Tomorrow, August 26, is Women's Equality Day in the United States. The day is held every year to commemorate the day women were given the right to vote when the 19th Amendment passed on August 26, 1920.
While there are still efforts to gain full women's equality in places throughout the world, we have made great achievements and come far. And many inspiring women have helped reach that point throughout the years.
Here are 15 uplifting quotes to celebrate Women's Equality Day.
1. "For the record, feminism, by definition, is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory of political, economic and social equality of the sexes."
– Emma Watson
Via Wikipedia
2. “Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.”
– Hillary Clinton
3. "It's indisputable that there's a real pay gap. People can argue about how big, but that's almost besides the point. The point is that every woman, every girl, deserves to get paid what they're worth."
– Sheryl Sandberg
4. “Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.”
– Amelia Earhart
5. "We’re viewed as equals — but we’re still not there yet...The challenge for our girls, I think, is dealing with that resistance. How can we lift and defuse it, how do we make it so our equality is not so threatening? Our girls are going to have to contend with that. I contend with it right now in every realm I operate in."
– Meryl Streep
6. “I raise up my voice – not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard…We cannot succeed when half of us are held back."
- Malala Yousafzai
7. "I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass."
– Maya Angelou
Via Wikipedia
8. "The idea of being a feminist: so many women have come to this idea of it being anti-male and not able to connect with the opposite sex, but what feminism is about is equality and human rights. For me that is just an essential part of my identity."
– Lena Dunham
9. “Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.”
– Gloria Steinem
10. "We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever."
– Susan B. Anthony
Via Wikipedia
11. "We need to stop buying into the myth about gender equality. It isn't a reality yet. Today, women make up half of the U.S. workforce, but the average working woman earns only 77 percent of what the average working man makes. But unless women and men both say this is unacceptable, things will not change."
- Beyoncé
12. "It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent."
–Madeline Albright
13. "Imagine you're a little girl. You're growing up. You practice as hard as you can, with girls, with boys. You have a dream. You fight, you work, you sacrifice to get to this stage. You work as hard as anyone you know. And then you get to this stage, and you're told you're not the same as a boy. Almost as good, but not quite the same. Think how devastating and demoralizing that could be."
– Venus Williams
14. "Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult."
– Charlotte Whitton
15. "Men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths."
– Lois Wyse
