By the President of the United States of America Each year, on
Women's Equality Day, we reflect on how far we have traveled on
our journey to make America live up to the ideals of justice and
equality articulated so powerfully in the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Few
constitutional amendments have affected that progress more
profoundly than the 19th, which guarantees American women the
right to vote. Looking back from today's vantage point, where
women hold positions of authority and responsibility at almost
every level of government, it is hard to imagine that, for
almost a century and a half, women were barred from exercising
the most fundamental right of every democracy. There are women
still living among us who can remember a time when they were
prevented, by law, from having a role in shaping the destiny of
their country and the impact of government on their own and
their families' lives. But thanks to women and men of
extraordinary courage and conviction, who wag