International Alliance of Women

Colorized picture of Women from the Swedish National Association for Women's Suffrage (LKPR) (with student caps) in front of IWSA's (now IAW's) banner at the suffrage conference in Stockholm in 1911. Gold and white were the primary colors of the mainstream or liberal international women's suffrage movement, and had been used by American liberal suffragists since 1867

IAW's first President Carrie Chapman Catt

Co-founder and Vice President, Dame Millicent Fawcett

The International Alliance of Women, formerly the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, is historically the most important international organization within the bourgeois-liberal women's rights movement. The decision for the establishment of the organization was taken in Washington in 1902 by suffragists frustrated at the reluctance of the International Council of Women to support women's suffrage.[5] As such the Alliance was a more progressive organization that emphasized legal and political equality between women and men from the onset. The Alliance was formally constituted during the Second conference in Berlin in 1904 as the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA), and was headquartered in London for much of its history.[6] Its founders included Carrie Chapman Catt, Millicent Fawcett, Helene Lange, Susan B. Anthony, Anita Augspurg, Rachel Foster Avery, and Käthe Schirmacher.

Amongst subsequent congresses were those held in Copenhagen (1906), Amsterdam (1908), London (1909), Stockholm (June 1911), and Budapest (1913).[7] The French Union for Women's Suffrage (UFSF), founded in February 1909, was formally recognized by the IWFA congress in London in April 1909 as representing the French suffrage movement.[8] IWSA also started its own monthly journal, the Jus Suffragii. IWSA, influenced by moderate liberal feminist Millicent Fawcett against the militancy of suffragettes in the style of Emmeline Pankhurst, refused membership to the WSPU at their 1906 Copenhagen meeting.[7]

In the interwar period, the organization was one of the three major international "bourgeois" women's organizations, alongside the International Council of Women (ICW) and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Of these, IWSA (IAW) was more progressive and oriented towards legal equality and equal citizenship than ICW. At the same time, IWSA was more conservative than WILPF. The organization's members were often associated with liberal parties and movements, but some were also progressive conservatives or liberal conservatives. Most IAW members held "similar views of society and societal change, which assumed a top-down approach, where the elite were cast as the true agents of development." At the same time IAW claimed to speak on behalf of all women.[9]

In the late 1920s, the organization changed its name to the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, and in 1946 this was altered to its current name, International Alliance of Women.[10][11] The first executive board included Carrie Chapman Catt (President), Anita Augspurg (1st Vice President), Donovan Bolden (2nd Vice President) and Rachel Foster Avery (Secretary).

The organization's first President Carrie Chapman Catt also founded the League of Women Voters in the United States during her presidency.

Since the onset of the Cold War the alliance's liberal internationalist outlook was strengthened. The alliance held firm anti-communist views and maintained a clear pro-Western stance throughout the Cold War.[3] Its second President, Dame Margery Corbett Ashby, wrote that "it was us or the communist women who would organize the Near East." In the alliance's journal International Women's News it was stated in 1946 that the support of the United Nations and democracy must "remain in the forefront of our programme."[9] Its third President Hanna Rydh worked actively to build cooperation in developing countries, partially to counteract communism.[9]

IAW's members in the Nordic countries were also members of the Joint Organization of Nordic Women's Rights Associations.

The original version of the logo of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, now IAW

Plate with the symbol and motto of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA). Text: "Jus Suffragii" (the right to vote). Lady Justitita holding a balance in her right hand.

The organization adopted gold (or yellow; Or in heraldry) as its color in 1904. The color, derived from the sunflower, is the oldest symbol of women's rights. It had been adopted by American suffragists in 1867 and became the principal color of the American women's suffrage movement, typically used alongside white.[12] Through the influence of the Alliance, gold and white became the principal colors of the mainstream international women's suffrage movement.

Colors were important in the iconography of the suffrage movement. The use of the color gold began with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony’s campaign in Kansas in 1867 and derived from the color of the sunflower, the Kansas state symbol. Suffragists used gold pins, ribbons, sashes, and yellow roses to symbolize their cause. In 1876, during the U.S. Centennial, women wore yellow ribbons and sang the song “The Yellow Ribbon.” In 1916, suffragists staged “The Golden Lane” at the national Democratic convention; to reach the convention hall, all delegates had to walk through a line of women stretching several blocks long, dressed in white with gold sashes, carrying yellow umbrellas, and accompanied by hundreds of yards of draped gold bunting. Gold also signified enlightenment, the professed goal of the mainstream U.S. suffrage movement.

— Amazons, Bluestockings, and Crones: A Feminist Dictionary[13]

• 1st, Washington, D.C., 1902
• 2nd, Berlin, 1904
• 3rd, Copenhagen, 1906
• 4th, Amsterdam, 1908
• 5th, London, 1909
• 6th, Stockholm, 1911
• 7th, Budapest, 1913
• 8th, Geneva, 1920
• 9th, Rome, 1923 [14]
• 10th, Paris, 1926
• 11th, Berlin, 1929
• 12th, Istanbul, 1935
• 13th, Copenhagen, 1939
• 14th, Interlaken, 1946
• 15th, Amsterdam, 1949
• 16th, Naples, 1952
• 17th, Colombo, Ceylon, 1955
• 18th, Athens, 1958
• 19th, Dublin, 1961
• 21st, England, 1967
• 22nd, Konigstein, West Germany, 1970
• 23rd, New Delhi, 1973

An International Congress is held triennially in the home country of a member organization, and elects the executive board. The current President and Chief Representative to the United Nations is Alison Brown. The executive board also includes the Secretary-General, the Treasurer and until 20 other members, including two Executive Vice Presidents as well as Vice Presidents for Europe, the Arab countries, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, Africa, and Regional Coordinators for North America, Pacific, and South East Asia.

The IAW represents about 45 organizations world-wide as well as individual members. The IAW was granted general consultative status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the highest level possible, in 1947,[15] and has participatory status with the Council of Europe.[16] The IAW has permanent representatives in New York, Vienna, Geneva, Paris, Rome, Nairobi and Strasbourg and addresses the European Union through its membership in the European Women's Lobby[17][18] in Brussels. The IAW's current representative to the UN headquarters, Soon-Young Yoon, is also chair of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York.

The IAW pays particular attention to the universal ratification and implementation without reservation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and its Optional Protocol. The current IAW Commissions deal with the topics: Justice and Human Rights; Democracy; Peace; Elimination of Violence and Health.

• List of suffragists and suffragettes
• List of women's rights activists
• List of women's rights organizations
• Women's suffrage organizations
• Timeline of women's suffrage
• Timeline of women's rights (other than voting)

• Rupp, Leila J. (2011), "Transnational Women's Movements", European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History
• Archives of International Alliance of Women are held at The Women's Library at the Library of the London School of Economics
• IAW Centenary Edition 1904–2004
• International Alliance of Women Records 1906-2009 Finding Aid, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College

• Official site
• International Alliance of Women records Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections
• International Woman Suffrage Alliance archives at the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
• Constitution in the Woman's Rights Collection, 1909. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.