ropean countries to give women political rights. Germany introduced women’s suffrage in 1918, France in 1944 – to- wards the end of a world war in both cases. Switzerland, spared the convulsions of war, imposed the referendum hurdle instead. Yet this does not completely explain why it took so long for one of the world’s oldest democracies to Hanna Sahlfeld-Singer on her first day in the National Council – with SP member of the Council of States Matthias Eggenberger (lighting up) and SP National Councillor Rolf Weber in attend- ance. Archive photo: Keystone, 1971