Women’s Equality Day commemorates the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, when women finally won the legal right to vote. But that victory wasn’t simple or swift—it was decades of organizing, protesting, and sacrificing. Suffragists like Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul, and so many unnamed women risked ridicule, arrest, and even violence to demand a voice in democracy. Their struggle was relentless, and it reminds us that rights are not granted from the top down—they are fought for from the ground up.
Yet, more than a century later, the fight is far from over. Women—especially women of color, LGBTQ+ women, and working-class women—still face voter suppression, attacks on reproductive rights, wage inequality, and systemic barriers designed to keep us silent. The backlash we are seeing today proves what suffragists always knew: those in power will do everything they can to hold on to it, even if it means suppressing half the population.
Women’s Equality Day should not be treated as a celebration of a past victory—it must be a rallying cry for ongoing resistance. We honor the suffragists best not by remembering them politely, but by carrying their fire forward. They refused to be silent, and so must we. Equality is not secure until it is real, lived, and protected for every woman. ✊