100 Years of Women’s Suffrage

At the conference celebrating 100 years of women’s suffrage, which was held in Tyrol on 17 and 18 February 2018 and organised by the Austrian Freedom Party’s Education Institute and the FPÖ Women’s Initiative (IFF), Carmen Schimanek (Member of the National Council, Chairwoman of the FPÖ Women’s Initiative and the Austrian Freedom Party’s Speaker for Women’s Affairs) welcomed some high-profile guest speakers: Beate Hartinger-Klein, the Federal Minister for Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection, and Gertraud Zeindl, a historian from Tyrol State Archive.

Beate Hartinger-Klein talked about day-to-day political issues in women’s politics, while Gertraud Zeindl shed light on the introduction of women’s suffrage and the resistance to it. A discussion followed on the lessons that can be learned from the past and on the strength of women in politics when quotas are removed from the equation. The historical drama “Suffragette” was then shown at Metropol Kino in Innsbruck to round off the event.

Carmen Schimanek was delighted about the event: “It was a highly fascinating 2018 Women’s Conference, and the participants expressed nothing but enthusiasm for our speakers, the subsequent discussion and the film screening. The steadily rising participant numbers also illustrate the fact that the opportunities for women in the FPÖ family are appealing to more and more ladies.”