In the Funeral Oration of Pericles, Greek historian Thucydides wrote about participation in Athenian democracy: “We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character.” In Athens, all male citizens had equal political rights. However, no woman had this right; nor did any slave.
In many developed countries, the right to vote was first given to men who owned property. It took decades of struggle for working class men to get the right; women, even later. In 1851, American abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth asked bluntly: “Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman?” But American women had to wait for the vote for seven more decades.
