- Sex, class and the road to women's suffrage By TOM O'LINCOLN red_sites@hotmail.com How did women get the vote so early in Australia Between 1860 and 1890, the dynamic of Australia's capitalist development reshaped gender relations, in some ways limiting womens rights, but in other ways creating important new opportunities. Theoretically, the nuclear family reigned supreme. Amongst the social ...www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions/suffrage.htm