Exhibition 100 Years of Women's Suffrage "Women on the Move - Political Posters"
Opening on Monday, 5 November 2018, 4 pm, Chemnitz City Hall, exhibition room on the ground floor
On Monday, 5 November at 4 pm, the network of Chemnitz women's initiatives and the City of Chemnitz Equal Opportunities Officer, Pia Hamann, invite all interested parties to the opening of the "Women on the Move" exhibition at Chemnitz City Hall. The poster exhibition, designed by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, can be seen until 30 November during the opening hours of the town hall. It impressively shows the demands for women's political participation in the three most important social upheavals of the 20th century: 1918/19, 1945/49 and 1989/90. After the welcoming address by Lord Mayor Barbara Ludwig and a representative of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, there will be a performance by the women's initiatives on the first female deputies in Chemnitz city politics.
Representatives of the media are cordially invited to attend.
On 12 November 1918, women were given what they had been unjustly denied until then: the right to vote and stand for election. "Gentlemen and ladies! It is the first time in Germany that women can speak to the people in parliament as free and equal ..." With these words, Marie Juchaz, the future founder of the Workers' Welfare Association, was the first woman to open her speech in the Weimar National Assembly on 19 February 1919. It was a long road to get there. Women's suffrage had been fought for and won by protagonists from various wings of the women's movement since the middle of the 19th century.
Clara Zetkin, Luise Otto Peters and Hedwig Dohm are just three of the pioneers who began to fight for women's suffrage in an organised way from the 1890s onwards. This was not easy, because in some countries of the German Empire, association laws were in force that expressly prohibited women from engaging in political activity. These restrictions were lifted in 1908.
The election to the German National Assembly took place on 19 January 1919; it was the first nationwide election based on proportional representation and the first in which women had the right to vote and stand for election. For the first time, 37 women from 5 parties were elected to the constituent National Assembly.
The first women in the Chemnitz city parliament, which was constituted on 12 January 1919, were:
- Ernestine Pfütze, housewife, for the Social Democrats (SPD)
- Helene Wagner, seamstress, for the Social Democrats (SPD)
- Elise Bräuer, senior teacher, for the German National People's Party (DNVP)
- Amalie Schlosser, pastor's wife, for the German Democratic Party (DDP)
Further information:
Pia Hamann, Equal Opportunities Officer City of Chemnitz
Tel. 0371 4881380pia.hamann(at)stadt-chemnitz.de
http://www.geschichte-der-sozialdemokratie.de/demokratie/download-ausstellung-frauen-im-aufbruch/