WOMEN.RIGHTS – FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO THE PRESENT

For decades, Swiss women did not have the same civil and political rights as men. The road to the introduction of women’s suffrage in 1971, and the adoption of a constitutional article on gender equality in 1981, was rocky and highly controversy. Ever since the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789 proclaimed ‘free men’ to be politically emancipated, women have been fighting for equality. And the issue is still debated by women and men today. Fifty years after the introduction of women’s suffrage in Switzerland, the exhibition at the National Museum Zurich turns the spotlight on the struggle for women’s rights in this country – a struggle that has waxed and waned for more than 200 years.