175 Years and More to Go: Women’s Equality
Friday Feelings, Inspiration, Feminist Message for Women on the 175th Anniversary of the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention
I was back in the audience of two hundred women, this time not in the city’s hall on a wooden bench in Syracuse, but at the beautiful Executive Mansion in Albany. The date July 20th and the years – 1998 and again in 2023.
The first time I was invited due to my role as Syracuse’s only women’s business owner as its group leader as female entrepreneurship was rising in popularity. The second time as a guest to our state’s first female governor Kathy Hochul, a woman I had the pleasure of knowing from participating in the 100th Anniversary of New York State’s Suffrage Anniversary in 2019.
At the 1998 event, female leaders from the Central New York community like Karen DeCrow, an attorney and past president of N.O.W., civic leaders, and community activists verbally read aloud the exact words from The Declaration of Sentiments – the Seneca Falls Convention’s manifesto – describing women’s grievances and demands written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The convention was where women were fighting for their Constitutionally guaranteed right to equality as United States citizens.
That event inspired me to invite a woman who acts the part of Elizabeth Cady Stanton to appear at my annual retreat for women entrepreneurs, as a surprise to inspire today’s women to remember our continued fight for equality.
As Governor Hochul reminded us in her speech that women’s rights have in fact decreased since the last celebration including a reversal on Roe vs. Wade, non-passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and more, we all stood in disbelief that it has taken so long to barely achieve what our foremothers started out to do 175 years earlier!
What will it take?
It takes continued individual action in areas of passion to make changes.
It takes combined work with other women (and men) to push for legislation.
It takes not backing down.
It takes commitment.
It takes a renewal of intent.
It takes US!
I truly believe the world won’t change for women unless women change the world for women. Although men have helped along the way, it takes every single woman to stand up for injustice, inequality, and unfair practices to march, write, speak, and act so the next generation of women can finally achieve the equality our foremothers intended 175 years ago.T
Women TIES 