100 years ago, American women legally gained the right to vote. Yet today, many women and non-binary people in the U.S.—and around the world—still aren't counted at the polls. The 19th in 2020 is a short series about some of the obstacles they face.August 18, 2020 marks 100 years since the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting American women the constitutional right to vote. But the fight for true equity in voting wasn’t over then, and it still isn’t over today.
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While countries where women are denied the right to vote are today few and far between, systemic gender inequality continues to be a problem in the U.S. and the world at large. The act of voting, even if it’s technically legal, is often fraught with logistical difficulties—whether it’s lack of safe transportation to the polls as an overseas Filipino worker in Saudi Arabia, inaccessible ballots for a visually impaired woman in Germany, or bureaucratic stipulations in Romania that render voting impossible for a mother of three. Even in countries where the voting process is mostly seamless, like South Korea, women still take issue with the lack of equitable representation in politics, and the larger patriarchal culture they encounter.VICE spoke to women around the world about their experiences with voting and their relationship with the ballot box in 2020.Interviews have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Wafaa, Egypt, 24
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When Abdel Fattah el Sisi was sworn into office as President of Egypt in June 2014, I was disappointed, and I wasn't alone. I don’t see him as a legitimate president: It was a military coup against the elected (and now deceased) president Mohamed Morsi. No matter how bad Morsi’s rule was, we had to wait for his term to come to an end. That’s what democracy meant to me. Year after year things in Egypt were getting worse, be it poor economic conditions, increasing unemployment and poverty rates, and the suppression of basic freedoms. I started to believe that we don’t matter as people or as women and that our voice is worthless.Now, I’m 24 years old. I’ve still never voted and I’ve never tried to learn more about my constituency, even as a matter of curiosity. If elections alone can make a difference, then we wouldn't have ended up with such a government. Elections in Egypt have become just a formality; a way for the regime to present itself as legitimate, and to dupe us into believing that we can decide how this country is run. But the truth is that our voices don't really matter, no matter how many ballot boxes you put out there. I do dream of using my right to vote one day, but only once I believe that my vote will actually make a difference.
Maria, Philippine, 53
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During the 2016 Philippines Presidential Elections, for example, Saudi women weren’t allowed to drive yet. So if you’re with a group of other women, how could you go to the embassy to vote, if not through the shuttles provided? We couldn’t just ride with our male colleagues with cars because the mutawa [Islamic religious police] could catch us.I didn’t vote during the last two elections, in 2016 and 2019, because I was left behind by the provided transportation. I couldn’t take a taxi because I was afraid to ride one alone. It's the same for many Filipino women here.To be honest, I wasn't happy about not voting in the last two elections. I really wanted to vote for some candidates because they had good platforms that would benefit OFWs. Not being able to vote made me feel incomplete.The Philippine government could help us by coordinating with our workplaces, like the hospital where I work, and allowing us to vote from there. About 60 percent of workers in our hospital—from the nurses to admins and lab technicians—are Filipino. There are thousands of Filipino women like me here. What’s two weeks, or one week, or three days of setting up a voting precinct?
Minji, South Korea, 30
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Still, there aren’t enough politicians who speak out for women's rights and interests.When I voted in April 2020—when a general election was conducted in the middle of the pandemic—I didn't need to worry about any of the technical aspects of voting. As a Korean citizen over the age of 18, I can vote, and my balloting share wasn’t different from anyone else’s. I didn't need to reschedule my classes or work thanks to the early voting system. During the early voting period, you can vote at any polling place in the country. If I had voted on election day, I would’ve needed to travel to vote at the designated polling place in the region where my legal address is.But when I started to think about who I wanted to vote for, it was a different matter. Directly speaking, the number of male candidates in April's general election was about four times higher than female candidates. I don't think that only women can represent women. However, women's voices are inevitably silenced when politics still remains a male-dominated field.Last Saturday, I was in a taxi with my friend Jee-yeon Heo, a marketing manager in Seoul, and we briefly spoke about being a woman in South Korea. The driver, who seemed like my father's age, inserted himself into our conversation. "All these difficulties are never solved because women aren’t interested in politics," he said. I politely told him women voted more than men in the past two presidential elections. As long as this stereotype about the relationship between women and politics exists, I think it’s too hasty to say that South Korea has achieved gender equality as it pertains to the right to vote.
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Tiana, Singapore, 24
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Jennifer, Germany, 41
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Voting, in my opinion, also includes participating in political debates—and there are far too few people in politics who put issues of people with disabilities on their agenda. This was particularly noticeable during the COVID-19 crisis. But to get involved in politics or activism as a person with a disability, you need to have thick skin.
Nicoleta, Romania, 35
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Sonia, Mexico, 32
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In 2018, when the course of Mexican history changed significantly, I wasn’t able to vote because I had to work. And it was an election that promised a great change, too: I’ve never seen so many people come out, not only to vote, but to enjoy what they called a "democratic fiesta" where the winner was Andrés Manuel López Obrador.In recent years, I haven’t encountered any problems trying to vote in Mexico. But I still believe there are certain issues and taboos that still don’t allow voting to be completely free, especially regarding our civil rights.
Lucia, Argentina, 26
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In 2019, I voted for candidates whose ideas more closely resemble my own and my idea of what is fair. In that sense, I view the act of voting much like my parents did when I was a child: a very valuable action which carries great power. It's something that we shouldn’t take for granted in Argentina, even if we’ve been a democracy for more than 30 years now.