Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. At the beginning of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vote, increasing the number of those parties' potential constituencies. National and international organizations formed to coordinate efforts towards women voting, especially the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.
Matilde Navarro Hidalgo de Procel was an Ecuadorian physician, poet, and activist. Hidalgo was the first woman to exercise the right to vote in Latin America, and also the first to receive a Doctorate in Medicine. Hidalgo fought for the recognition of women's rights and is one of the most important women in Ecuadorian history. In 1973 she was paralyzed by a stroke, and she died in Guayaquil on February 20, 1974.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Ecuador have evolved significantly in the past decades. Both male and female forms of same-sex sexual activity are legal in Ecuador and same-sex couples can enter into civil unions and same-sex marriages.
Women's suffrage – the right of women to vote – has been achieved at various times in countries throughout the world. In many nations, women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, in which cases women and men from certain socioeconomic classes or races were still unable to vote. Some countries granted suffrage to both sexes at the same time. This timeline lists years when women's suffrage was enacted. Some countries are listed more than once, as the right was extended to more women according to age, land ownership, etc. In many cases, the first voting took place in a subsequent year.
As established in the Colombian Constitution of 1991, women in Colombia have the right to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote ; to hold public office; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to receive an education; to serve in the military in certain duties, but are excluded from combat arms units; to enter into legal contracts; and to have marital, parental and religious rights. Women's rights in Colombia have been gradually developing since the early 20th Century.
Clara Campoamor Rodríguez was a Spanish politician, lawyer and writer, considered by some the mother of the Spanish feminist movement. She was one of the main promoters for women's suffrage in Spain, included in the Spanish Constitution of 1931 in part owing to her advocacy.
Josefina Valencia Muñoz was a Colombian politician, and the first woman to be appointed governor of a Colombian department as Governor of Cauca, and the first woman to be appointed to a cabinet-level position as the 46th Minister of National Education of Colombia.
Maria Esmeralda Arboleda Cadavid was a Colombian politician, suffragist and the first woman elected to the Senate of Colombia, serving from 1958 to 1961.
Jenny María Estrada Ruiz was an Ecuadorian writer and journalist. She was the first woman to write an opinion piece for El Universo and she created the Julio Jaramillo Municipal Museum of Popular Music.
Diane Marie Rodríguez Zambrano is an Ecuadorian activist and politician who focuses on human rights and LGBT rights in Ecuador. She is the transgender chairwoman of the Silhouette X Association and a representative of the Observatory LGBTI of Ecuador. In 2009, she created a legal precedent in favor of the transgender population, to sue the Civil Registry to change her birth name to her present name. In 2017, she was elected as the first trans member of the National Assembly of Ecuador, and the second LGBT member after Sandra Alvarez Monsalve, who was elected as an alternate assembly member in 2009. She completed her mandate in 2021.
Zoila Ugarte de Landívar, also known by her pseudonym Zarelia, was an Ecuadorian writer, journalist, librarian, suffragist, and feminist. She was the first female journalist in Ecuador. Together with Hipatia Cárdenas de Bustamante, she was a key defender of women's suffrage in Ecuador.
Rosa Amelia Guzmán was a Salvadoran journalist, feminist and suffragette. Her 1950 speech to the Constituent Assembly was instrumental in women gaining, not just the right to vote, but the rights of citizenship on 14 September. She was one of the first four women elected to serve in the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador.
María Currea Manrique was a Colombian feminist, suffragist, politician, nurse and journalist. She was instrumental in pressuring for laws in Colombia which recognized women's right to citizenship, education, and enfranchisement. She was honored as the 1960 "Women of the Americas" by the Organization of American States and received many awards and honors during her lifetime. She was posthumously honored with an award distributed bearing her name each March 8 in honor of International Women's Day to the Colombian woman who has excelled in promoting women's rights in her community.
Amarilis Fuentes (1894–1955) was an Ecuadorian teacher and suffragist, who became one of the first women in the country to hold public office. She was instrumental as a teacher and pressed for the founding of libraries in Guayaquil. There are both a school and a street which bear her name in her hometown.
Women's suffrage in the Spanish Second Republic period was the result of efforts dating back to the mid-1800s. Women and men working towards universal suffrage had to combat earlier feminist goals that prioritized social goals, including access to education, political rights such as a woman's right to vote and equal wages. As a middle class developed and women gained more access to education, they began to focus more on the issue of suffrage but this was often around specific ideological philosophies; it was not tied into a broader working class movement calling for women's emancipation.
Women in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party were few in number, mainly as a result of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE)'s resistance to women's rights. The party had opposed the women's rights movement, seeing it as a bourgeois endeavor that interfered with their ability to work for labor rights. Despite warnings from prominent women about the problems related to this position, they re-affirmed it several times in the period prior to the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.
Women's suffrage in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition was constrained by age limits, definitions around heads of household and a lack of elections. Women got the right to vote in Spain in 1933 as a result of legal changes made during the Second Spanish Republic. Women lost most of their rights after Franco came to power in 1939 at the end of the Spanish Civil War, with the major exception that women did not universally lose their right to vote. Repression of the women's vote occurred nevertheless as the dictatorship held no national democratic elections between 1939 and 1977.
Gloria Menéndez Mina was a Guatemalan writer and women's rights activist who was involved in the women's suffrage movement in Guatemala. One of the first women to participate in journalism in the country, she directed the magazines Mujer and Azul. In her later career, she served as a press attaché in Mexico and was known for her book, Francisco Javier Mina, héroe de México y España.
General elections were held in Ecuador on 7 February 2021, established by the National Electoral Council (CNE) as the date for the first round of the presidential election and a vote on mining in Cuenca. Incumbent president Lenín Moreno, who had held the office since his victory over Guillermo Lasso in 2017, did not seek reelection. Although delaying the election due to the COVID-19 pandemic was discussed, the CNE announced on 15 December 2020 that the electoral calendar would not shift and confirmed elections would take place in February 2021.
The Matilde Hidaldo de Prócel Medal is one of the highest distinctions awarded by the Ecuadorian legislative branch. Originally by the Ecuadorian National Congress now the National Assembly; it is awarded to outstanding women that have distinguished themselves in political, cultural, educational, business, economic, scientific research, social and sports activities.
Feminismportal 
