The number is often presented as proof of progress. It is meant to reassure us. But history becomes clearer when numbers are placed beside longer timelines. Human beings have existed for roughly 300,000 years. Even democracy, traced conservatively to ancient Athens in the fifth century BCE, spans around 2,500 years. Women have been included for roughly three percent of that history.
India is cited as a success story. At independence, Indian women received the vote at the same moment as men. Universal Adult Suffrage was written into the Constitution without property or literacy qualifications, a radical move in a deeply unequal society. Many countries that called themselves democracies did not do the same. However, law cannot substitute for social custom,and during the first General Elections of 1951–52, lakhs of women refused to register as individual voters. They identified themselves instead as someone’s wife or daughter or mother. The Election Commission rejected these entries, and nearly 2.8 million women were removed from the electoral rolls as a result.
Political Rights Without Political Selfhood
This did not repeat, but it does show how political rights can exist without political selfhood. Seventy-five years later, the picture has changed, but not resolved. Women now vote in large numbers. In several recent elections, female voter turnout has equalled or surpassed male turnout. Yet political power remains concentrated elsewhere. As of 2024, women constitute about 14 percent of the Lok Sabha.
This is where Indian politics reveals one of its most persistent contradictions. Across the country, women occupy positions as sarpanches, MLAs, and councillors, through reservation policies. These measures were intended to correct historical exclusion, and in many cases, they have opened doors that would otherwise remain closed. But alongside this has emerged a parallel reality: the figure of the sarpanch pati or MLA pati, the husband who exercises power informally while the woman holds office formally. Studies of local governance repeatedly document how women representatives are sidelined, spoken for, or reduced to signatories while male relatives make decisions. This arrangement is defended as a temporary compromise. The woman’s presence, we are told, is a foot in the door; authority will follow in time. However, power does not work like osmosis, and it does not transfer simply because a seat is occupied. When women enter politics through structures that remain socially and economically male, then their presence is just that: symbolic.
Voting Is Not Enough
I voted for the first time a few years ago, and I remember the small thrill of holding that slip of paper, walking to the booth, and realizing: this was my voice, my say, my right– but a ballot cannot rewrite history. Citizenship, it turns out, is not a certificate simply handed to you with a voter slip. It is the slow, infuriating work of claiming a space that socially is not “meant for you”, and insisting on being recognized once you’re there. To vote is one thing; to be treated as a political actor, with influence and autonomy, is another entirely.
When “Protection” Becomes Control
Across the world, we see governments and movements that cloak control in the language of care. They speak of “protecting” women, of preserving “family values” or “national virtue,” and yet these protections strip women of agency rather than safeguard it. Poland’s near-total abortion bans, Hungary’s glorification of motherhood coupled with the suppression of gender studies, and the persistent U.S. battles over reproductive rights: all these are not anomalies. They are reminders that democracy does not automatically equal freedom.
Public discourse applauds women for turning out to vote but rarely asks whether their priorities shape policy or governance. Citizenship is celebrated in ceremonial participation, but power remains concentrated elsewhere, and it is still filtered through patriarchal norms and structures that assume male authority as default. We are counted, yes, but are we truly heard?
History as Blueprint
Let me take you back to the ancient world, to Athens, where women were citizens in name (as members of citizen families), but were completely barred from political participation—no voting, no holding office, no speaking in the assembly. They needed a male guardian (kyrios) for almost everything legal or public. This, allegedly, is the birthplace of western democracy.
In Mesopotamia, early periods gave women more substantial rights, they could own businesses, buy and sell property, initiate divorce, and hold religious authority. But over time, as societies became more hierarchical and patriarchal, these freedoms declined sharply. Even in Rome, where women could own and inherit property (a step ahead of many contemporaries), their citizenship was second-class: no voting, no office-holding, constant guardianship under the paterfamilias. During crises like the Second Punic War (around 215 BCE), restrictions on women’s wealth display were imposed to fund the war effort, limiting their ability to show off or use property freely.
The Way Ahead
Sounds familiar? These are the original blueprint of how the state and society see women shapes what rights mean in practice. Think, today, of the Taliban in Afghanistan, of reproductive rights in Poland, and the U.S. Think of the duly elected MLA from Congress, K.R. Ramesh Kumar, who said in the Karnataka Assembly: “There is a saying that when rape is inevitable, lie down and enjoy it.” Think of Prime Minister Narendra Modi praising Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina for her bold zero-tolerance stance on terrorism “despite being a woman,” as if resolve and strength in leadership were somehow surprising or contingent on gender
When a government treats women as dependent, vulnerable, or in need of protection, every legal guarantee then becomes conditional. This is how rights are rolled back globally: slowly, incrementally, imperceptibly. Policies are justified as “necessary for safety” or “for the family” while autonomy is more and more restricted. Meanwhile, so many women today I meet are saying, “I’m apolitical.” But what does that even mean? In a world where politics literally shapes our bodies, our safety, and our futures, claiming neutrality is not something we can afford.
Seventy-five years of suffrage are often counted as proof of progress, yet numbers alone do not tell the story. Rights can be granted, but they are never guaranteed– so don’t take your rights for granted, lest they slip away from you, because history shows how easily they can.