Editing Women's rights (section)

==== Oceania ====

===== Australia =====

[[File:Catherine Helen Spence.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.65|Australia's first female political candidate, [[South Australia]]n suffragette [[Catherine Helen Spence]] (1825–1910)]]
The history of [[women's rights in Australia]] is a contradictory one: while Australia led the world in women's suffrage rights in the 19th century, it has been very slow in recognizing women's professional rights – it was not until 1966 that its [[marriage bar]] was removed.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au/lrrSecure/Sites/Web/pre_liberation/other/restrictions_pop.htm | title=Pre -'liberation' – Restrictions | access-date=9 July 2017 | archive-date=23 August 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180823111530/http://lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au/lrrSecure/Sites/Web/pre_liberation/other/restrictions_pop.htm | url-status=dead }}</ref> On the other hand, reforms which allowed women both to vote and stand for office in [[South Australia]] in the late 19th century were a cornerstone for women's political rights in other parts of the world. In this regard, Australia differs from other cultures, in that women's suffrage in Australia was one of the earliest objectives of the feminist movement there (beginning with South Australia and Western Australia) unlike other cultures, such as Eastern European cultures, where at the turn of the 20th century the feminist movement focused on [[labour rights]], access to professions and education, rather than political rights. To this day, Australia has a quite low percentage of women in business executive roles compared to other countries with equivalent corporate structures.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://theconversation.com/australian-firms-trail-world-for-women-in-top-roles-11008 | title=Australian firms trail world for women in top roles|website=[[The Conversation (website)|The Conversation]]|first=Sunanda |last=Creagh| date=27 November 2012}}</ref>