August 26 of every year since 1971 has been devoted to Women’s Equality Day. This day commemorates women getting the right to vote in 1920 after a long struggle that began in 1848. However, this day also is meant to remember that the fight for equality is an ongoing struggle, and to remember those who fought before us that made our lives what they are today.
In honor of the fact that we are coming up to August 26, I thought I would try and do my part to call attention to this day and all that it represents.
I think that it is important to remember and celebrate the women who fought for our right to vote and for women’s equality.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a pioneer of women’s rights movements and a leader in the Women’s Suffrage movement. She not only led the fight for women’s right to vote, but also in other matters of women’s equality, such as parental custody rights and the right to hold property. Her fight even continued when she was married to her husband, abolitionist Henry Brewster Stanton, when she insisted that the word ‘obey’ be cut from the ceremony.
Stanton started out as an abolitionist, but when she and other female abolitionists were denied official delegate standing at the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, she committed herself to fighting for women’s equality and she and Lucretia Mott called together the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. The convention and Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments are frequently recognized as the beginning of first organized women’s rights and women’s suffrage movements in America.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked tirelessly throughout her life to fight injustices against women. She partnered with Susan B. Anthony to found the National Women’s Suffrage Association, which Stanton was president of.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a true pioneer in the women’s rights and suffragist movements and devoted much of her life to women’s causes. She died in October 1902, over 18 years before women got the right to vote.