page_title: Women's suffrage
section_title: Philippines
hierarchical_section_title: Women's suffrage / By continent / Asia / Philippines
caption_attribution_description: English: Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon (center) signs the Women’s Suffrage Bill following the 1937 plebiscite, as his wife Aurora Aragon Quezon (left) looks on. Also witnessing this historic moment were Speaker Jose Yulo, Executive Secretary Jorge B. Vargas and Vice President Sergio Osmeña.
context_page_description: Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the mid-19th century, aside from the work being done by women for broad-based economic and political equality and for social reforms, women sought to change voting laws to allow them to vote. National and international organizations formed to coordinate efforts towards that objective, especially the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, as well as for equal civil rights for women.
  Many instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. The first province in the world to award and maintain women’s suffrage continuously, was Wyoming Territory in 1869, and the first sovereign nation was Norway in 1913. In the years after 1869, a number of provinces held by the British and Russian empires conferred women’s suffrage, and some of these became sovereign nations at a later point, like New Zealand, Australia, and Finland. Women who owned property gained the right to vote in the Isle of Man in 1881, and in 1893, women in the then British colony of New Zealand were granted the right to vote.
context_section_description: The Philippines was one of the first countries in Asia to grant women the right to vote. Suffrage for Filipinas was achieved following an all-female, special plebiscite held on April 30, 1937. 447,725 – some ninety percent – voted in favour of women's suffrage against 44,307 who voted no. In compliance with the 1935 Constitution, the National Assembly passed a law which extended the right of suffrage to women, which remains to this day.
caption: Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon signing the Women's Suffrage Bill following the 1937 plebiscite
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