This year marks exactly 100 years since 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified and women in the United States were granted the right to vote. 1920 marked the end of a centuries-long battle by women to secure their ability to voice their opinion and fight for their political rights. In the 100 years since, the women’s rights movement has seen many more successes, like equal opportunities in higher education and equal pay, but it has also encountered many more setbacks, like the recent restriction of reproductive health rights. And lingering beneath everything that has happened over the past 100 years is a consistent undercurrent of oppression of those who identify as female, which makes achieving success difficult and each setback disheartening.
This week, Mirror celebrates the history of women’s rights and the progress women have made since the fateful year of 1920. We examine how fashion evolved alongside women’s rights, chart the track of women in politics and tell the story of a group on campus that has worked to protect the reproductive rights of women. We hope that while reading this issue, you will consider how the events of the past century may inform the events of the next. And we hope that you will see the importance of women’s rights in defining the future as well as the necessity of continuing to protect them.
