Throughout history, we have seen the improvement of the social, political, and economic equality between genders; we still have a marathon’s worth of things to achieve, but by looking back at how much we have achieved, we can be inspired to keep pursuing equality every day. On September 18th, we celebrated International Equal Pay Day, which focuses on the battles of previous generations and the ongoing efforts towards achieving equality on the economic level.
Within this article, we will see multiple achievements that us women have gotten throughout history to progress equality in all aspects.
We start in 1691 with Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is a Mexican icon who faced criticism for studying secular texts during her particular time in history. She was a writer and nun who defended women’s right to education in 1691 by stating, “One can perfectly well philosophize while cooking supper.” In our current time, that quote might seem offensive to some women, but knowing the context and time in which it was said, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is someone to admire today. She now appears on Mexican currency.
Jumping two hundred years later, we see Kate Sheppard in 1893.
Kate Sheppard and numerous campaigners presented a motion that was seen as a “monster” petition at the time; it astonished the New Zealand parliament. Sheppard demanded women’s suffrage, and to support her plea, she had obtained 32,000 signatures. This move led to New Zealand becoming the first country to grant voting rights to women in 1893, years before any country.
Some years later, in 1911 Japan, we now see Raichō Hiratsuka.
Raichō Hiratsuka was a pioneering Japanese editor, writer, and activist. She co-founded Japan’s first all-women-run literary journal, called “Seitō.” With this, she challenged women’s roles at that point in society and encouraged women to “reveal the genius hidden within us” in her magazine.
For all the STEM girlies, let’s not forget Rosalind Franklin and her discoveries in 1951.
British chemist Rosalind Franklin paved the way for discovering DNA’s double-helix structure through x-rays. She captured photos of this structure through a machine she had refined and built herself. Side note: during the race to uncover this structure, Jim Watson and Francis Crick stole Franklin’s data and didn’t credit her.
In 1960, Rigoberto Menchú became the first indigenous person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Menchú campaigned for social justice and ethnocultural recognition during Guatemala’s civil war. She also co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative to magnify women’s work on peace, justice and equality.
Next, in 1973, Billie Jean King starts a different but necessary fight.
American activist and tennis champion Billie Jean King became widely known for threatening to boycott the very popular U.S. Open tennis tournament unless women were paid the same amount of money as men. This demand was met, making the U.S. Open the first major tournament to achieve pay equality.
Years later, much closer to us now, we see Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi in 2016.
Both of these women took their government to court on the topic of child marriage. They were both former child brides and made history by making Zimbabwe’s constitutional court rule in their favour. As a result, nobody in Zimbabwe can marry before the age of 18.
Today, women still make an average of 24% less than men worldwide—and that’s before we dive into the minorities within the minority. Women hold so much potential, and throughout history we have proven to be able to change many things; let’s keep fighting the fight, and not let the mountain that our past generations have built for us crumble without putting in any effort of our own.