That is a really absurd statement. If you can't vote, you can also not run for public office. The way you enact change in a representative democracy is to organise, create a party and then get elected, or to join an existing party and rise in the ranks. Some parties in Germany have a 50:50 male / female leadership split. I personally know several women that were active at the local level and ran for public office. A female acquaintance of my parents was state education secretary in the 90s for a while. None of that was possible in Switzerland on the federal level before ~1970.