1910 Republican Women

NO WAY TO SUFFRAGE. WHY?

After the revolution won its sudden and unexpected victory in Lisbon, an interim government was invested in power to prepare elections, and a new Constitution was in the making.
It was time to answer to great expectations of the people, men and women, who took part in the birth of the regime - only the second republican revolution in Europe, after the one that changed France and the world.
The main electoral laws, one after the other, excluded all women from the political universe, regardless of their loud (but orderly...) protest and their indignation.
Soon in 1910, the "League" presented a petition for a restricted suffrage for women.
In 1911, after the refusal of their voting, some of the most active members, under the leadership of Ana de Castro Osório, decided to quit the "League" and set up a new independent organization: the Committee on Feminist Propaganda ("Comissão de Propaganda Feminista") open to feminists of all sorts, regardless of their political or religious beliefs...
In 1912, the Senate did approve the vote for women over 25, having concluded university, secondary or special study courses. It was too less, considered the "Comissão" and many feminine voices, united in protest.
But not even that very modest piece of legislation went victoriously through the other Chamber...
In 1913 a proposal to that same scope was presented by Jacinto Nunes and defeated.
Only 21 years old male citizens, who knew how to read and write were electors.
In 1914 the National Council of Portuguese Women was set up - the strongest and the best internationally connected feminine organization, that would endlessly fight for suffrage during the first Republic and that would resist for over 20 years under the dictatorship of the so called New State (Estado Novo) - until it was banned in 1947.
In 1915, Ana Osório's "Committee” made a new petition: the vote just for women graduated by universities (not many, in those days, but even so, no gain of cause obtained...)
Electoral legislation of 1918 and 1919 left the situation unchanged on what concerns women. In between a new petition addressed to President Sidónio Paes got no positive answer.
In 1924, President Teixeira Lopes was present at the first Congress on Feminism and Education, and gave the feminists all his support - as other presidents had done before him.
The Republic was on the verge of collapse - time to provide feminine suffrage would soon come to an end.
In the meantime, almost all countries in Europe, most of them traditional monarchies, had accepted in their Constitutions and laws equal political participation for both genders.
Salazar the supreme antifeminist, antidemocratic, old fashionable conservative politician - to say the least - simply decided to follow the mainstream and in 1931 educated women were given the right to vote.