The question of "female suffrage" has long been resolved in the United States, and--though sometimes more recently--in other democratic societies as well. For most people, certainly in the so- called Western world, the right of women to vote on a basis of equality with men seems obvious. A century ago this was not the case, even in America, and it required a long, arduous, and sometimes painful struggle before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920.