Shouldn't It Be Called Women's INequality Day?

Issue 239 — August 28, 2023

Last night, attending an Angel City Football Club soccer game (they won 3–1!), I had a tearing up moment chatting with a woman I happened to be standing next to. She had come down to Los Angeles from the Bay Area to bring her two elementary school aged daughters to the game. She said, “Can you imagine? We never got to see anything like this. The women’s team, owned by women, run by women, supported by so many women?”

I looked at her girls cheering away, waving their Angel City scarves, and felt so proud of how far we have come on the long road to equality.

It was all the more meaningful for me, having just come off Take The Lead’s Women’s Equality Day Power Up Concert and Conference on August 26. 

Unfamiliar with it or vaguely remember what that day is about? Did you notice the posts and comments about it but not really register its importance? If so, you’re far from alone, believe me. Yet Women’s Equality Day is vital as we persist in the struggle.

I’ve been persisting for half a century, having started at the scruffiest grassroots of bright red West Texas during the 1970s and being privileged decades later to work with the highest halls of power. And to be sure, we have made so many advances.

Yet I cofounded Take The Lead a decade ago to achieve intersectional gender parity in leadership when I realized how much women’s presence still dwindles and disparities in pay and power remain stubbornly ingrained as we ascend male-dominated leadership domains, from Congress to corporations to community service.

At the conference, we gave our Leading Woman award to President Barbie (the doll of course, since we haven’t yet had a real-life female president to cheer). The “Barbie” movie’s allure reflects the remaining strain between our potential and the limits we confront: the external systemic and — let’s face it — those in our heads from cultural messages and the whammy of implicit bias on our self-valuation.

Both Barbie and Ken were molded within boxes that were impossible to duplicate except in the fantasy world. The message of the film is that Barbie has the power to create her own story as messy as the real world may be and Ken is “kenough” without the macho trappings of social expectations he doesn’t even understand.

Concert pianist and composer Marina Arsenijevic channeled Barbie, and as always wowed the audience with her musical brilliance.

What does that have to do with Women’s Equality Day and its significance? August 26, 1920 marks the day the 19th Amendment, allowing (many) women to vote, entered the Constitution. In 1973, New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug proposed a resolution to declare August 26 Women’s Equality Day. Every president for five decades, regardless of party, has proclaimed this day.

What is usually overlooked however is that Abzug’s purpose was to highlight the INequality that still existed because the Equal Rights Amendment had stalled and women remained marginalized, our rights absent from the Constitution.

Many people ask, amidst strides in the corporate, political, and professional spheres, is Women’s Equality Day still needed today?

Alas, this crucial day remains essential. The U.S. now ranks 43rd globally in gender parity, plummeting 16 places in a year.

Today, 100 years since the ERA was drafted by suffragist Alice Paul, ensuring “equality of rights… shall not be denied… on account of sex,” though ratified by the required states, it’s yet to be enshrined in the Constitution.

The pay gap enforces disparities in economic power. Women earn only 82 cents per dollar compared to men, with women of color far below that average. Leadership roles remain male-dominated, with a mere 10% of female CEOs among Fortune 500 companies and women holding just a quarter of U.S. Congress seats. Gender-based violence and reproductive freedom losses, exemplified by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case overturning Roe v Wade and signaling a threat to roll back access to contraception and LGBTQ+ rights, are sending shock waves around the country.

As Bella Abzug wryly noted, “We want it all, but we’ll take half.” We have a long way to go to achieve that.

So August 26 should be called Women’s INequality Day. Auspiciously occurring this year on the same date as the 60th anniversary Civil Rights March on Washington, it’s a reminder that women’s civil rights deserve a guarantee in the Constitution and in practice.

That’s why this year’s theme of Take The Lead’s annual concert and conference was “Lead YOUR Intention,” because united intent knows no bounds.

On August 26, in Los Angeles and virtually, we honored people who have been in the trenches for social justice like Darnell Moore, Vice President for Global Inclusion Strategy at Netflix, Ms. Magazine for its 50 years of feminist journalism, and Kathleen Turner who taught me that actor and activist, as she defines herself, come from the same root word.

Alexander Barbanell Leading Man 2022 honoree Vada Manager presented the award to Netflix VP for Inclusion Strategy Darnell Moore, 2023 honoree.

As 27-year-old Heaven Abraha told me, “Women’s Equality Day means that just asking isn’t enough, and it’s on all of us today to make sure that in another 100 years, women will live in a better world.”

At Take The Lead, we are 100% committed to making that better world happen within the next three years. Please join us in this mission. 

For we must not let this day be only about spotlighting disparities. We must make those remaining inequalities incite passion and energize action. It’s a clarion call to redouble the work for a brighter tomorrow for everyone of all genders. We must fight the age-old battle in today’s terms, forging a more equitable and inclusive world for all.

Women’s Equality Day isn’t just a date; it’s a movement, to be recognized and worked for every day.

So put Women’s Equality Day 2024 on your calendar now — August 26 — so you won’t miss the next Power Up Concert and Conference, marking Take The Lead’s 10th anniversary of moving the dial forward for women.

For an inclusive, fair, prosperous world, together we will transform the date from relic to catalyst to convert commitment, voice, and influence into an exuberant celebration of true parity in power, pay, and leadership positions.

GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker and expert women’s leadership developer for companies that want to build gender balance, and a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she teaches “Women, Power, and Leadership” at Arizona State University and is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Tweet Gloria Feldt.