"The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes" -Bella Abzug
Today, August 26, is Women's Equality Day. It was on this day in 1920 that the 19th amendment to the Constitution became law and women achieved the right to vote. We take for granted now that right, along with rights to own property, apply for credit in our own name, achieve our professional dreams ... but, really it wasn't all that long ago when women were not full members of society.
Instituted by Bella Abzug, Congresswoman & feminist as well as attorney and peace activist, Women's Equality Day celebrates the struggle of suffragists and gives an opportunity to reflect on how times have changed, even recently. I used to think of the suffrage movement as polite society ladies marching on the sidewalk in front of the White House in those beautiful long dresses ... and, while that's a part of history, some of that history is much more dark and even violent.
By the time a young legislator from Tennessee voted, at his mother's urging, to make his state the 36th and deciding state to adopt the 19th amendment, the struggle for women's right to vote was 72 years in the making. Only one woman from the 1848 Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, was still alive to see that dream come to fruition. At the age of 81, Charlotte Woodard cast her first vote.
World War I was a turning point in the suffrage movement - women had entered the work force to support the war effort by taking factory jobs - and it was at that point that President Woodrow Wilson publicly supported a woman's right to vote.
Prior to that turnaround in 1918, young suffragists like Alice Paul led demonstrations during Wilson's inauguration that turned violent. Women were imprisoned, beaten and abused for espousing that they should be allowed to vote. 8,000 demonstrators joined, mostly women, but a few men as well, with half a million people watching. Watch Iron Jawed Angels for an enlightening take on this time period that conveys the fear & misunderstanding surrounding this contentious issue.
What is still shocking to me, though, are the changes made in more recent history. They may not require an amendment to the Constitution like voting, but think of the following:
- 1965 - Griswold v. Connecticut US Supreme Court rules that Connecticut's ban on the distribution of contraceptive devices or information is a violation of married couples' right to privacy
- 1970 - Anna Mae McCabe Hays - first US woman army general
- 1978 - Pregnancy Discrimination Act is passed, preventing employers from discrimination the basis of pregnancy (still in limited practice today, covertly, not overtly)
- 1983 - Sally Ride - first American woman in space
- 1986 - women compete in the Olympic marathon for the first time
Per Virginia Slims ... We've Come a Long Way, Baby ... in a short time. Now, though, we can be our greatest enemy. You know my thoughts on how women need to be supportive of one another and the choices we make with our varied lives. We are not a monolithic block ... that's what makes us beautiful.
