You simply don't get it.
When you don't have the right to vote, your actions that make the majority 'suffer' can be criminalized, and the people that can vote then have much, much more power to make YOU suffer than you do to hurt them. Look at Iran, or Afghanistan. Do you really think that women in those countries have the ability to affect any change in society at all without convincing the men, and the religious leaders first?
I assume you've read The Handmaid's Tale?
Women at the turn of the century simply did not have enough ability to effectively wield violence to overcome that kind of power. That's why you need to convince people that DO have power.