We are standing in front of the building from which teacher Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková sent one petition after another for women's suffrage 115 years ago. These petitions were most often signed by women from educational circles, such as students and teachers from Vesna, but also by others. At the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Moravian Provincial Assembly was the most important legislative institution for the whole of Moravia, and it was here that the feminist movement of the time fought a tough battle for women's equality. But to better understand the whole situation, we need to start from the beginning.
In the context of democratisation processes and liberal reforms, civil rights, including voting rights, began to slowly spread in most European countries, including Austria-Hungary, after the mid-19th century. This ceased to be the privilege of the political and educated elites, and in 1907, it was definitively extended to all male inhabitants in the western part of the Habsburg Empire. In the case of women, however, their opportunities to participate politically in these events during the period under review tended to diminish. The parameters of women's political engagement at that time were shaped by social ideas about the functioning of the family, which reflected the view that the head of the family was the man, who decided on all matters concerning the household, and that the woman was completely subordinate to him. Women could therefore only vote in theory (in practice, no one really counted on this) and had to deal with situations such as not having formal custody rights over their own children, not being able to inherit, etc.
In the individual crown lands of the monarchy, the situation regarding women's suffrage was very complicated and, surprisingly, also varied. Different parameters applied between individual lands, and different conditions applied to municipal and imperial elections on the one hand and provincial elections on the other. It is worth noting that Moravia had some of the strictest conditions regarding women's participation in political life. An amendment to the electoral rules for the Moravian Provincial Assembly in 1905 clearly stated that women did not have the right to vote or stand for election. In Silesia and Bohemia, the electoral law was not amended, and women could theoretically claim their rights, which happened in 1912 when Božena Viková-Kunětická was elected to the Bohemian Provincial Assembly. But let us return to Moravia. Although Czech and German activists from Brno and elsewhere submitted petitions for women's suffrage at every provincial election, debates on the issue were essentially ended by an amendment to the electoral law in November 1905, which clearly stipulated that only noblewomen (through a male representative) had the right to vote in the provincial assembly and that passive suffrage was restricted to men. The restrictive provisions were further reinforced by the aforementioned amendment to the electoral law for elections to the Austrian parliament in 1907, which granted universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage to all men, but excluded women from this process without exception. After 1907, Moravian women had no choice but to informally participate in the running of political parties or to try to find loopholes in the system and nominate female teachers for candidate lists, as teachers could vote and be elected by virtue of their profession. In 1913, the feminist lobby, led by Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková and Leonore Sinaiberger, submitted a petition to the Moravian Provincial Assembly to include female teachers and academics (e.g., teachers from Vesna) in the voter lists for the upcoming provincial elections. Although this action was also unsuccessful, before the outbreak of World War I, Czech and German women in Brno compiled numerous other petitions on the occasion of every municipal, provincial, or imperial election, or tried to lobby provincial and imperial deputies on this issue, or negotiated directly with the prime minister in Vienna.
Although women were very close to having their voting rights recognized before 1914, it was not until the liberal Czechoslovak constitution of 1920 that their active and passive voting rights were finally recognized. Even so, it failed to eradicate the long-standing stereotypes of the society of the time, which, during the economic crisis of the 1930s, did not hesitate to take away the jobs of married women, whose financial security was once again to be provided by their husbands. These long-standing processes were only reversed by the communist regime.
Hana Krutílková, Moravské zemské muzeum
