Walter Reed joins the nation in observing Women’s Equality Day (August 26) every day. Walter Reed joins the rest of the nation in observing Women’s Equality Day on August 26 and every other day. Women’s Equality Day celebrates the day American women gained the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. “One Piece at a Time” is this year’s theme, created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI). The theme reflects the lives and contributions of notable individuals who played a pivotal role in women’s suffrage, including Frederick Douglass, Wilhelmina Kekelaokalaninui Widemann Dowsett, Harry T. Burn, Zitkála-Sá (also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin), Adelina Otero-Warren, and Tye Leung Schulze. Their collective efforts paved the way for gender equality beyond the right to vote.”
Although women have served in some capacity in every conflict America has been involved in, it wasn’t until 1917 that they were first publicly allowed to serve in the military as front-line nurses. In 1948, the Women’s Armed Service Integration Act allowed women regular, permanent employment in the armed forces, but until 1991, women were not allowed to participate in combat operations. In 2013, Congress lifted the ban on women serving in combat. Today, over 200,000 women serve on active duty in the U.S. military, and just this year, Army Capt. Molly Murphy, a pediatric intensive care unit nurse at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, became the first nurse to graduate from the U.S. military’s elite Ranger course. Last year, U.S. Navy Capt. (Dr.) Melissa Austin became the first female chief of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in its 13-year history.
The late New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug is considered the originator of Women’s Equality Day after she introduced a resolution to Congress in 1971 declaring August 26th a day of remembrance. Exactly one year earlier, about 50,000 women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City to not only celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, but also to demand changes in child care and health policies, as well as in education and employment opportunities. The march was called the Women’s Strike for Equality March because many did not go to work that day.
Going even further back in history, the origins of Women’s Equality Day are said to be the suffragists who gathered in Seneca Falls in 1848 for the first women’s rights convention.
“Frederick Douglass was an outspoken activist who fought for the freedom of enslaved people. His beliefs and advocacy for equal rights extended to the women’s rights movement. He was invited to the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. There he expressed his passionate support for women’s suffrage and began working with famous women’s rights activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. He remained influential in the movement until his death in 1895,” says DEOMI.
“In respect of political rights, we believe that women are entitled to equal rights with men. We go further and express our belief that all political rights which men should enjoy should also be enjoyed by women,” Douglass is quoted as saying.
“Our work as a nation is never finished – fulfilling the full promise of the 19th Amendment is more important today than ever before. We are making tremendous progress, but more must be done to ensure equal rights and opportunities for women and girls. On this Women’s Equality Day, let us recommit to building a country and a world where our daughters have the same opportunities as our sons. Because when women succeed, we all succeed,” says the President’s Proclamation recognizing Women’s Equality Day 2024.