My mother was born in 1970. It wasn’t until 1974 that a woman could legally open a credit card under her own name. When she was a child, her mother, my grandmother, legally couldn’t purchase a washing machine without my grandfather’s permission. Before 1974, a woman could not rent her own apartment without a male co-signer.
When I think of the women’s rights movement, I often think of a far distant past - the reality is, just one generation ago, there were so many things that women could not do in our country, and this is not an inequality that has yet been dissolved.
Do we, here in the United States, have so much to be grateful for, and more freedoms and opportunities than women in some other areas of the world?
Yes, we do.
Do we still have a ways to come for gender inequality to truly be a thing of the distant past?
Yes, we do.
It’s my sister, working in finance, and being taken less seriously than her male counterparts with the same education and licensing.
It’s the woman called pushy and aggressive while her male counterpart is called an ambitious leader (while making 84 cents for every dollar he does).
It’s the girl made to carry a child that was unplanned and unprepared for, or God forbid forced upon her, because her state doesn’t give her autonomy over her body.
It’s the fact that I can’t walk my dog alone at night.
History has her eyes on us. The women who gave everything so that we can vote, so that we can rent apartments, so that we can buy washing machines, we owe it to THEM to continue pushing for the equality and empowerment of womankind.
What can we do?
We can vote for people who align with our values and work to uplift women’s voices and roles in politics.
We can amplify the voices of the women we work with, the women who inspire us, the women we aspire to be.
We can cheer for the girls in our life doing well - a rising tide lifts all ships and we are not competition - we’re all on the same team.
We can challenge expectations and traditional roles, break glass ceilings, and stand up for ourselves and our sisters.
Every month, but especially this month, we should work to have conversations with and about the women we love and admire and how we can show up for them and for ourselves.