105 years ago, on August 26th, 1920, the 19th Amendment was certified, granting women the right to vote – at least on paper. In reality, this victory just benefitted white women, while women of color continued to face systemic disenfranchisement. Since that historic day, women have made tremendous progress in political, economic, and social spheres in the U.S., and landmark legislation like the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Title IX have been significant in promoting a more intersectional version of gender equality.
However, this progress hasn’t been linear, and especially in the darkness and hostility of today’s political climate, it’s important to reflect on the achievements of feminist movements while acknowledging how much further we need to go to achieve true gender equality.
This past Tuesday, the White House released a proclamation in commemoration of women’s suffrage, as the 1971 resolution to designate August 26th as Women’s Equality Day requests of the President each year. The sincerity of this statement seems questionable, considering that recent reports have raised concerns about federal officials amplifying harmful messages that undermine women’s rights, including that women don’t deserve the right to vote.
Over a century after the passage of the 19th Amendment, women in this country still face many of the same challenges and experience struggles similar to women of 4 generations ago. Voting rights are under attack across the country, as state lawmakers draw maps that disenfranchise minority voters and lawmakers on Capitol Hill push forward legislation that would disproportionately hurt women voters, especially married and Black women.
The Dobbs decision has taken us back to women dying without adequate reproductive healthcare, higher infant mortality rates in states with abortion bans, rising by 5.6% in just the year after Dobbs, and increasing barriers to contraceptive care. These effects are particularly harmful for people who are already systemically excluded from accessing healthcare (including immigrants, disabled, trans, low-income, Black, Latino, and Indigenous people).
Recent federal policy changes have also weakened longstanding workplace discrimination protections, infrastructure for supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence that took 40 years to build, and critical women’s health research funding, while simultaneously attacking trans rights across the board under the guise of ‘protecting women.’ Heading into the 250th year of this country’s existence, the stagnancy and decline of women’s rights just in the past 10 years is sobering.
While we fight on the home front, we must also look at the struggle for gender equality all over the world – as Audre Lorde said, “I am not free while any woman is unfree.” The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals hoped to achieve global gender equality by 2030; based on current trends, global gender equality won’t be achieved until the 22nd century. The Taliban in Afghanistan is systematically erasing women from public life under a regime of gender apartheid. In Iran, women have taken to the streets, chanting “women, life, freedom,” in a demand for equality. Gender-based violence is a prevalent feature of conflict and post-conflict zones, with reports of extreme sexual, reproductive, and gender-based violence inflicted on the Palestinian people by Israel as a major recent example.
At the same time, the dismantling of USAID has stripped millions experiencing humanitarian crises of crucial healthcare, economic, and education resources, contributing to 14 million preventable deaths over the next 5 years. This has left women in crisis settings more vulnerable to violence and unable to access essential health services, which could lead to 34,000 more pregnancy-related deaths in just one year, while also exacerbating gender gaps in wellbeing and economic and political participation. The decision to destroy $9.7 million worth of contraceptives that were already paid for by U.S. taxpayers and ready to distribute to communities in need, will deny over 1.4 million women and girls in Sub-Saharan Africa of lifesaving care. This decision was devastatingly cruel, while wasting taxpayer resources.
A majority of Americans believe that there is still much work to do to achieve gender equality, citing sexual harassment, social expectations, legal inequality, and a lack of representation in powerful spaces as major obstacles to this progress. Yet, the Equal Rights Amendment, originally proposed by first-wave feminist leaders in 1923, which would ensure de jure gender equality in the U.S., has not been recognized as the 28th amendment in the Constitution due to partisan opposition and legal challenges despite it passing the state ratification threshold in 2020.
This Women’s Equality Day, we must honor the past while using those lessons to confront the challenges of the present. The fight for gender equity is not just history, it is also our mandate for the future. We owe it to feminists who came before us and to future generations to continue the movement, through civic engagement, on the streets, in classrooms and workplaces, across borders, and through media, until the promise of Women’s Equality Day is a bold and uncompromising reality.