First women in parliaments and governments in Central Europe

The study focuses on the first women MPs and ministers in Central Europe. Before the First World War, the women’s suffrage movement had also emerged here, but had not yet achieved any great success. The real turning point for women’s representation came with the First World War. In 1918 and 1919, women throughout the region were granted the right to vote and to elect representatives at parliamentary level. In Austria, and in part of Czechoslovakia, it was mainly women from the Social Democratic movement who played a decisive role. In these two countries, the proportions were similar in the early years. Women elected to the first Polish parliament were more mixed. Most of them came from the Polish independence movement and generally had intellectual family backgrounds. By contrast, the majority of the Austrian Social Democrat women MPs were indeed from working-class backgrounds. In the conservative Hungary between the two world wars, there were also women members of parliament, but in very limited numbers. This was probably related to the particularities of the system and society of the time. Finally, the study also deals with women in government (ministers, state secretaries). Here again, it was mainly women from the left who played a pioneering role.