Happy Women’s Equality Day!
It's been over a hundred years since women across the United States successfully lobbied for the right to vote, giving way to the Nineteenth Amendment and the declaration of Women’s Equality Day, to be celebrated annually on August 26.
Since then, women have kept pushing forward, setting the bar higher and higher towards equality. While we are far from achieving true equality, women across the globe have reached many first and inspiring wins this year. From San Francisco's first black female mayor to the New York Stock Exchange’s first female president, it's been yet another trailblazing year for women and it seems like we're just getting started.
In celebration of Women's Equality Day 2018, here's a round-up of some of the winning moments for women this year.
Duckworth was 50 when she had her second child, a daughter named Maile, in April, becoming the first sitting U.S. Senator to give birth while in office. After she announced her pregnancy in January, Duckworth opened up about her struggles to conceive, and how women shouldn’t have to make sacrifices with their fertility in exchange for career success. She has since championed several bills to make life easier for new parents, telling ABC News: "As tough as juggling the demands of motherhood and being a Senator can be, I’m hardly alone or unique as a working parent, and my children only make me more committed to doing my job and standing up for hardworking families everywhere."
For many of us, driving is simply a matter of trying to get from one place to another. But for Saudi women, gaining the right to drive represents the freedom to move independently in a country where women have traditionally had to rely on their relatives, or spend much of their salary on taxis, to take them wherever they wanted to go. After getting her license, one driver addressed her fellow women from behind the wheel saying, "The sky’s the limit, nothing can stop you!”
The lifting of the ban on women driving in June was the culmination of more than three decades of hard-fought activism in the extremely conservative, gender-segregated society. In May, a number of women activists fighting for the ban to be lifted and pushing for other much-needed reforms were detained and remain jailed.
Driving is big, but Saudi women are still must obtain a male guardian's consent for most activities from marriage to opening a bank account or decisions regarding their medical treatment. Here are 13 things women in Saudi Arabia still cannot do freely.
When Pixar’s “Bao” was released to theaters along with “Incredibles 2” earlier this year, the short garnered an immense outpouring of support for its culturally authentic portrayal of a relationship between mother and child. What some viewers didn’t realize is that “Bao” also represented a milestone for its female director, Domee Shi, who in just seven years went from an intern to the first female director of a short film at Pixar. Shi talked to “GMA” about overcoming the challenges of walking into a room at work and being one of the only women there. “It took me a while to build my own confidence...as a way to motivate myself.”
The women’s hockey team beat Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, to win its first gold medal since 1998. But before the big win, the female players were fighting off the ice for equal pay and equal treatment as their male counterparts. The women’s team initially threatened to sit out of the 2017 World Championships and then engaged in a 15-month contract dispute, ultimately negotiating a reported salary bump of over $60,000. While it’s not equal pay (yet), it’s a step in the right direction to equality and shows the power of banding together.
Just one year after the first Women's March on Washington, 2018 set the record for the most number of women nominated by a major party for Congress and Governor. The midterms have been filled with a number of female first -- Christine Halquist became the first transgender person to be a major-party governor nominee, and former refugee Ilhan Omar is set to become the first Somali-American in U.S. Congress after winning her primary earlier this month. After defeating a 10-term Democratic incumbent in her primary, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will become the youngest woman ever elected to Congress if she wins the general election in November.
Women weren't allowed in the infantry until 2015, and the Marines were the last service to integrate women into combat units but First Lieutenant Marina Hierl is no stranger to setting records. After becoming the first woman to graduate from the Infantry Officer Course at Quantico, the intensive 13-week program Marines are required to complete, she became the Marines' first female platoon commander.
"I wanted to do something important with my life," Hierl, 24, told The New York Times, who followed her as she made history commanding an infantry platoon of roughly 35 male Marines during training exercises in northern Australia. "I wanted to be part of a group of people that would be willing to die for each other."