Women’s Equality Day Special

What is Women’s Equality Day?

Women’s Equality Day is an American celebration of allowing women to vote. Just because it’s American doesn’t mean we can not take this time to reflect on what Australian women have achieved.

Women’s Equality Day is a day of reflection. A day of appreciating the sacrifices of the women in our past, to enable us to be where we are as women today. But also looking ahead at what we have to strive for.

Group of women working

How did we get Here?

Women’s equality has never come easy but the identity of women before us, among us and after us are stronger than ever before. Enabling us to challenge the obstacles we continue to face daily.

Australia was the first country in the world to allow women to vote and stand for Parliament. Women were given the right to vote in 1902, 24 years before America.

Our privilege today was only possible because of the strength and perseverance of The Suffragettes.

Women of our Past

The Suffragettes were a group of women who came together after realising their value and opinion mattered within society.

Strengthened by each other and shared experiences, they worked together to gain the right to vote and paved the way for continuous change. Not only in Australia, but eventually around the world.

This couldn’t have been done without the strength in women’s identity.

Three Elderly Women

Women’s Identity

For the month of August, we have been focusing on the concept of identity. What better way to reflect on Women’s Equality than through the collective identity of The Suffragettes and feminists today.

A strong identity relies on a strong sense of self and an understanding of personal values and beliefs. Women during these times of change have pushed against the restraints, opinions and beliefs of a whole society.

Understanding their strengths, potential, contribution and having each other to further encourage this concept of identity is part of the reason we can openly discuss feminism and Women’s Equality today.

Empowered with their own understanding of Women’s identity, a term that’s ever changing within different generations of feminists advocating for change. The Suffragettes were able to alter the constraints of their society and put themselves in a position of power over their own lives and the world around them.

How does this Impact us Today?

Three Women Walking

These concepts of identity, while changing over time, have also continued to develop and broaden throughout 119 years of female empowerment.

Women have developed a strong sense of self. We know we are capable of just as much as the rest of society. Women today understand the strength in discussion and advocation, just like those who came before us. We are able to identify with ourselves, our independent and personal needs, our beliefs and values, our determination and perseverance to keep achieving change within society.

Women aren’t done yet.

Women’s identity is thriving as we navigate the current restraints society is attempting to enforce on us. Issues of gender discrimination, violence and the gender pay gap (which was reported at 14% in 2020 by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency).

Reflecting on how far we have come over almost 120 years, we can be proud of the power we can take into the future.

For more information contact us today. Please send us an email, give us a call at (02) 9929 8515, check out our LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook or find more Psych Up! resources here.