| Federation of Swiss Women’s Clubs. Woman’s Suffrage League. |
Switzerland’s existence and welfare depend on the harmony of the German, the French, and the Italian elements of the population. Switzerland is accustomed to considering three racial elements; out of three different demands it produces one acceptable compromise. Naturally the Swiss woman’s rights movement has steadily developed in the most peaceful manner. No literary manifesto, no declaration of principles of freedom is at the root of this movement. It is supported by public opinion, which is gradually being educated to the level of the demands of the movement. The woman’s rights movement began in Switzerland as late as 1880; in 1885 the Swiss woman’s club movement was started. The Federation of Women’s Clubs is made up of cantonal women’s clubs in Zurich, Berne, Geneva, St. Gallen, Basel, Lausanne, Neuchâtel, and in other cities, as well as of intercantonal clubs, such as the “Swiss Public Utility Woman’s Club” (Schweizer Gemeinnütziger Verein), “la Fraternité,” the “Intercantonal Committee of Federated Women,” etc. Recently a Catholic woman’s league was formed. Since 50 per cent of the Swiss women remain unmarried, the woman’s rights movement is a social necessity. In the field of education the authorities have been favorable to women in every way. In nine cantons the elementary schools are coeducational. There are public institutions for higher learning for girls in all cities. In German Switzerland (Zurich, Winterthur, St. Gallen, Berne) girls are admitted to the higher institutions of learning for boys, or they can prepare themselves in the girls’ schools for the examination required for entrance to the universities (Matura). There are 18 seminaries that admit girls only; the seminaries in Küssnacht, Rorshach, and Croie are coeducational. Women teachers are not appointed in the elementary schools of the cantons of Glarus and Appenzell-Outer-Rhodes. On the other hand in the cantons of Geneva, Neuchâtel, and Ticino 59 to 66 per cent of the teachers in the elementary schools are women. They are given lower salaries than the men. The canton of Zurich pays (by law) equal wages to its men and women teachers, but the additional salary paid by the municipalities and rural districts to the men teachers is greater than that paid to the women. In its elementary schools the canton of Vaud employs 500 women teachers, some of whom are married. The Swiss universities have been open to women since the early sixties of the nineteenth century. As in France, the native women use this right far less than foreign women, especially Russians and Germans. The total number of women studying in the Swiss universities is about 700. Most of the Swiss women that have studied in the universities enter the teaching profession. Women are frequently employed as teachers in high schools, as clerks, and as librarians. Sometimes these positions are filled by foreign women.
The first woman lecturer in a university in which German is the language used has been employed in Berne since 1898. She is Dr. Anna Tumarkin, a native Russian, having the right to teach in universities æsthetics and the history of modern philosophy. In 1909 she was appointed professor. In each of the universities of Zurich, Berne, and Geneva, a woman has been appointed as university lecturer. Women doctors practice in all of the larger cities. There are twelve in Zurich. The city council of Zurich has decided to furnish free assistance to women during confinement, and to establish a municipal maternity hospital. In Zurich there has been established for women a hospital entirely under the control of women; the chief physician is Frau Dr. Heim. The practice of law has been open to women in the canton of Zurich since 1899, and in the canton of Geneva since 1904. Miss Anna Mackenroth, Dr. jur., a native German, was the first Swiss woman lawyer. Miss Nelly Favre was the second. Miss Dr. Brüstlein was refused admission to the bar in Berne. Miss Favre was the first woman to plead before the Federal Court in Berne, the capital. As yet there are no women preachers in Switzerland. In Lausanne there is a woman engineer. In the field of technical schools for Swiss women, much remains to be done. The commercial education of women is also neglected by the state, while the professional training of men is everywhere promoted. Women are employed in the postal and telegraph service. The Swiss hotel system offers remunerative positions and thoroughly respectable callings to women of good family. In 1900 the number of women laborers was 233,912; they are engaged chiefly in the textile and ready-made clothing industries, in lacemaking, cabinetmaking, and the manufacture of food products, pottery, perfumes, watches and clocks, jewelry, embroidery, and brushes.[68] Owing to French influence, laws for the protection of women laborers are opposed, especially in Geneva. The inspection of factories is largely in the hands of men. Home industry is a blessing in certain regions, a curse in others. This depends on the intensity of the work and on the degree of industrialism. The trade-union movement is still very weak among women laborers. According to the canton the movement has a purely economic or a socialist-political character. Only a few organizations of workingwomen belong to the Swiss Federation of Women’s Clubs. Since 1891 the men’s trade-unions have admitted women. The first women factory inspectors were appointed in 1908. According to the census of August 9, 1905, 92,136 persons in Switzerland are engaged in home industry; this number is 28.3 per cent of the total number of persons (325,022) engaged in these industries. The foremost of the home industries is the manufacture of embroidery, engaging a total of 65,595 persons, of whom 53.5 per cent work at home. The next important home industries are silk-cloth weaving, engaging 12,478 persons (41 per cent of the total employed); watch making, engaging 12,071 persons in home industry (or 23.7 per cent of the total); silk-ribbon weaving, engaging 7557 persons (or 51.9 per cent of the total). The highest percentage of home workers is found among the straw plaiters (78.8 per cent); then follow the military uniform tailors (60.1 per cent), the embroidery makers (53.5 per cent), the wood carvers and ivory carvers (52 per cent), the silk-ribbon weavers (51.9 per cent), and the ready-made clothing workers (49.3 per cent). The International Association for Labor Legislation, as everybody knows, is trying to ascertain whether an international regulation of labor conditions is possible in the embroidery-making industry. The statistics just given indicate the importance of this investigation for Switzerland. The statistics of the home industries of Switzerland will be found in the ninth issue of the second volume of the Swiss Statistical Review (Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Statistik).
