Women's right to vote celebates 90 years but struggle for equality continues

Ninety years ago today, our country corrected a great injustice by guaranteeing women the right to vote. This progress would not have been possible without the courage, foresight and tenacity of those pioneers who risked everything to ensure that women had this fundamental, inalienable right. 

But the cause of women’s equality did not end with the progress made by pioneers like Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, or even with the strides made by those who have continued to fight for women’s equality up to the present day in ways big and small, public and private.  The struggle for full equality for women continues today, with women making only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men.  In the past two years, Democrats have worked to rectify this continuing inequality by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to ensure that women are paid the same as men for the same work. Democrats also passed health care reform that bans insurance companies from charging women more than men for the same coverage on the basis of their gender, and that provides free preventative care for millions of women across America.  And Democrats voted overwhelmingly to send Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, putting three female Justices on the Supreme Court for the first time in our nation’s history.

Despite these advances and others, the struggle for gender equality continues. I believe we have a duty to end these inequities where they exist, and to honor the legacy of the pioneers who led this movement by continuing to work for full gender equality in America.