The International Council of Women (ICW) is a women's organization working across national boundaries for the common cause of advocating human rights for women. In March and April 1888, women leaders came together in Washington D.C., with 80 speakers and 49 delegates representing 53 women's organizations from 9 countries: Canada, the United States, Ireland, India, United Kingdom, Finland, Denmark, France and Norway. Women from professional organizations, trade unions, arts groups and benevolent societies participate. National councils are affiliated to the ICW and thus make themselves heard at the international level. The ICW enjoys consultative status with the United Nations and its Permanent Representatives to ECOSOC, ILO, FAO, WHO, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNCTAD, and UNIDO.
The International Alliance of Women is an international non-governmental organization that works to promote women's rights and gender equality. It was historically the main international organization that campaigned for women's suffrage. IAW stands for an inclusive, intersectional and progressive liberal feminism on the basis of human rights and liberal democracy, and has a liberal internationalist outlook. IAW's principles state that all genders are "born equally free [and are] equally entitled to the free exercise of their individual rights and liberty," that "women's rights are human rights" and that "human rights are universal, indivisible and interrelated."
The International Congress of Women was created so that groups of existing women's suffrage movements could come together with other women's groups around the world. It served as a way for women organizations across the nation to establish formal means of communication and to provide more opportunities for women to ask the big questions relating to feminism at the time. The congress has been utilized by a number of feminist and pacifist events since 1878. A few groups that participated in the early conferences were The International Council of Women, The International Alliance of Women and The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Jørgine Anna Sverdrup"Gina" Krog was a Norwegian suffragist, teacher, liberal politician, writer and editor, and a major figure in liberal feminism in Scandinavia.
Jessie Chrystal Macmillan was a suffragist, peace activist, barrister, feminist and the first female science graduate from the University of Edinburgh as well as that institution's first female honours graduate in mathematics. She was an activist for women's right to vote, and for other women's causes. She was the second woman to plead a case before the House of Lords, and was one of the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Jeni Bojilova-Pateva, also transliterated as Zheni Bozhilova-Pateva, was a Bulgarian teacher, writer, women's rights activist, and suffragist, who became involved in the pacifist movement. After graduating with teaching credentials in 1893, she began her profession, but was barred from teaching when a law was passed in 1898 that limited the rights of married women. She turned to activism and journalism, becoming involved in the international women's movement that year. A highly prominent feminist, she was one of the founders of the Bulgarian Women's Union in 1901. During 1905 in Burgas, she founded "Self-Awareness", a feminist group, and served as its chair for 25 years. As editor of the Women's Voice she published articles on developments in the women's movement in Bulgaria and abroad, as well as about issues affecting women. Throughout her career, she published over 500 articles and books.
The Church League for Women's Suffrage (CLWS) was an organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom. The league was started in London, but by 1913 it had branches across England, in Wales and Scotland and Ireland.
Clara Dorothy Bewick Colby was a British-American lecturer, newspaper publisher and correspondent, women's rights activist, and suffragist leader. Born in England, she immigrated to the US, where she attended university and married the former American Civil War general, later Assistant United States Attorney General, Leonard Wright Colby. In 1883, she founded The Woman's Tribune in Beatrice, Nebraska, moving it three years later to Washington, D.C.; it became the country's leading women's suffrage publication. She was an advocate of peace and took part in the great peace conference at San Francisco during the exposition. She also spoke on behalf of the soldiers of the Spanish War. During the Spanish–American War (1898), she was officially appointed as war correspondent, the first woman to be so recognized.
First Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held in 1902 in Washington D.C. to consider the feasibility of organizing an International Woman Suffrage Association.
Second Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held in Berlin, Germany in June 1904. The main features of the second conference were the formation of "The International Woman Suffrage Alliance," and the adoption of the Declaration of Principles.
Fourth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held from 15 - 21 June 1908, at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Sixth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was held in June 1911 in Stockholm, Sweden. It was led by the organization's president, Carrie Chapman Catt.
The Seventh Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance met in Budapest, Hungary, 15–21 June 1913. As had been the case with all the preceding International Woman Suffrage Alliance conferences, the location had been chosen to reflect the status of woman suffrage: a place where the prospects seemed favorable and liable to influence public sentiment by demonstrating that it was now a global movement. When it had been announced at the sixth congress that the next one would be held in the capital of Hungary, it was felt that the location seemed very remote, and there were concerns that Hungary did not have representative government. In fact, it proved to be one of the largest and most important conventions. Furthermore, the delegates stopped en route for mass meetings and public banquets in Berlin, Dresden, Prague and Vienna, spreading its influence ever further afield.
The Eighth Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance occurred June 6–12, 1920, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Little Entente of Women (1923–1930) was an umbrella organization for women's groups in the Balkan region and one of the first organizations to try to reunite Eastern European women from the former Austro-Hungarian region to work on changing their legal, socio-economic and political status. Though they succeeded in submitting draft legislations, change was slow to occur. After six years, the organization disbanded and the women funneled their efforts into other international feminist organizations.
Edith Charlotte Bury Palliser, was a campaigner for women’s suffrage and rights in Great Britain and Ireland.
The Women's suffrage movement in India fought for Indian women's right to political enfranchisement in Colonial India under British rule. Beyond suffrage, the movement was fighting for women's right to stand for and hold office during the colonial era. In 1918, when Britain granted limited suffrage to women property holders, the law did not apply to British citizens in other parts of the Empire. Despite petitions presented by women and men to the British commissions sent to evaluate Indian voting regulations, women's demands were ignored in the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms. In 1919, impassioned pleas and reports indicating support for women to have the vote were presented by suffragists to the India Office and before the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and Commons, who were meeting to finalize the electoral regulation reforms of the Southborough Franchise Committee. Though they were not granted voting rights, nor the right to stand in elections, the Government of India Act 1919 allowed Provincial Councils to determine if women could vote, provided they met stringent property, income, or educational levels.
Amy Sanderson née Reid (1876–1931), was a Scottish suffragette, national executive committee member of the Women's Freedom League, who was imprisoned twice. She was key speaker at the 1912 Hyde Park women's rally, after marching from Edinburgh to London, and, with Charlotte Despard and Teresa Billington-Greig, was a British delegate to the 1908 and 1923 international women's congresses.
