Women’s Equality Day

August 26, the anniversary of the ratification of the 19^th amendment, was declared Women’s Equality Day by congress in 1971.

Presidents from Nixon to Obama have issued proclamations asking Americans to remember where we’ve been, and to recognize where we need to go, as we celebrate this historic amendment and the work it took to get it passed in 1920. 

This morning I watched, and cheered, as one of RU Women Studies’ “founding mothers”, Dr. Hilary Lips, accepted the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences Distinguished Scholarship Award for an impressive body of feminist work. 

That somebody is both doing and being rewarded for gender research shows how far women have come.  The focus of much of Dr. Lips’ most recent work, the gender pay gap, however, tells us how far we still have to go. 

While I don’t expect many of us will shoot off fireworks, dedicate statues, or cut a cake (with the exception of another of our founding mothers, Dr. Moira Baker, whose birthday appropriately falls on Women’s Equality Day), I do hope that we can all take a moment to reflect on what “equality” means and how we might get there.  

I will be “celebrating” by preparing to teach my 12^th semester of Women’s Studies 101.  I generally start the course with “the good news”: documentaries such as One Woman, One Vote, an uplifting clip like “We Stand on the Shoulders of Giants”, and articles like “A Day Without Feminism” to let them know about the hard work that’s been done to get them where they are today.  The follow-up, for many of my students, however, is seen as “the bad news”: the pay gap, racism, sexual assault and domestic violence, women being silenced both locally and globally. 

The task I’m giving myself for both Women’s Equality Day, and the rest of the semester, is a small one:  I am going to try my best to get my students – and myself – to recall the “good news” when the “bad news” seems overwhelming. 

How Will You Celebrate Women’s Equality Day?