Born Františka Pávková to carpenter's family in Řetová in 1871,[1] Skaunicová attended school in Wildenschwert. However, she left school at a young age as her parents were unable to fund her education and she became a textile worker. She joined the textile workers' union and at the age of 20, moved to Brno, where she lived for the rest of her life.[1] She married Augustin Skaunic in 1895, with whom she had six children.[2] She became the family's main breadwinner due to her husband's frequent illness.[1] From 1911 the couple ran the Žena magazine, a social democratic publication.[2]
Following the independence of Czechoslovakia at the end of World War I, Skaunicová was a Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers' Party candidate for the Chamber of Deputies in the 1920 parliamentary elections, and was one of sixteen women elected to parliament.[1] In 1921, she defected to the new Communist Party and was elected to its executive committee. However, the following year she was hospitalised in Jevíčko with tuberculosis. She died in January 1923,[1] and was buried in the Židenice cemetery [cs] in Brno.
