Voting Day

  February 1959. Switzerland has decided on a referendum to give women the right to vote and today is voting day. Once more, the women of the country have to depend on men to choose ‘'what is right and proper'' for them...
This novella is a quiet chronicle of how four women from different social backgrounds experience not only the day of the referendum but the circumstances that have defined their lives. A mother travels to Bern to meet her daughter who has found herself threatened by a despicable man, a young woman tries to find the means to provide for her son aided by a hospital administrator who is a fervent supporter of the campaign. In the faces and stories of Beatrice, Margrit, Vreni and Esther, an eternity of injustice, neglect, oppression, abuse and sheer tyranny is depicted. Motherhood and womanhood. Lack of opportunities and impossible choices. Life on the periphery of society because that is what the other half of the population has dictated.
Speaking in strictly literary terms, I was not impressed. The writing is simple, a bit dry at times, the dialogue ‘'sounds'' jarring and the characters are nothing we haven't seen before. But sometimes even books that can be called ‘'average'' must be deemed necessary reads.
Why? Because Switzerland decided to grant the vote to the women of the country in 1971 (which is unthinkable...) Because we do not have the luxury to take anything for granted anymore.
Many thanks to Fairlight Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.