On September 9, 1947, the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation made the female vote law. The Executive Branch was the one who presented the project, which was part of more than forty laws that Juan Domingo Perón had announced within the state planning known as the Five-Year Plan.On August 21, 1946 the project was approved by the Senate Chamber, so that on September 9 of the following year the Chamber of Deputies would do the same, after a marathon debate.
Days later, on September 23, 1947, Law 13,010 was promulgated, establishing the latter as the National Day of The Political Rights of Women, the date on which the equality of political rights between women and men was recognized, including the right of women to elect and be elected to all national political offices, and established universal suffrage in that country.
It was first put into effect in the 1951 presidential election.
During the 1946 election campaign, both the Peronist alliance and the anti-Peronist alliance included in their platforms the recognition of women’s suffrage. In an unprecedented event in Argentine history, where Perón was accompanied during the electoral campaign by his wife, Eva Duarte de Perón, who even spoke at one of the closing acts of the campaign, held in Luna Park.
Eva had founded the radio workers’ union the previous year, being elected general secretary, becoming one of the few women trade unionists who managed to gain access to the leadership of a union. Already by the mid-40’s Evita, as she would be immortalized, became the voice of the people and the representative of the working class and from that place urged women to form their own autonomous political party. Then in 1946, Perón, inaugurating the sessions of the National Congress, sent along with other projects, the right of equality between men and women, and the right to women’s suffrage, which until then was a secret and mandatory civil duty that demanded men under the Sáenz Peña Law of 1912. Chronology of Women’s Suffrage in the World Women’s suffrage has been approved (and revoked) several times in different countries of the world. However, it should be noted that it was granted in some countries, before universal suffrage, that is, to people of all ethnicities. New Zealand was the first country to grant this right in 1893, followed by Australia, Finland, where women could also be part of the parliament, Norway, Denmark and other European countries. The United States obtained its Law in 1920, while of the Latin American countries, Ecuador was the one who set the precedent in 1929, followed by Cuba and Central America. Oriente granted it only a year before Argentina in 1946. However, some nations like Kwait only in 2005 approved women’s suffrage. And more extreme cases such as those of Saudi Arabia, where women do not have any kind of right. To celebrate the anniversary that summons us today, we leave you the advertising of 1951 that announced women’s suffrage. Women can, and should, vote (1951)
