“Give us the women’s suffrage!” – 1908 to 1918

After universal and equal men's suffrage was introduced, the social-democratic women’s movement focussed its activities on women’s suffrage. Social democratic women campaigned at the mass demonstrations of May 1st and from 1911 on at the annual Women’s Day. At the Second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen in 1910, the decision to hold an annual International Women’s Day to fight for women’s suffrage was made. The first one was held in Vienna in 1911, with a protest march on the Ringstraße – according to the newspaper “Arbeiter-Zeitung” around 20.000 women – but men too – taking part.

The liberal women’s suffrage movement increasingly considered itself part of an international movement - with contacts to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, founded in 1904. In 1913 the opportunity for the Austrians to make their mark in the international women’s movement came, when an international women’s suffrage conference was held in Vienna on June 11st and 12th. During the conference a demonstration a "round trip" was arranged: “Over 120 automobiles and carriages, adorned with yellow flags and the slogan ‘Votes for Women’, were on the road.”

The political upheaval because of the end of the monarchy, the First World War and the emergence of the Republic finally created new conditions for women.