“We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”
—Susan B. Anthony, Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876
In 1971, Representative Bella Abzug introduced a proposal to commemorate the struggle of sufferigist movement. She persuaded Congress to designate August 26th as Women’s Equality Day. It recognized the 19th Amendment to the Constitution that in 1920 gave all U.S. women the right to vote.
On this day while I am celebrating I am also reflecting on how much has changed and how much has remains the same.
Without doubt winning the vote was a victory for women and removed the
last formal barrier for women’s to have their voices heard. The Amendment became law only after decades of work by committed gender equality activists who fought to extend the right to vote to women across America. For the women who fought for this right, voting was not the end of the journey for equality, but the beginning of a new era.
It also needs to be mentioned that this victory celebration was delayed for many women of color who lived in states where voter suppression was in full effect, the pace of progress for gender equality has been very slow in United States.
Today, women hold the majority of college degrees, but better education hasn’t brought equal pay. Nor has the fact that women are now starting 38% of entrepreneurial businesses moved the percentage of venture capital they garner above the 5% mark.
Today, more women hold seats in Congress, but “more” equals only 17% behind Turkmenistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This reflected the fact that how hard it is to challenge the real power barriers.
Today, many women face a world where access is barred to all manner of things…fair housing, decent education, safe and healthy living conditions, safe and affordable healthcare, healthcare providers, and so on and so forth.
Today, the US is one of only seven countries in the world that has not yet ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). One hundred eighty-seven countries have now ratified this international bill of rights for women, leaving the US in the company of Iran, Somalia, Sudan and three island countries in the South Pacific that have not yet done so. The United States is the only industrial and the only Western Hemisphere country that has not ratified CEDAW.
On Women’s Equality Day 2011, we must ask: how do we make the transformation to gender equality truly transformational? Avoid becoming the men whose injustices we challenged? Embrace powerful leadership roles in work, politics, and personal life without adopting the same hierarchical, power-over model used to hold us back.
We must celebrate but never forget to honor the generations before us who fought for gender equality. We must celebrate but never take the gains for gender equality for granted as with the rise of religious right movement in US, we have to stay vigilant. Happy Women’s Equality Day.
