What role did the Women’s Suffrage Movement Play during the “Quiet Revolution” in the Bahamas?
Notable women such as Dame Doris Johnson, Mary Ingraham, Eugenia Lockhart, Mabel Walker and Georgianna Symonette has made countless triumphs toward the equal rights of all women in the Bahamas. In particular all of these women mentioned before were major persons in the Women’s Suffrage Movement in the Bahamas. This movement’s main purpose was to ensure that all women would have a right to practice the franchise. However, this is not the only thing that resulted in the hard work of the women apart of this movement. In fact, even the amount of times you could have voted and the men’s vote was affected positively through the efforts of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Because of the Women’s Suffrage Movement’s Positive effects on the voting of all citizens’, we can clearly see their pivotal role in the “Quiet Revolution”.
In the mid twentieth, the Bahamas was gaining strength towards independence, both indirect and direct protesting. In the elections before 1962, women, who were more than half of the adult population, did not have the right to vote. The Progressive Liberal Party Leader, Lynden Pindling, knew that the only way to majority rule was if the women of the Bahamas were given the right to vote. The entire point of the “Quiet Revolution” was to achieve majority rule and Independence, and the Women’s Suffrage Movement had everything to do with the success of not only the P. L. P., but also the Bahamas’ Progression against both gender and racial discrimination.
The Term Paper on Civil Rights Movement Blacks Freedom Vote
The Civil Rights Movement started with the The Montgomery Bus Boycott. The Boycott officially started on December 1, 1955. Rosa Parks Was a Educated women she attended the laboratory school at Alabama State College. Even with that kind of education she decided to become a seamstress because of the fact that she could not find a job to suit her skills. Rosa Parks was arrested December 1955. Rosa ...
The first official Women’s Suffrage movement meeting took place in 1957and within the next year had put together a 3000 signature petition requesting women’s right to vote be made a law. During this time, the request for the right for all Bahamian men over twenty one to vote was made as well. Here, we can see clearly the influential role of the Women’s Suffrage Movement because through this movement the appeal of all men to vote was made.
Next, in 1960 Doris Johnson, a dynamic trailblazer in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, made another request in the name of the Women’s Suffrage Movement to speak to the Members of Parliament, which was denied. However, Doris Johnson was allowed to make her address in the Magistrates court. We can clearly see that the Women’s Suffrage Movement was very proactive in their pursuit toward winning the franchise.
In the following years to come, with the support of the Progressive liberal Party, who realized the importance of the women’s vote in the general election, the decision law was passed allowing women to vote, effective the next general election. We can now see the strength of the Suffrage movement being heavily displayed because in a matter iof four years, they achieved their ultimate goal. However this goal did not stop the strength of women in conquering yet another battle, politics Women now were contesting for seats in Parliament starting with Doris Johnson, the first women ever in the Bahamas to contest a seat in the House of Assembly. even though her efforts were soundly dismissed she was still appointed as the president of the Senate in 1968, making her the first woman Senator and the first woman President of the Senate. Continuing in this trend, Janet Bostwick become the first female Member of Parliament in 1982 and later on in 1997, Rome Johnson becomes the first Speaker of the House.
In conclusion, we can clearly see the role that the women’s suffrage movement played in the development of the Bahamas. Even though the women of the Bahamas were vocal in their request, their affect in the “Quiet Revolution” is felt entirely, effecting not only the rights of women but making the history of the Bahamas what it is today.
