Getting the vote: When women campaigned against women

March 8, International Women’s Day, is when women from all over the world proudly come together in solidarity. Surely this would always have been the case regarding the right to vote? Not in Switzerland. One woman who did not believe women should have the right to vote is Rosmarie Köppel-Küng, who joined the League of Swiss Women against Women’s Suffrage at the end of the 1950s. A paradox ensued: female opponents of women’s suffrage found themselves having to be politically active – in order not to be politically active. There were limits to what they could do, though. While supporters were able to attract media attention with creative and sensational activism, opponents were limited to adverts, roundtable talks and podium discussions. They let themselves be carried away by the spirit of the times and tried their hand at coarse rhetoric, but then soon backtracked as this wasn’t considered very feminine. Opponents argued primarily with the natural distribution of roles.