In the Switzerland of 1959 a referendum on votes for women was defeated by an almost 70% majority of male only voters. This startling historical fact is the inspiration for Clare O’Dea’s novel, ‘Voting Day,’ published in February, the 50th anniversary of when in 1971 justice prevailed and Swiss women were finally granted their democratic rights. In the wrong hands this novel could easily have been a thinly-disguised polemic on the defeated proposal for equality, but Clare O’Dea does something much more subtle and narratively impactful than that. She paints a picture of the lives of four women of the time: Vreni, a farmer’s wife, Margrit, a young office worker, Esther, a cleaner in a hospital, and Beatrix a professional administrator. By shining light on a slice of these women’s realities, inner thoughts, longings, suffering, joys, challenges and experiences of the Switzerland of the time O’Dea brings us a story that is layered and nuanced and deeply affecting. And in telling their stories, she reveals so much: the unspoken but deeply unequal distribution of the burden of domestic work; women’s exposure to inequality and harassment in the workplace; the power of a state to judge and punish women; women’s unfulfilled potential; the way they were made to feel they were not entitled to have a say, so that many of them did not seek it; the ‘fundamental unfairness of it all.’ The story is beautifully written and perceptively observed. And while on the face of it the focus is that day in 1959, it’s a narrative that has so much resonance, still, beyond that place and time. There is so much in this short book to relish: wonderful descriptions of forest walks; train journeys, relationships, the threads that connect the characters and the ways in which their lives are impacted by the strictures of the time. So far, Voting day has been translated into three languages: French, German and Italian. In these versions, the title translates as ‘the day the men said no’. This book holds up a mirror to the world, showing through deft storytelling skill how the struggle for equality continues to prevail. A key message in this wonderful novel is that for equality to be achieved, the powerful must be the ones to change, to share their agency, to include the excluded, to support the right for women to have their say, so everyone can take their place, shoulder to shoulder and so together open the door to a better world.
Sarah Moore Fitzgerald