To celebrate Women's Equality Day, we're choosing joy

It is tough to be simultaneously reflective and realistic about women’s rights at this moment in our nation’s history.

Yesterday was Women’s Equality Day—a national commemoration first proposed in 1971 by Bella Abzug, the formidable feminist organizer and federal lawmaker from New York, and passed in 1973 by Congress as a joint resolution to recognize the fight for women’s suffrage and hard-won ratification of the 19th Amendment.

The White House issued a characteristically loaded (and creepy) statement: “This Women’s Equality Day, our Nation proudly celebrates the timeless truth that every American citizen is created in the holy image of God and endowed with certain unalienable rights … [and] recommit[s] to upholding our country’s long-cherished principles of liberty, equal justice under the law, and the God-given dignity of the human person.” On brand, considering the administration’s latest flirtation with Christian nationalists calling for repealing women’s right to vote (covered by The Contrarian).

Across the country, local speeches and events took place from Kentucky to Ohio to North Dakota, even the town of Wichita Falls, Texas (once home to the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame). Activists and political leaders sought to “honor the generations of brave women who fought for our fundamental rights and freedoms,” in the words of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at a Michigan gathering.

I have to say, it is a rough assignment to be simultaneously reflective and realistic about women’s rights at this moment in our nation’s history. Factor in the growing drumbeat in favor of some bizarrely regressive policies—tradwives, and pronatalism, and restorative reproductive medicine, oh my!—and the political and public discourse around gender equity can seem not just depressing but downright dystopian.

Enter today’s column. To infuse a dose of can-do optimism into Women’s Equality Day 2025, here are the feminist sheroes giving me life this week:

• Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce announced their engagement with an Instagram post that broke the internet, picking up 10 million likes in under an hour. President Donald Trump chimed in to “wish them a lot of luck.” (Not even in ALL CAPS or a reference to her HOTNESS. Vice President JD Vance had no remark about the plight of childless cat ladies. It was Women’s Equality Day after all.)

• “We Are Rising—A Tribute to the Women Who Lead, and a Call to Those Who Will,” is a glorious op-ed by a most powerful quintet: Donna Brazile, Yolanda H. Caraway, Leah Daughtry, Tina Flournoy, and Minyon Moore. They catalogue the myriad ways Black women have shown leadership over time and provide an essential roadmap forward – a commitment to recognition and representation (“not just headcounts, but real seats at real tables”), structural change (“pulling injustice out at the roots”), coalitions (“answering the call for back-up), mentorship (“pass the mic, pass the torch, pass the playbook”), voting rights (“because democracy doesn’t defend itself”), and joy (“because justice without joy is brittle”).

• Out yesterday were two new books I am super excited about. Unbreakable by Dr. Vonda Wright, is a practical self-help guide to having strong bones and muscles (necessary for kicking patriarchy’s ass). And Leading with Respect by retail guru Marcy Syms explains why and how to win by embracing the art of good old-fashioned respect.

• Bess Wohl’s play “Liberation,” reviewed at The Contrarian earlier this year during its off-Broadway run, is coming to the Great White Way next month. The show epitomizes groovy, toggling between the aspirations of a feminist consciousness-raising group in 1970 and the reality of modern women in 2025—and underscoring that refusal to accept the status quo is indeed our most powerful form of resistance. We posed the question in February: “Will it get the job done? Will we even know if we have gotten the job done? In Trump’s America, quite frankly, it is too hard and too soon to tell. But fight ahead we must—and we will.” (I still don’t know the answer.)

• The antidote to toxic masculinity? Behold a fledgling movement, the performative male—a.k.a. men who flamboyantly cosplay as feminists—and the women who love to scorn them. Real-life contests from Seattle to San Francisco have become all the rage, along with viral TikTok videos featuring men “posing with an oat milk matcha pretending to read a copy of The Bell Jar,” or “playing Beyoncé’s Run the World on a ukulele having just shushed his date in order to finish reading a chapter of an Angela Davis book.” I am not sure why exactly, but all the creative mockery is utterly feminist and good for a much-needed smile. (“Hey guys, you should smile more!”)

• And, without fail, politics. Trump might have triggered a nationwide redistricting arms race, but leave it to Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights leaders to thread the needle to abortion rights and pack a punch. “You take away our freedoms, we’ll take away your seats,” warned Jodi Hicks, CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. In a statement, the group declared, “As we continue to fight back against their attacks, countering Republicans’ unprecedented power grab is not only the right thing to do, it is the necessary thing to do.”

And so, as we round the bend on another Women’s Equality Day, take heart! Women are raising their voices in all corners—even having some fun—as we recognize that the fight for robust democracy is today and has always been, at its core, a central and urgent feminist goal.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU School of Law. She also leads strategy and partnerships at Ms. Magazine.

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