“Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable and unpurchasable voice in government,” Carrie Chapman Catt.
"There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers." Susan B. Anthony
On August 26th 1920 the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to vote was put into law. The process for civil rights for women took over 72 years beginning at the first Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls NY in 1848. Th passage of the 19th amenment would occur 150 years after the American Revolution.
My Grandmother was born before women had the right to vote and as she was a woman who always expressed her opinion she would be sure to vote in every election and remind all of us to go vote! Most women take this right for granted but think about the extraordinary and courageous struggle, a revolution, this movement was-shaking the core of a societal structure. In 1971 a joint session of congress declared this day as Women's Equality Day to commemorate the passage of the 19th amenment. Almost thirty years later the title of this day may seem strange to younger women -women of college age may shake their heads and not get the point. We do take so very much for granted yet 70 percent of the world's poor are women, and over two thirds of those are without education. We still live in a world where "women's work" is not valued and their lives, and the lives of their children are threatened by violence and abuse. So yes, a Women's Equality Day is still very relevant as is the gift of those women who bravely fought for over 70 years so that Women could be Counted!
As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace around the world - as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled and subjected to violence in and out of their homes - the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized. Hillary Rodham Clinton
For more on Women's Suffrage read Lynn Sherr's Failure is Impossible:Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words
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