The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1994, Qupperneq 8

8
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING, 1994
long been able to own land. Women
in Iceland were granted the right to
vote in municipal and congregational
elections as early as 1881 and in
1902 became eligible to hold office in
these local affairs. By the 1890’s
there were three women’s colleges in
Iceland, maintained at public ex-
pense, and women were eligible to
graduate as Bachelors of Arts at the
college in Reykjavik.
Viewed from the vantage point of
the 1990’s, and keeping in mind the
accepted social pattern of women
today, it seems incredible that within
the memory of some of Canada’s
population women did not have the
right to vote. There existed strong
opposition to granting the franchise
to women. Only following a great deal
of hard work, and with much
perseverance were those women
successful in bringing about a reform
that we now take for granted.
During the latter part of the
nineteenth and the earlier part of the
twentieth centuries references to
election results as “the voice of the
people” were only references to a
portion of the population. On the
basis of property ownership and sex
many Canadians were excluded from
taking any part in political life.
Furthermore, “while women could
and did own property in their own
right, they were barred from many
types of work and community
activity, mostly by custom and
unwritten law rather than by any
acts on the statute books.” For the
most part, “they remained, in the
eyes of society at that time, virtually
non-persons. But times changed, and
the ferment of ideas that spread
across the country in the last decade
of the 1800’s brought a small, but
growing demand for equality of the
sexes, the first target being the right
to vote.”
The Prairie Provinces were the first
to achieve women’s suffrage. “The
feeling generally prevailed that
women as well as men had opened
up the country, had shared the
experiences of settling a new land,
and were, therefore, entitled to a
voice in making the laws.”
On January 27, 1916, the Provin-
cial Legislature passed a bill granting
full political privileges to the women
of Manitoba. Next day, royal assent
was given, and by so doing made
history, not only for Manitoba, but
for Canada, as this was the first
province to make its women full
citizens by granting them the
provincial suffrage.
Icelandic suffrage workers became
involved early on, played an active
and, for a time, a prominent role in
the campaign for woman suffrage in
Manitoba. In fact, “for the first faint
stirrings, it is necessary to go back to
the beginning of the 1890’s when a
group of Icelandic women founded
the pioneer suffrage organization in
the province, and for that matter in
the entire West. Although they
sometimes collaborated with English-
speaking groups in delegations to the
government, they carried on their
own campaign for a quarter of a
century by frequent petitions to the
legislature and through articles in
the Icelandic press.”
In Iceland, the first woman
suffrage worker was Briet BjamheQ-
insdottir (1856-1924). In 1885 she
wrote the first article on woman
suffrage to be written by a woman.
It’s publication in the newspaper,
Fjallkonan, marked the beginning of
the woman’s movement in Iceland.
BjarnheSinsdottir emphasized the
importance of education, and par-
ents’ responsibility in ensuring that
daughters, as well as sons, were
sufficiently prepared for economic
independence and for independent
thinking. In 1895 she founded