By Nicole DaSilva
In light of Women’s History Month during March, it is important to recognize the history of women’s rights and how hard women have fought and continue to fight to be respected and treated equally as men.
Women’s History Month should be a time of celebration of all the large and small accomplishments and changes for the better throughout the years.
In 1776, Abigail Adams, the wife of Founding Father John Adams, compromised with John and the rest of Congress to “remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention was the first women’s rights convention led by women. At the convention, 68 women and 32 men signed the Declaration of Sentiments, which eventually led to the Nineteenth Amendment to grant women the right to vote.
In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman doctor in the United States. Margaret Sanger opened the first Planned Parenthood/birth control clinic in October 1916. However, birth control was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration until May 1960.
The well-known story of Rosa Parks refusing to sacrifice her bus seat for a white man occurred in December 1955, and it influenced the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1963, President JFK publicized the Equal Pay Act, which made it illegal to have gender-based wage discrimination between men and women who perform the same job.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton was the first woman to ever receive a presidential nomination. In January 2021, Kamala Harris became the first woman and first woman of color vice president of the U.S.
Many women around the globe, specifically in Asia and the Muslim world, still face unfair treatment in 2023 as their countries are ruled by men. For example, girls in Afghanistan typically only attend school for two years at most and Syrian women are killed by gender-based organized crime (ConcernUSA).
In many circumstances, women lack the courage and assertion of Abigail Adams because they adjusted to what they have seen or been told and do not have any other choice. In order to better women’s rights in other parts of the world, the first step includes acknowledging the fact that women are often mistreated and undervalued.
Then, we must increase girls’ education and employment opportunities. For instance, Mukhtar Mai is a woman from Pakistan who was gang raped when she was younger. Rape is highly common in Pakistan, and girls usually turn to suicide as a solution.
However, Mukhtar decided to report the rape and begin building schools in her village. She built Mukhtar Mai School for Girls as well as Mukhtar Mai Women’s Welfare Organization, which is a 24 hour hotline for women and victims of violence.
Sharing such stories can inspire and give hope to other girls to also work towards a positive outcome of a horrible situation. Improving women’s rights and striving to fight for education does not come overnight; however, spreading stories, forming aid organizations, passing laws to protect women, and standing up to violence and bias together is everything needed to reach our end goal.