08/27/2026
On Women’s Equality Day, the Women and Girls Commission honors the courage, persistence, and determination of the women who fought for the right to vote and helped change the course of our nation.
August 26 marks the certification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, a historic milestone in the long struggle for women’s political participation. The amendment represented generations of organizing, advocacy, sacrifice, and perseverance by women who insisted that democracy could not be fully realized while women were excluded from the ballot box
But as we commemorate that achievement, we must also recognize the fuller history of the struggle. The 19th Amendment did not mean that every woman immediately had meaningful access to the vote. Black women in the South and many other women of color continued to face discriminatory laws and practices that prevented them from fully exercising their voting rights for decades.
That history matters because it reminds us that equality is not achieved simply by changing the law; it requires continued work to ensure that rights are accessible, meaningful, and experienced by everyone.
Today, women and girls have made extraordinary progress. Women serve in leadership across our communities, workplaces, schools, governments, and civic institutions. Women and girls are shaping conversations, creating businesses, leading movements, pursuing education, and advocating for their families and communities.
Yet significant gaps remain.
Women and girls continue to encounter barriers to equal opportunity, economic security, leadership, safety, education, representation, and full participation in civic and community life. These challenges do not affect all women equally. Race, ethnicity, income, disability, age, geography, family responsibilities, and other circumstances can compound barriers and create very different experiences of equality.
For the Women and Girls Commission, Women’s Equality Day is therefore more than a day to look backward. It is a day to ask what equality requires of us today.
The women who fought for the vote understood that progress takes persistence. Their legacy challenges us to ensure that every woman and girl has the opportunity to participate, lead, be heard, and reach her full potential.
We honor the vote by using it.
We honor the suffragists by continuing the work they began.
And we honor women and girls today by addressing the barriers that remain.
On this Women’s Equality Day, the Women and Girls Commission recommits to advancing a community where equality is not simply an aspiration, but a lived reality, where every woman and girl has a voice, a seat at the table, and the opportunity to thrive.
The right to vote was a milestone. Equality is the work that continues.
