As we move through Women’s History Month, there’s no better time to reflect on some of the legal advancements women have achieved in American history, and their collective efforts to change the structures stacked against them to make important contributions and accomplishments across every aspect of society. Although only a glimpse into the vast and diverse experiences of women shaped by their lived experiences, the achievements highlighted below can ignite inspiration and galvanize collective efforts to foster an environment where every individual has the opportunity to thrive.
In the early decades after the United States was founded, women’s rights activists such as Frances Wright and Ernestine Rose sought to improve marriage laws and economic conditions for women. Coverture laws went so far as to deny married women a legal identity, along with their female babies. Married women could not own or work in businesses, as they did not legally exist.
As political reform movements such as abolitionism took hold, some activists began pushing for greater political rights, including the right to vote. Matilda Joslyn Gage, one of the co-founders of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, found inspiration for women’s rights in the native culture of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy, whose family and governmental structure was (and still is) based on female authority.
Though women were legally granted the right to vote in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified, it wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the array of tactics used to disenfranchise Black voters (literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation, etc.) were addressed, eliminating the systemic barriers to participation that Black women voters faced.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell, both journalists, educators, and founding/charter members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), were instrumental in the push for voting rights for Black women. Among her lifelong efforts to fight prejudice and violence against all African Americans, Wells-Barnett spent the 1890s documenting lynchings that occurred throughout the country, exposing the brutality and the fabrication promoted by white men that all Black lynching victims were guilty of crimes. Terrell also worked to improve rights for all Americans by focusing on issues such as women’s suffrage, lynching, and Jim Crow laws in her role as the first president of the National Association of Colored Women, which was founded in 1896.
Women have also played a critical role in the development of computing technologies, such as London-born Ada Lovelace, whose work in the early 1840s included creating the world’s first computer program, and Grace Hopper, a U.S. Naval admiral and computer scientist who was one of the first programmers for the computer used in World War II. Both women have celebrations dedicated to them; Ada Lovelace Day is held on the second Tuesday of October, and the annual Grace Hopper Celebration is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists. Not surprisingly, these are important events that NCWIT looks forward to participating in each year!
Despite all that women have overcome in the U.S. over the past 200 years, there remain many challenges, including in the technology field. Women held most of the jobs in computer programming and tech-related fields until the 1960s, but research by NCWIT indicates that in 2023, women held just 27 percent of the professional computing occupations in the U.S. workforce — and the numbers are significantly worse for women of color. As of 2023, Black or African American women made up 3% of the computing workforce, Asian women 7%, and Latina women 2%. Gender gaps in pay, as well as bias and other barriers in hiring, are just some of the factors that continue to hold women back. Â
The past several years have also seen setbacks in areas such as women’s reproductive rights which, combined with more recent challenges to creating inclusive work environments, can make it seem as though women are losing ground. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that women are strong, and persistent, and resolute in their pursuit of opportunity and access. Social changes occur slowly, but with the dedicated efforts of countless individuals who are working to create a world in which we all can thrive, we’ll continue to see progress. At NCWIT, we are excited to celebrate Women’s History Month with deep gratitude for the countless trailblazing women of our past, and an unwavering commitment to a future defined by possibilities and progress.
