A century since British women won the vote, meet five women who fought for democracy around the world
When Vigdis Finnbogadottir faced a fraught decision over whether she would run for President of Iceland she says she did something “only women would do” she stayed up all night and vacuum-cleaned the entire house as she juggled arguments in her head.
She went on to become the world’s first democratically elected female head of state in 1980 and still holds the record for the longest serving one.
“Some ladies came up to me later and said ‘Please forgive me I didn’t vote for you'," recalls the elegant 87-year-old former President when we meet in cold wintry Reykjavik as part of a series of conversations recorded for BBC Radio 4, Her Story Made History, to mark a century since British women won a limited right to vote.
“But we would do it now,” the Icelandic women reassured her, in what she describes as a sign of their growing confidence in themselves.
Thousands of miles away, in the baking heat of rural Liberia, women of all ages crowd around 79-year-old Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. They’ve gathered, with brightly attired traditional dancers and musicians, to express an effusive thank you to “Madame President” as she nears the end of her second and last term as Africa’s first elected female President.
Some ladies came up to me later and said ‘Please forgive me I didn’t vote for you - but we would do it now'
Vigdis Finnbogadottir
“When I saw the dancing and smiles I felt, ‘we’ve come a long way,’ “ Sirleaf reflects when I sit down a few hours later with a politician I first met in the 1980’s during her first foray into politics. “I thought about the women of 2005 who had been through so much and needed someone to give them hope.” The former banker came to power in the wake of two decades of dictatorship and back-to-back civil wars of monstrous brutality. An estimated 70 percent of Liberian women are said to have been raped.
An extraordinary grassroots campaign to get women out to register, and vote, made all the difference in a 67-year-old grandmother’s victory over a popular young soccer star. Sirleaf’s decades of experience in the hard knocks of local politics, as well as at the highest levels of global financial institutions, also bolstered the women’s rallying cry that “men have failed us.”
Women’s vote, and unrivalled experience, didn’t count enough in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 race for the White House. It underlines how there is no single story for success which crosses cultures and continents.
But a century on from women’s battle for a basic right to cast a ballot, there are constants in interviews in capitals as far apart in every way, from Reykjavik to Riyadh. Most of all, there’s been a heavy price to pay by feisty women who lead the way. And for all the historic landmarks, it’s disconcerting to see how much hasn’t changed much for women the world over.
For all the historic landmarks, it’s disconcerting to see how much hasn’t changed much for women the world over
Outspoken Afghan MP Shukria Barakzai narrowly escaped a suicide bombing on her vehicle in Kabul in 2014 which was said to be the work of a militant group linked to the Taliban. In a tearful conversation in Oslo, where the 44-year-old activist now serves as Ambassador, she spoke of her palpable sorrow.
Persistent threats from “war lords, drug lords, crime lords” forced her to leave her country and her campaigning at home for political and social change in a deeply traditional society.
“Shukria Barakzai has always been the fighter,” she explains. “If she stops her fight, she will not exist.”
And there are also the less deadly, but daily, indignities.
“I put on body armour, virtually,” recounts Monica McWilliams as we sit next to her kitchen in her Belfast home which gives pride of place to a big poster of US civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King. She was one of two women who sat at the negotiating tables which forged the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. “I knew I was going to be humiliated, that I was going to be subjected to the most derogatory comments, and occasionally physically pushed around.”
I knew I was going to be humiliated, that I was going to be subjected to the most derogatory comments, and occasionally physically pushed around
Monica McWilliams
Humour became women’s weapon when men mooed like cows, or hurled insults like “Women go home and have babies.” McWilliams and women in the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition created a contest called 'Insult of the Week'. On one occasion, she and fellow politician Pearl Sager rose in a public forum to sing Stand by your Man.
In ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, it was a challenge just to get out of the house. Madeha al-Ajroush was one of the first trail blazers to boldly slip behind a steering wheel in 1990 to campaign for women’s right to drive. It took until last September, and a royal decree, to win this most ordinary of rights.
“So much struggle, so much suffering for one basic demand and I mourn all these years when we had to go through all this,” she reflects at a momentous time in the Kingdom when restrictions on women are slowly easing, and some opportunities opening up.
All five remarkable women in Her Story Made History made a difference. That includes everything from peacemakers helping to shape the prose and priorities in the Northern Ireland deal, to women reaching the highest offices in different lands.
But it came with considerable cost. Sirleaf’s former husband, jealous of her soaring success in the Finance Ministry, often descended into a violent rage and even took a gun to her head twice. Barakzai’s husband secretly took a second wife but she remains in her marriage to keep access to their five children.
And political progress can be hard to keep. In 1975, 90 percent of Icelandic women turned out for an historic nation-wide protest called “Women’s Day Off” when they stopped working inside and outside the home to highlight their right to equal wages. In 2016, Icelandic women took to the streets again for the same cause, with less turnout and less impact (although Iceland does have the world’s lowest gender pay gap).
We return now to total male domination, but I have a feeling women won’t allow that
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
“Great human successes are never repeated in the same way, and never succeed in the same way,” reflects Finnbogadottir.
And, after 12 years of a female President in Liberia, no woman stood in the 2017 elections to choose Sirleaf’s successor.
“We return now to total male domination, but I have a feeling women won’t allow that, they are now empowered,” she says hopefully.
And just in case any would-be female Presidents are looking for lessons in history, the decision Finnbogadottir reached, after a night of vacuuming, was not to run. But her supporters decided otherwise.
The rest is history.
Lyse Doucet presents Her Story Made History on BBC Radio 4 at 9am from Monday 1 to Friday 5 January 2018
