In 1971, through the efforts of second wave feminist Representative Bella Abzug, Congress declared August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day,” That date was chosen to remember the anniversary of the certification of the Nineteenth Amendment that gave women nation-wide the right to vote in 1920.
So how do we celebrate Women’s Equality Day in Trump’s America in this the first year of Project 2025?
First, by remembering our history. The first wave feminists had achieved the seemingly impossible by moving women (well, white wom-en) from political non-persons to full-fledged voters. After women’s suffrage became the law of the land, many first wave feminists re-tired to quiet lives of apolitical domesticity, but others recognized that the vote was not enough to give women equality of rights under the law. In 1923, they began work on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Decades later, Congress finally sent it to the States for ratifica-tion.
The ERA is just a few words of common sense. “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” But, of course, the defenders of the status quo lost their minds over it, and they spewed a flow of nonsense. “There will be uni-sex bathrooms!”, they said. “Girls will be drafted and sent to Viet Nam!”, they said. (This was in 1972.) “Mothers will be forced to leave their children and go to work!” “Who will be home baking cookies for the children?” “Women will lose the wonderful right to be supported by their husbands.” “Equality will undermine the family,” they cried. And so the opposition, led by a woman, slowed the march to ratification until the time limit for ratification tolled. There was no Constitutional requirement that Congress impose a time limit at all, but they did it anyway. No need to wonder why.
Second wave feminists mourned, then organized. Marginal progress was possible through legislation and through the sometime willing-ness of the Supreme Court to apply the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protections to women. But absent the ERA, those gains are far too easy to reverse. Gradually, over the years more states began to ratify the ERA until today it has in fact been ratified by ¾ of the states. Absent that time limit, it would be part of the Constitution.
It falls now to a third wave to persist. This year, our Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove and a long list of her colleagues co-sponsored HJR 80 that would remove the time limit for ratification. Click here to send her a quick email to commend her for her sponsorship.
So how do we celebrate Women’s Equality Day in this time of extreme backlash? We continue to raise our voices, to put unrelenting pressure on our Electeds, and to organize to elect the right kind of Democrats at every level. We won’t go back. We keep the movement moving.
For more of the thrilling history of how women’s liberation changed America, I recommend Clara Bingham’s book The Movement.