Thursday, August 26, 2010
Women's Equality Day
Today is Women's Equality Day!
The California Commission on the Status of Women joins the Nation in celebrating the 90th Anniversary of Women’s Equality Day. Each year Women's Equality Day is celebrated on August 26th to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Congress designated this date in 1971 to honor women's continuing efforts toward full equality. Spearheading the effort was U.S. Representative Bella Abzug (D-NY).
Women winning the right to vote was the culmination of a massive, peaceful civil rights movement by women that had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world’s first women’s rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York. In addition to celebrating the voting rights of American women, Women’s Equality Day also symbolizes the continued fight for equality, justice, peace, and development for women from various nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, religions, economic and political backgrounds.
The Commission on the Status of Women encourages you to celebrate and reaffirm women’s right to vote – and honor the heroic suffrage movement that won that right for all women - by making sure you are registered to vote in your next election, and then by going out to vote!
As a 40-something I have to give props to the determination of the women who came before me. I live a full life because of the efforts of the suffragette movement and the strength of the feminists who followed. I also thank four generations of women in my family who took charge of their own lives and led our family by example.
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