It was exactly 100 years ago, that women in Austria were given the right to vote – following the end of World War I and the disintegration of the Habsburg monarchy, and as a result of the ongoing endevours by the women’s suffrage movement.
On November 12, 1918, the First Republic was proclaimed. In Article Nine, the law on state and government defined an electoral law based on proportional representation and universal, equal, direct and secret vote for “all citizens regardless of gender.”
To celebrate this historical achievement, Brazilian artist Renata Roman has produced a radio piece of samples of women’s voices, including archival material as well as her own voice.
“Throughout history women had their voices omitted and silenced. Although the current context demonstrates some progress, long is the way, even considering regional and cultural differences. It’s composed by female voices that made history, anonymous or well-known ones. They are my personal references. Many were left out, and many I do not even know and therefore my list is imperfect and incomplete. This is a tribute to women. All of them. All of us.” (Renata Roman)
Voices used in order of appearance:
Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to travel to space,
Simone de Beauvoir,
Marielle Franco, a Brazilian activist executed by militia in 2018,
Angela Davis,
singing of anonymous women of the Baka ethnic group in the southeastern part of Cameroon,
Rose Mapendo, a Congolese human rights activist,
Renata Roman,
Louise Bourgeois,
Clara Zetkin speaking against fascism,
a report of the multiple sexual violation in San Fermín, Spain,
Guerrilla Girls,
Isabel Allende,
women singing the feminist version of the song “A la Huelga”,
the young Palestinian Janna Jihad, who reports from the occupation,
Zozan Cûdi and other women of the Kurdish army,
Kurdish singing,
singing of Brazilian indigenous,
Brazilian indigenous Catarina,
Olivia Arévalo Lomas, Peruvian shaman and leader of the Amazonian ethnic group
Shipibo-Conibo, assassinated in early 2018,
and Louise Bourgeois again.
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