Keep Your Hands Off My Ballot

Silencing Women at the Polls is NOT Okay

There was a narrative circulating this past weekend about women “hiding” their vote from their husband or father. I believe it started when the Harris campaign began running ads that encouraged women to vote their heart – and since, there has been considerable backlash from conservative media. Many are reporting on it – including this piece from NPR. But I haven’t seen anyone properly call out what is happening, and I think it is critically important that we frame this conversation correctly.

When a man manipulates or threatens his wife (or any woman in his life) to influence how she votes, it constitutes a form of gender-based violence (GBV).  This is not a “private issue” or a “relationship dynamic.” It is GBV.

I do a lot of gender work overseas. If I were assessing gender dynamics in a foreign country (e.g., involved in a gender assessment in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central America, South or East Asia) and we detected patterns of men dictating who their female family members could vote for, we’d flag this in our report as a key finding. We would say that this is an example of a society that has harmful gender norms, and those norms are preventing women from fully participating in democracy. We would make sure to explain that this is not a private household or family issue, but that it directly undermines the integrity of the country’s electoral system and erodes the fundamental principles of democracy. When any person’s vote is dictated by another, it perpetuates a cycle of silencing that affects everyone. 

So you can imagine my blood pressure slowly rising this weekend when I heard the viral Charlie Kirk quote - saying that when a woman votes her own mind she “undermines” her husband,  and that action is “the embodiment of the downfall of the American family.”

So let me clear this up. 

Charlie Kirk, and all the media that has supported him these last few days,  is condoning - even encouraging - violence against women. It is wrong, it is dangerous, and it is not a joking matter. Men do not have the right to control a woman’s body, a woman’s paycheck, a woman’s time, or a woman’s vote. 

And do not brush this off, thinking it is harmless. If a man out there tells his wife (or daughter or granddaughter or sister) how to vote, and expects her to comply, what else is he controlling in her life? Is he also telling her who she can talk to, and who she can’t? Is he also dictating how she spends her time? Is he telling her where to work? Is he telling her how she should spend her money? Is he telling her when and how she is supposed to have sex? 

Those of us who work in the field of GBV know that there is rarely one act of isolated violence. Perpetrators use patterns and multiple forms of violence over long periods of time. So when we see evidence of GBV in our national conversations – or anywhere in our daily lives – we need to call it out, name it,  and stand up for the rights of women everywhere. Both for the rights of individual women, and also for our collective rights as citizens. 

If this particular narrative comes up with friends or family in the next few days, please help me reframe this correctly. 

Dictating how a woman votes is an example of gender-based violence. This is a dangerous practice; one that impedes a woman’s freedom to vote for the candidate who she thinks will best represent her and her values. If the United States is going to promote the rule of law overseas, and sanction countries where harmful gender norms are negatively impacting women, then let’s have the humility to recognize those same patterns of systematic violence - and call it out when it happens in our own country. 

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Some more background if you’re interested…. 

• Gender-based violence (GBV) is a broad category that includes all violence aimed at someone because of their gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation. GBV is rooted in harmful gender norms and a fundamental power imbalance between men and women. Men and boys do experience GBV, but women, girls and people in the LGBTQ+ community experience GBV at disproportionately higher rates. 

• The term Violence Against Women (VAW) is a subset of GBV. According to the World Health Organization, violence against women is any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.

It is commonly understood and accepted that VAW can be physical or sexual in native. But a big part of the work that I do professionally is raising awareness around other forms of violence. I’ll give you some examples: 

• Preventing a woman from working is considered VAW. 

• Taking control of a woman’s income is considered VAW. 

• Preventing a girl or woman from receiving an education is VAW. 

• Controlling a woman’s movement, restricting where she can go, and when, is VAW. 

• Controlling a woman’s social circle, dictating who she can speak to and when, is VAW.

• Preventing a woman from voting is considered VAW. 

• Coercing a woman to vote for a certain person or a certain party is VAW. 

These are all forms of control. They are tactics used by some men (certainly not all, but many) to control a woman, or women, in their life. It stems from an ultra-conservative notion that men own, and are entitled to, women’s bodies and women’s time. According to UN estimates, one out of every three women have or will experience VAW in their life. To put that into perspective, we’re talking about roughly 1.35 billion women globally, and 56 million women in the United States.