Today, here in the United States is National Women’s Equality Day.

Established in 1971 by the U.S. Congress to serve as a reminder of the certification of the 19th amendment which came to be in 1920 giving women the right vote.

It is my hope paired with the decision to continually be educated, informed and aware that equal opportunity and protection need not be a day to serve as a reminder that we will one day be truly equal, but sooner rather than later, be a day in which women are equal along with all people no matter their sex, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Some quotes to ponder from women in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries:

The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality. —Elizabeth Cady Stanton

I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet. ―Susan B. Anthony

Unless women are prepared to fight politically they must be content to be ignored politically. —Alice Paul

For if single women are looking for government to create a “hubby state” for them, what is certainly true is that their male counterparts have a long enjoy the fruits of a related “wifey state,” in which the nation and its government supported male independence in a variety of ways. Men, and especially married wealthy white men, have a long relied on government assistance. It’s a government that has historically supported white men’s home and business ownership through grants, loans, incentives, and tax breaks. It has allowed them to accrue wealth and offer them shortcuts and bonuses for passing it down to their children. Government established white men’s right to vote and thus exert control over the government at the nation’s founding and has protected their enfranchisement. It has also bolstered the economic and professional prospects of men by depressing the economic prospects of women: by failing to offer women equivalent economic and civic protections, thus helping to create conditions whereby women were forced to be dependent on those men, creating a gendered class of laborers who took low paying or unpaid jobs doing the domestic and childcare work that further enabled men to dominate public spheres. —Rebecca Traister (2015)