User:Lml2wbn1/sandbox

= Women’s suffrage in Ecuador =

Women’s suffrage was ensured in the Constitution of 1929, making Ecuador the first Latin American country to give women the right to vote. The constitutional change happened after Dr. Matilde Hidalgo requested to vote in the legislative elections of 1924. The application was accepted by the Council of State, making her the first Latin-American woman to vote in a national election.

In the 2017 elections, 5,427,261 women voted, compared to the 5,206,173 men.

History
Until 1884, none of the Ecuadorian Constitutions referenced genders when establishing citizenship rights requirements. At this time there were no cases in which women tried to vote. The Constitution of 1884 was the first to introduce a limitation regarding a person’s gender. It established that only “men who knew how to read, write, were 21 and over, or are or have been married” were considered citizens. The inclusion of the restriction sparked a debate about whether or not there were women who wanted to vote, with the conservative majority in the Assembly expressing their stance.

The Constitution of 1897, prepared by the notably liberal Assembly removed all references to gender with respect to citizenship rights requirements. Additionally, they put emphasis on improving the condition of women in society. The transcript of the Assembly’s discussions include the following note, from June 3rd, 1897: “In the first days of the convention a lot of work has been done to improve the condition of women. They’ve been granted citizen rights and have the ability to run for any public position including the Department of State”. In theory women had citizenship rights, however it was commonly accepted at the time to restrict their rights in the electoral setting.

Matilde Hidalgo
Matilde Hidalgo is known to be the first Ecuadorian woman to have completed University and a Doctorate degree. She graduated from the Central University of Ecuador. During the time of voter registration for the legislative elections of 1924, she tried to register to vote in the elections in Machala, but officials stopped her because she was a woman.

Hidalgo made a formal application and used the Constitution of 1897 to argue that there were no restrictions regarding gender in having citizenship rights. Her application was passed to the Council of State, who eventually sided with her and allowed her to vote in the election on May 10th, 1924. This was the moment that she became the first Latin-American woman to vote in a national election.

The Council of State provided three types of arguments to accept Hidalgo’s application -- legal, social, and moral. Legally, according to the Constitution of 1897 and in the words of Government Minister Francisco Ortiz Ochoa “there is no legal prohibition for women who register in the voter registry, so as a result, the aforementioned woman should be registered as she has requested for the use of her right”. In the social field, women were finally being considered members of society. They were also given the chance to use the law in isolated cases to be family estate owners. The moral arguments, based on the opinion of the Council that allowed for women’s suffrage, raised the public morale of the country and possibly worked better for the men who made a significant impact on civic responsibilities.

The ruling was printed on the front page of an edition of the Guayaquil newspaper titled El Universo. It praised Hidalgo’s career and described her as “one of our highest peaks of the mountain of feminine mentality in Ecuador”. El Telegrafo also supported the decision of the Council of State, although other editorialists of El Universo showed their opposition to women’s suffrage. In Quito, the editorial El Dia was in favor of the ruling, while El Comercio was against it.

The majority of editorials that opposed the feminine vote claimed that women “were not prepared” to vote, or should not be involved in politics because “the home would not be able to function without them”. There were many humorous messages that mentioned that men would be in charge of the household due to the absence of their wives.

Ecuadorian Constitution of 1929
The public debate that took place due to Matilde Hidalgo’s case was taken to the Assembly of 1928 -- which was also primarily liberal. It guaranteed women’s suffrage. Article 13 of the Constitution, published in the next year, established that every Ecuadorian citizen was a “man or woman, older than 21 years old, and could read and write”.

In the following months, the political parties started campaigns to promote female registration in the voter registries. The Conservative Party managed to attract the majority of women, claiming in a statement that “it is far from the truth that the female vote is harmful, rather the female vote would contribute to the moralizing of the elections”. The Liberal Party based their strategy on recalling that the Assembly that granted suffrage to these women was majority liberal. = References =