August 18th marked the 100-year anniversary of ratifying the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote in America. This legacy is one of collective struggle and shows the power of the suffragettes’ organizing efforts, which forced President Woodrow Wilson, Congress, and three-fourths of state legislatures to pass this historic amendment.
One hundred years after this amendment, there’s still a lot of fighting and organizing to be done. Women in America are facing many problems, like inequity in pay, zero paid time off for maternity leave for many workers, and high rates of sexual violence and sex trafficking. Currently, U.S. women are paid 81.6 cents for every dollar a man would make doing the same job. And these inequalities are even more dramatic for Black, indigenous, trans, disabled, and other minority women.
So, for this anniversary let’s celebrate the gains won by the efforts of past suffragettes, but let’s also focus on the struggle we need to keep waging.
