Women Finally Win Vote in Swiss State
Some shouted approval and some jeered on Sunday as the men of Appenzell Outer-Rhodes state gathered in this village and decided, by show of hands, to give women the right to vote.
“I can look my wife in the eye again,” said one man, reflecting the relief of many of the 5,000 men who voted. Four times in the past 17 years, the men had rejected women suffrage.
Neighboring Appenzell Inner-Rhodes now is the only one of Switzerland’s 26 sovereign states, or cantons, that still denies women the vote on local issues ranging from budget questions to alcohol laws.
Women won the right to vote in national elections in a 1971 referendum.
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