Swiss women celebrate 40 years of suffrage

From Swiss Info:

Swiss women have come a long way since 1971, the year they were granted the right to vote at the federal level.

Exactly 40 years after their first chance to do so, around 125 representatives of the Swiss political, social and economic scenes celebrated the milestone in Bern on Monday.

On February 7, 1971, 66 per cent of Swiss men voted in favour of allowing women to vote as well. The first opportunity came on June 6 of that year – when nationwide issues included environmental protection and financial regulations.

Many women who remember that momentous year were at the Bernerhof on Monday to reminisce and discuss what still needs to be done.

“This is a very important event because we still have a number of problems and challenges in terms of equality. Some examples include equal pay for equal work and the glass ceiling,” said former parliamentarian Rosmarie Zapfl-Helbling, president of alliance F, an umbrella organisation for 140 women’s groups in Switzerland.

Swiss Women Dominate Cabinet

From BBC News:

Switzerland's parliament has voted a new minister into the government, giving the cabinet a majority of women for the first time.

The election of Simonetta Sommaruga, 50, a Social Democrat, is a historic step in a country where women only got to vote on a national level in 1971.

Ms Sommaruga becomes the fourth female in the seven-member Federal Council.  Another absent post was filled by a man - Johann Schneider-Ammann.

The seven members of the Swiss cabinet have recently always been drawn from the four leading parties.

Switzerland: Women Take On Politics

From SwissInfo:

Both houses of parliament have appointed women to chair their meetings over the next 12 months – a first in Swiss history.

Pascale Bruderer, a member of the centre-left Social Democratic Party, was elected speaker of the House of Representative.

The 32-year-old Bruderer entered politics at a local level 12 years ago and joined the Swiss parliament in 2002.

The Senate will be headed by Erika Forster-Vannini of the centre-right Radical Party. The 65-year-old businesswoman has served more than 20 years in parliaments on local, cantonal and national levels. She became a Senator 14 years ago.

The prestigious posts of speaker are rotated among the political parties.

On December 2, a joint session of both houses is due to elect Economics Minister Doris Leuthard next year's Swiss president. She succeeds Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz.

Swiss women obtained the right to vote and be elected only in 1971.

Female Swiss Guards

From the Telegraph:

The Swiss Guard is to consider recruiting women into the world's smallest army for the first time in the papal security force's 500-year history.

The new commander of the force, whose distinctive blue, yellow and red uniforms and ceremonial halberds grace the precincts of the Vatican, said that obstacles that had kept the force all-male could be overcome.

His surprise comments, which follow the refusal of his predecessors to contemplate women recruits, were made on the eve of a swearing-in ceremony at the Vatican for 32 new members of the force.

Reburial for Noted Activist

From Taipei Times:
"A well-known one-time prostitute who campaigned for the rights and dignity of sex workers was given an honored place of rest on Monday in the same cemetery where Protestantism’s John Calvin is buried, drawing criticism from some.

Griselidis Real, who died in 2005, was buried in the presence of 200 people at the Cemetery of the Kings, which is reserved for individuals who profoundly marked Swiss or international history.

Prostitution is generally legal in Switzerland, with red light districts in some cities. But Real worked for years to improve working conditions.

She helped found Aspasie, an association which describes itself as promoting solidarity with sex workers. Aspasie says she compiled a massive collection of newspaper clippings, films and other documentation about prostitution over 30 years and that her four children donated the database to the association on her death."

Swiss Miss Exonerated

Further to my June post "Rehabilitation for Swiss Miss" comes this article from The Independent:

Anna Goeldi, the last women to be executed in Europe for witchcraft, has been finally exonerated and her death considered "judicial murder".

Swiss finally clear the last "witch" beheaded in Europe:
"Anna Goeldi was executed for being a witch more than 220 years ago, the last one beheaded in Europe. On Wednesday, the Swiss cleared her name. The parliament of the Swiss canton (state) of Glarus decided unanimously to exonerate Goeldi as a victim of "judicial murder", said Josef Schwitter, a government spokesman.

Several thousand people, mainly women, were executed for witchcraft between the 14th and 18th centuries in Switzerland, and elsewhere in Europe. Yet Goeldi's trial and beheading in the village of Mollis was in 1782, when witch trials had largely disappeared from the continent.

Goeldi, a maidservant for a prominent burgher, Johann Jakob Tschudi, was convicted of "spoiling" the family's daughter, causing her to spit pins and have convulsions. Yet Tschudi, a doctor and magistrate, was said to have had an affair with Goeldi; if that had come out, his reputation would have been seriously damaged.

The case was brought to light through a book by a local journalist, Walter Hauser. The move to exonerate came after a long debate in the eastern Swiss region, and was taken after talks with the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. Last year, the canton's executive branch and the Protestant church council refused even to consider exoneration, but the Glarus parliament urged the executive branch to reconsider. In June, the Glarus executive branch asked parliament to ratify the exoneration.

The Glarus government said the Protestant church council, which held the trial, had no legal authority and had decided in advance that Goeldi was guilty. She was executed even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning.

A museum featuring Goeldi opened in Mollis last year on the 225th anniversary of her death. "

Rehabilitation for Swiss Miss

From: Europe's Last Executed Witch to be Cleared
"Swiss authorities are preparing to exonerate the last woman in Europe to be executed for witchcraft.

Anna Goeldi, a maid in the small alpine region of Glarus, was beheaded in 1782 for being a witch after she confessed under torture to conversing with the devil and poisoning the daughter of the house. Campaigners claim she was the victim of a conspiracy between the eastern town's judical and Protestant church authorities.

Goeldi was employed by the family of a rich married politician, who after having an affair with her denounced her for witchcraft claiming she made his daughter spit pins and suffer convulsions. The trial and beheading in the village of Mollis was carried out at a time when witch trials had disappeared from most places in Europe.

She was executed even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for nonlethal poisoning, it added. Goeldi's torture and execution was even more incomprehensible as it happened in the Age of Enlightenment when "those who made the judgment regarded themselves as educated people," the government said in a statement.

Several thousand people, mainly women, were executed for witchcraft between the 14th and 18th centuries in Switzerland, as they were elsewhere.

The ruling will be referred to the Swiss Parliament for final approval."