Washington Policy Watch

By Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, from Huffington Post:

EOI Board Member Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner

It’s Women’s Equality Day, the date marked to celebrate women getting the right to vote in our nation 90 years ago today. It’s both hard (and easy in some sad ways) to believe that it was just 90 years ago that women got the right to vote in our nation.

Reflecting on this, I called my grandmother, who turns 95 this year, to see what she recalled about women winning the right to vote, and who had this to say with a twinkle in her voice:

“Well, I wasn’t able to vote when I was 5 years old and women first got the right to vote. Although as a child I thought I should be able to vote, but of course I couldn’t. I had to wait for what felt to me like a very long time to be old enough to vote. I remember when I first voted and going into the polls. I remember that all my girl friends voted too. We all voted. We wanted to take part in what was going on in the world. The only way we could do that was by voting.”

Fast forward 90 years to now in 2010: Women do have the right to vote, we also have a modern economy with women comprising 50% of the entire paid labor force for the first time in history this year, and women now take part in what’s happening in the world in many more ways than appeared possible to my grandmother when she could first vote.

But that doesn’t mean women in our nation have achieved equality yet.

That’s right. It’s not yet time to pop the bubbly and celebrate victory on Women’s Equality Day just yet. There’s one very large group of women in particular who are experiencing significant inequality in our nation: Mothers.

Read more from Huffington Post: Don’t Pop the Bubbly Yet for Women’s Equality Day

Filed under: work and family, Glass ceiling, Suffrage, women, Women's Equality Day