Do You Know What Today Is?

Today is my new favorite holiday. Did you even know today was a holiday?

Today - August 26, 2010 - is Women's Equality Day. It is lesser known and minimally celebrated across the nation. I felt sure that at least my women's calendar full of quotes from influential women would boldly mark today as a holiday but, alas, even it did not mention Women's Equality Day :(

Why do we have a Women's Equality Day? According to the National Women's History Project,

The date was selected to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. This 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.

The observance of Women’s Equality Day not only commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, but also calls attention to women’s continuing efforts toward full equality. Workplaces, libraries, organizations, and public facilities now participate with Women’s Equality Day programs, displays, video showings, or other activities.

If you think this holiday is unnecessary and we already know enough about women's equality, I invite you to spare approximately 2 and 1/2 minutes of your time to take this quiz.

How did you do? I am embarrassed to say I did not make a 100. There is still so much we don't know about women's issues. Even more discouraging, there is a lot that is already forgotten by most. Yesterday the New York Times ran an article entitled A Forgotten Fight for Suffrage.

In it, author Christine Stansell laments over how the women's right to vote conflict is "now largely lost to memory." This seems strange to me as she pointed out some states only approved the legislation in the latter half of the 20th century:

In 1923 Delaware ratified belatedly to join the rest of the country, but the Southern states waited decades: Maryland in 1941, Virginia in 1952, Alabama in 1953. Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina came along from 1969 to 1971, years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had passed. Mississippi brought up the rear, not condoning the right of women to vote until 1984.

Not until 1984!?! That was 64 years AFTER the legislation passed in Congress. We're not talking about anything too radical here... just women's right to vote. Today marks the 90th year since all American women finally got the right to vote.

And since 1971, that has been commemorated with an official US holiday. Bella Abzug, a Democratic Representative from New York brought forth a resolution that was passed by Congress. The resolution read as follows:

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have been treated as second-class citizens and have not been entitled the full rights and privileges, public or private, legal or institutional, which are available to male citizens of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have united to assure that these rights and privileges are available to all citizens equally regardless of sex; and

WHEREAS, the women of the United States have designated August 26, the anniversary date of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, as symbol of the continued fight for equal rights: and

WHEREAS, the women of United States are to be commended and supported in their organizations and activities,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that August 26th of each year is designated as Women’s Equality Day, and the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote, and that day in 1970, on which a nationwide demonstration for women’s rights took place.  (Information taken from NWHP)

 We must remember this. In another New York Times article from back in 1999, Naomi wolf wrote:

Standing at the turn of the millennium, how odd it seems that women, the majority of the human species, have not, over the course of so many centuries, intervened successfully once and for all on their own behalf. That is, until you consider that women have been trained to see themselves as having no relationship to history, and no claim upon it. Feminism can be defined as women's ability to think about their subjugated role in history, and then to do something about it. The 21st century will see the End of Inequality -- but only if women absorb the habit of historical self-awareness, becoming a mass of people who, rather than do it all, decide at last to change it all. The future is ours to lose.

We must be aware of our past so as not to repeat it. The future IS ours to lose.

Don't let that happen. Remember, hold tightly to, and celebrate how far women have come.

Keep pushing forward!

Happy Women's Equality Day :)