“Just turned 60! The story of women’s suffrage in Geneva in posters” brochure

From 28 February to 28 March 2020, as part of Equality Week 2020 in the City of Geneva and Ms Sandrine Salerno’s year as Mayor, the Agenda 21-Sustainable City Service, Geneva Library and the Bureau for the Promotion of Equality and the Prevention of Violence (BPEV) joined forces to present the exhibition “Just turned 60! The story of women’s suffrage in Geneva in posters”.

On 6 March 2020, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote and to stand for office in Geneva. Through the posters of the different voting campaigns as well as several historical analyses, this exhibition aimed to retrace the long fight for this fundamental right. 

Brochure in printed and digital format

To give everyone the chance to (re)discover this exhibition, the City of Geneva will publish a dedicated brochure on 4 June 2020 in printed and digital format. It is a symbolic date which, as highlighted by Mr Alfonso Gomez, Administrative Councillor responsible for equality issues in the City of Geneva since 1 June 2020, reminds us of the “obduracy of the barriers to obtaining and respecting women’s rights. Despite the presence of some 500,000 women during the strike of 14 June 2019, little progress has been made. Mirroring the fight for the right to vote and to stand for office, the fight for equal pay, better working conditions and the acknowledgement of unpaid work continues to encounter structural challenges as well as persistent and deeply-rooted gender stereotypes”.

It also offers Mr Alfonso Gomez the opportunity to underline the fact that he wishes to “pursue the determined action taken over the past thirteen years by Ms Sandrine Salerno in favour of gender equality”. The texts that are part of the exhibition were prepared by the historian Sonia Vernhes Rappaz, while the brochure also contains an original historical analysis by Irène Herrmann, Professor of Transnational Swiss History at the University of Geneva. 

The printed brochures can be consulted at Geneva Library  and in the municipal libraries of the City of Geneva. It is also available for download below.