Women's Equality Day: What It Means for Progress
Today is Women’s Equality Day, a day in which we celebrate and commemorate the ratification and adoption of the 19th Amendment. It was on this day in 1920 that women, and let’s get specific here, middle class white women were given the right to vote. The women’s suffrage movement, like many that came before and after, was shaped and molded by the way our country was designed. To work for some, but not for all.*
So, on a day when most marketing efforts are broadening the scope of what this day means, we wanted to bring it back to its roots. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” as stated in the U.S. Constitution. A document that to this day does not include the words “woman” or “women”.
As a women-founded business, it is not just our job to celebrate days that remind us of the progress we have made, but to focus on the erosion of said progress happening today. We like to talk about voting as an inalienable right, but as of July, over 30 laws have passed restricting voting rights in some capacity. And if that number doesn’t impact you, maybe this will. Over 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced across 49 of our 50 United States in 2021 alone. There will undoubtedly be more by the end of the year.
While none of these laws specifically or directly target women in the language, they will most definitely impact women disproportionately. For example, restricting mail-in and early voting impacts working women and mothers, the largest group in our current labor force. One third of all women have birth certificates or other citizenship documents that do not identically match their current names, most often due to marriage. This, among other things, make new Voter ID laws more burdensome for wives, same-sex partners, trans and non-binary voters. When you add access to information, transportation, income, and individual agency every single one of these laws will compound for women who did not immediately benefit from the 19th Amendment.
We are not experts in voting rights laws or women’s equality, but we are women and we recognize today to ensure the very thing we are celebrating is not simply a reinforcement of historical progress but recognition of the promise we have never fully realized in this country and the ongoing efforts to rectify it.
On this Women’s Equality Day, and every one moving forward, The Hush Collaborative is committed to support, as both a business and as individuals, the people and organizations doing the work on the ground to expand and protect all women and our right to vote.
Here are a few of the people and organizations we have directly contributed to or want to share for increased awareness and collective support:
https://www.minnesotavoice.org/
https://www.cairmn.com/
https://blackvotersmatterfund.org
https://backbonedigital.org/
*The right to vote for women across identities: Black women 1965, Indigenous women 1924 and expanded in 1965, Asian women 1943 and expanded in 1952, Hispanic and other “language minority groups” 1965 and expanded in 1975