Today, the 91st anniversary of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote, is Women’s Equality Day. In recognition of Women’s Equality Day on August 26, the anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, and the anniversary of the 1963 civil rights march on Washington, the women’s groups have launched the HERvotes effort with the release of a list of the top ten historic advances for women that are now at risk of being weakened, cut, or eliminated, including the Social Security Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Title X (the National Family Planning Program), and the Equal Pay Act. President Obama urged the nation to “celebrate the achievements of women and recommit ourselves to the goal of gender equality in this country.”
Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis remarked in a statement, “It has been a long journey, but each day brings America closer to the kind of true equality that our heroines like Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul imagined for us when they led the fight for women’s suffrage generations ago.Our accomplishments are undeniable, but the fight for full equality endures.”
Currently, 23.5 percent of state legislators are women, but women are more likely to earn college degrees than men. Women are essential half of the US paid workforce. Moreover, according to the Department of Labor, the number of women in the workforce has more than doubled in the past four decades and businesses that are owned by women are growing at a rate of four times that of their male counterparts.