The new Swiss law for the protection of women laborers has produced a number of genuine improvements for the workingwomen. A maximum working day of 10 hours and a working week of 60 hours have been established. Women can work overtime not more than 60 days a year; they are then paid at least 25 per cent extra. The most significant innovation is the legal regulation of vacations. Every laborer that is not doing piecework or being paid by the hour must, after one year of continuous service for the same firm, be granted six consecutive days of vacation with full pay; after two years of continuous service for the same firm the laborer must be given eight days; after three years of service ten days; and after the fourth year twelve days annually. A violation of this law renders the offending employer liable to a fine of 200 to 300 francs ($40 to $60).
In 1912 a new civil code will come into force. Its composition has been influenced by the German Civil Code. The government, however, regarded the “Swiss Federation of Women’s Clubs” as the representative of the women, and charged a member of the code commission to put himself into communication with the executive committee of the Federation and to express the wishes of the Federation at the deliberations of the committee. This is better than nothing, but still insufficient. When the civil code had been adopted, every male elector was given a copy; the women’s clubs secured copies only after prolonged effort.
The property laws in the new Swiss Civil Code provide for joint property holding,—not separation of property rights. However, even with joint property holding the wife’s earnings and savings belong to her (a provision which the German cantons opposed). On the other hand, affiliation cases are admissible (the French cantons opposed them). The wife has the full status of a legal person before the law and full civil ability, and shares parental authority with the father. French Switzerland (through the influence of the Code Napoleon) opposes the pecuniary responsibility of the illegal father toward the mother and child. Official regulation of prostitution has been abolished in all the cantons except Geneva; several years ago a measure to introduce it again was rejected by the people of the Canton Zurich by a vote of 40,000 to 18,000. Geneva is the headquarters of the International Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prostitution. In 1909 the abolition of the official regulation of prostitution was again demanded in the city council.
By a vote of the people the Canton Vaud accepted a measure prohibiting the manufacture, storage, and sale of absinthe.
Recently the Swiss women have presented a petition requesting that an illicit mother be granted the right to call herself “Frau” and use this designation (Mrs.) before her name. The benevolent purpose of this movement is self-evident. Through this measure the illicit mother is placed in a position enabling her openly to devote herself to the rearing of her child. With this purpose in view, not less than 10,000 women have signed a petition to the Swiss Federal Council, requesting that a law be enacted compelling registrars to use the title “Frau” (Mrs.) when requested to do so by the person concerned. Thirty-four women’s clubs have collectively declared in favor of this petition.
Women exercise the right of municipal suffrage only in those localities whose male population is absent at work during a large part of the year (as in Russia). Women can be elected as members of school boards and as poor-law administrators in the Canton Zurich; as members of school boards in the Canton Neuchâtel. The question of granting women the right to vote in church affairs has long been advocated in the Canton Geneva by the Reverend Thomas Müller, a member of the Consistory of the National Protestant Church, and by Herr Locher, Chief of the Department of Public Instruction of the Canton Zurich. In the Canton Geneva, where there is separation of church and state, agitation in favor of the reform is being carried on. The women in the Canton Vaud have exercised the right to vote in the Église libre since 1899, and in the Église nationale since 1908. Since 1909, women have exercised the right to vote in the Église évangélique libre of Geneva. The woman’s suffrage movement was really started by the renowned Professor Hilty, of Berne, who declared himself (in the Swiss Year Book of 1897) in favor of woman’s suffrage. The first society concerning itself exclusively with woman’s suffrage originated in Geneva (Association pour le suffrage feminin). Later other organizations were formed in Lausanne, Chaux de Fonds, Neuenburg, and Olten. The Woman’s Reading Circle of Berne had, since 1906, demanded political rights for women, and the Zurich Society for the Reform of Education for Girls had worked in favor of woman’s suffrage. On May 12, 1908, these seven societies organized themselves into the National Woman’s Suffrage League, and in June affiliated with the International Woman’s Suffrage Alliance. The Report of the International Woman’s Suffrage Congress, Amsterdam, 1908, explains in a very lucid manner the political backwardness of the Swiss women: Switzerland regards itself as the model democracy; time has been required to make it clear that politically the women of this model state still have everything to achieve. The meeting of the Committee of the International Council of Women in Geneva (September, 1908) accomplished much for the movement.
The Swiss Woman’s Public Utility Association, which had refused to join the Swiss Federation of Women’s Clubs because the Federation concerned itself with political affairs (the Public Utility Association wishing to restrict itself to public utilities only), was given this instructive answer by Professor Hilty: “Public utility and politics are not mutually exclusive; an educated woman that wishes to make a living without troubling herself about politics is incomprehensible to me. The women ought to take Carlyle’s words to heart: ‘We are not here to submit to everything, but also to oppose, carefully to watch, and to win.’”