Make History With Your Media Activism on Women’s Equality Day

NOW Womens Equality Day invitationNote: This is posted today as a Women’s Media Center Exclusive

The invitation to today’s Phoenix-Scottsdale National Organization for Women (NOW) “Equality Day Feminist Convergence” depicts a quaint sepia photo of suffragists picketing the White House. It telegraphs “old.” After all, the event celebrates the 91st anniversary of the date in 1920 when women’s right to vote entered the U.S. Constitution.

But, remember, in the decades at the beginning of the 20th century those purple and white sashes and those picket signs wielded by (purposefully) demurely dressed women were new media in action.

Fittingly, attendees at the Arizona event will have a contemporary victory to celebrate, one involving media activism squarely in the suffragist tradition. But this one is powered by e-mail and concerns itself with very modern day attire. Tight jeans to be exact…

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Friday Round Up: Know Your History & You Can Create the Future of Your Choice

July 19th was the 163rd anniversary of the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention that is generally regarded as the start of the women’s movement in the U. S. So this week’s roundup has to be about power tool #1: Know your history and you can create the future of your choice.

Astronaut Sandy Magnus

Sandy Magnus and three other (male) NASA astronauts returned to earth early Thursday morning aboard the final flight of Atlantis. Magnus, 46, is an engineer and a veteran in space exploration since joining NASA in 1996. She now has the distinction of being the last woman ever to fly on a NASA space shuttle which is being retired after three decades of service. And she has a sense of history, and the historic nature of her own work.

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