Happy 19th birthday, Malala!
Thank you for your courageous work to empower women and girls. You inspire us every day!
💕💕💕💕💕💕💕 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕
🎉 🎂 Happy 44th birthday to Title IX! 🎂 🎉
Pop quiz! In which of the following areas does Title IX help ensure gender equity?
A. Fairness in school admissions
B. Access to athletics
C. Protection from sexual harassment and sexual assault
D. Opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)
E. All of the above
If you answered E, you are correct!
Many people think that Title IX exclusively addresses gender equity in school athletics, but the law has a much broader focus.
Signed into law on June 23, 1972, Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program or activity — public or private — when it comes to receiving federal funds.
The law applies to every aspect of educational activities from preschool through higher education, including admissions, recruitment, academics, employment, athletics, and student services.
Title IX is widely recognized for its role in the huge growth of women’s athletic programs, but imagine if we made as much progress inthe other aspects Title IX covers as we have with sports.
That women and girls still face discrimination on campus is why it’s so important to spread the word that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights recently released three sorely needed tools: a letter to schools reiterating the importance of Title IX coordinators, a thank-you letter directly to coordinators reaffirming their roles, and a free resource manual to guide their actions. Every school is required to appoint a Title IX coordinator to help prevent discrimination at her or his school, but before now the coordinators had few resources to do their jobs. And many schools haven’t appointed a coordinator at all.
The Office for Civil Rights has provided schools and Title IX coordinators with resources they need to independently act and address complaints, just in time for school to start. But we need you to help spread the word.
Thirty years ago today, we lost the seven brave men and women of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The team included Judith Resnik, an AAUW member and fellow. Resnik, who received funding from AAUW to study electrical engineering, was the first Jewish women and the second woman ever to go into space
We’re forever grateful for her and her team’s contributions to science <3.
Happy birthday, Alice Paul!
The best way to honor her legacy? Register to vote.
Happy birthday to Zora Neale Hurston!
When Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, African Americans, particularly African American women, faced restrictions and unfair treatment that limited their opportunities. But Hurston was too driven, intelligent and resourceful to be held back — she took the few opportunities she had, and made others appear when needed. Today she is acclaimed for books that include Their Eyes Were Watching God and Mules and Men; however, there are other aspects of her story that are less well-known, but just as interesting.
🎉 #HBD, Ellen Swallows Richards!
Not only did she co-found the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in 1881, but Richards was also the first U.S. women to earn a chemistry degree when she graduated from Vassar College in 1870, a time when women were largely barred from higher education.…Kinda amazing, right?
Richards researched causes of water pollution, and her work resulted in the establishment of the first modern sewage treatment plant. She’s also credited with creating the field of home economics.
A graduate of Vassar College, Richards went on to teach chemistry at MIT, where she established its Woman’s Laboratory in 1876. Knowing firsthand the barriers facing women in science, her women-only lab provided much-needed opportunities for women to study and gain entry into science.
Read Richards’ full, totally badass story.
Read about other amazing, historic women in STEM.
🎂🎉 Happy Birthday to Us!🎉🎂
On November 28, 1881, Marion Talbot, then a recent graduate from Boston University, and Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, invited 15 alumnae from eight colleges to a meeting in Boston.
Discouraged by the lack of opportunities available to them, the women discussed how they would join together to help other women attend college and to assist those who had already graduated. And that’s how AAUW was born! 💪
We’re thankful for the women who founded AAUW and helped start a movement for gender equity. Here’s to another 134 years of empowering women and girls!
October 23, 1915: Women March in New York for Suffrage Parade
On this day in 1915, 25,000 women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City advocating for women’s voting rights. Five years later, the 19th amendment was passed in 1920 and granted 26 million women (half of the population at the time) the right to vote.
Dive deep into the Suffrage Movement with American Experience’s “Battle for Suffrage” article, which details key figures, events, and victories throughout the Suffrage movement.
Photo: Photograph shows four women carrying ballot boxes on a stretcher during a suffrage parade in New York City, New York (Library of Congress).
Photo: Suffrage parade, NYC, Oct. 23, 1915 (Library of Congress).
100 years ago today!
Women might have won the right to vote, but the fight for gender equality is far from over.
Learn more.
Happy 80th Birthday, Social Security!
Can You Pass Our Social Security Quiz?
For 80 years, Social Security has been our nation’s most successful anti-poverty program. Yet few people realize the crucial role that the program plays for women. Test your knowledge! Guess whether each statement below is true or false, and then read our blog to learn the facts.
- Nearly 60 percent of people receiving Social Security benefits are women.
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Social Security is especially critical to women because of the gender pay gap.
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The program supports millions of older women — more than half of whom would fall into poverty without it.
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Although Social Security needs reform, the program isn’t broken beyond repair.
Get the answers.
Seven months extra work, 64% of the pay.
Today, July 28, marks how far into 2015 black women must work to earn as much as white men did in 2014.
That’s an extra 208 days of hard work. Outraged? Us, too.
Learn more, including how you can take action at fightforfairpay.org.
vox:
Happy moon landing day! July 20, 2015 marks the 46th anniversary of Apollo 11’s arrival on the moon. The software for the guidance computer was written by a team at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory (now the Draper Laboratory), headed up by Margaret Hamilton.
Hamilton’s code was good — so good, in fact, that it very well might have saved the entire Apollo 11 mission. The rendezvous radar (the radar system to be used when leaving the moon and reconnecting with the control module) and the computer-aided guidance system in the lunar module used incompatible power supplies. The radar, which didn’t really have a purpose in the landing portion of the mission, started sending the computer lots and lots of data based on random electrical noise. This overloaded the computer and threatened to leave no room for the computational tasks necessary for landing.
And that’s what would have happened if Hamilton hadn’t been a baller. Being a baller, she anticipated this kind of problem and made the Apollo operating system robust against it.
#TBT - 52 years ago this week, JFK signed the #EqualPay Act into law. We’re proud of the AAUW members pictured here! But more work needs to be done.
More than 50 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act, pay discrimination continues to be a very real problem. In 1963, women were paid 63 cents for every dollar men were paid. Today, that figure is 78 cents. Although we have made strides, true parity continues to elude us. The gap is even wider for moms and women of color.
To celebrate the anniversary of the 1963 Equal Pay Act, tell Congress to pass an update. Tell them that when it comes to wages, women and their families deserve better!
Learn more and take action –> http://fightforfairpay.org
Times have changed! But the #EqualPay Act, which was signed into law 52 years ago today, hasn’t.
In 1963, women were paid 63 cents for every dollar men were paid. Today, that figure is 78 cents. Although we have made strides, true parity continues to elude us. The gap is even wider for moms and women of color.
Tell your member of Congress that women deserve equal pay - it’s past time that we updated the Equal Pay Act! —> bit.ly/nomore78cents
52 years today the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed. This is where it is today.
We were there when JFK signed the Equal Pay Act 52 years ago today!
That’s AAUW members Minnie Miles (front row, fourth from right) and Reps. Edith Green (left of president, in white suit), Martha Griffiths (second from right), and Julia Hansen (far right) with President John F. Kennedy as he signs the Equal Pay Act into law on June 10, 1963.