Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Women's Equality Day

The above title caught my eyes when I was reading American Voanews. I was astonished by its strong and powerful title. Equality of right between man and woman is an ideology that women are still pursuing in 21scentury. This phenomena is the same in every place, including the United State. American women are still struggling in the pool of inequality.

In America, August 26th is celebrated as Women’s Equality Day to commemorate the anniversary of women winning the right to vote. Following 16 countries had already guaranteed women’s right to vote, in 1920 America became country number seventeen that granted women the right to vote. llinois, Wisconsin and Michigan were the first states to pass the law.

Women’s Equality Day founder Rep. Bella Abzug asked Congress to design August 26th as Women Equality Day. “Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. These days are over. I prefer the word "homemaker" because "housewife" always implies that there may be a wife someplace else.”

Other countries had already guaranteed women's right to vote before the campaign was won in the United States:

New Zealand (1893), Australia (1902), Finland (1906), Norway (1913), Denmark (1915), USSR (1917), Canada (1918), Germany (1918), Poland (1918), Austria (1919), Belgium (1919), Great Britain (1919), Ireland (1919), Luxembourg (1919), the Netherlands (1919), Sweden (1919)