Women's Equality Day and the 90th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment

Posted by White House

Today we celebrate Women’s Equality Day and we mark the 90th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment. We honor those who made this day possible like Alice Paul and Ida Wells-Barnett and the countless women who fought for suffrage. They understood what we know now – that there is power in participation. We believe in the importance of voting.

Since 1920, women have made enormous strides toward social, political, and economic equality in the United States. Today, women and girls comprise just over 50 percent of the United States' population. Women now outnumber men in undergraduate education, as they now earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees and they makeup nearly half of the U.S. workforce.

While we have made great strides, there is still more work to do. As President Obama noted in the Women’s Equality Day Proclamation “we celebrate this important milestone and the achievements and shattered ceilings of the past, we also recognize the inequalities that remain and our charge to overcome them.” Women in the U.S. only earn a mere 77 cents for every dollar a man earns and the wage gap grows for women of color: African American women earn 69 cents and Latina women earn 62 cents for every dollar earned by a white male per week. And women and girls continue to lag in key sectors that are critical to building our 21st century economy. For example, women hold only 27 percent of jobs in science and engineering.

For these reasons and many more, the Obama Administration is focused on keeping up the fight for equality. This is why we created the White House Council on Women and Girls. The Council is working to institutionalize and embed an ongoing focus on women and girls as part of how the federal government develops policies, pursues programs, and works with Congress. We strive to embed the fight for equality in all we do. Every day we stand on the shoulders of the women who went before us and we keep them in mind as we forge ahead for another 90 years.

You can learn more about Women's Equality by reading President Obama's Presidential Proclamation on Women's Equality Day.

What You Missed: Open for Questions on 90th Anniversary of Women’s Right To Vote

Posted by White House

In honor of this year’s Women’s Equality Day and the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, I did a live web chat with Shireen Mitchell from the BlogHer community. Shireen and I had a great conversation, in which Shireen asked me a variety of questions from online participants. Watch the full video or use the links below to jump to the topics that interest you most:

• Opening remarks
• The long struggle women had to get the right to vote in 1920
• Importance of women exercising their right to vote
• Inequalities the exists for women today
• The online community’s power to organize around politics and voting
• How the White House Office of Public Engagement works
• Voting rights in particular for incarcerated women and injustices in the criminal justice system
• Equal pay for working women and their families
• How Social Security affects women
• Domestic and international human trafficking
• The Equal Rights Amendment and Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
• Adoption
• Violence against women, participation, and medical care and services for women in the military
• The White House Office on Violence Against Women
• Overall equality of women
• Getting more women and girls involved in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields
• Concluding remarks

The conversation left me energized about the progress women have made, but focused on the challenges ahead. There are countless opportunities for the public’s engagement in politics and government. The importance of voting and other forms of public participation in government is the foundation of our country. As the Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, I am proud to commemorate Women’s Equality Day and the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment in such an inclusive way.

A special thank you to Shireen Mitchell, the BlogHer community, and all of those who participated for providing me this opportunity.