Women of the Century didn’t succeed despite adversity, but often because of it
They didn't just blaze a trail. They hammered one with their voices, their ideas and their grit. They did it at massive protests and in church basements, on big stages and in dusty fields. Some of the wins are known to history; some of the wins, only to them. They stood on the shoulders of ancestors and pulled along those behind them.
The women who made their mark this past 100 years didn’t achieve despite adversity. They achieved because of it.
Civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson marched for voting rights on Bloody Sunday across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. She heard the command: "Charge on them, men." An officer hit her across the back of the neck with a baton. She made a slight turn, and he hit her again. She fell to the ground. They pumped tear gas over her limp body.
She would recover and pick right back up, helping Black men and women register to vote.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a Flint, Michigan, pediatrician, wanted to prove the city's drinking water was contaminated with lead by looking at children's bloodwork. The state refused to help. So she researched the records at her own hospital, then stood up and told her city the water was poisoned. Officials said she was wrong and accused her of creating "hysteria," before science won.
Now she's working to make sure those harmed get the care they need.
So many women now face new adversity. The COVID epidemic disproportionately affects women, especially women of color. Women make up 46% of U.S. workers but have taken 54% of job losses during the pandemic. Generations of gender inequities have clustered them into some of the sectors most at risk – food, hospitality, retail.
Women also are predominant on the pandemic's front lines. The nurses with faces bruised from masks and goggles, the teachers trying to reassure kids from six feet away – they are mostly women. Other women are quitting their jobs, taking leave or cutting back hours to care for kids at home or family who've fallen ill. Scholars say women’s progress could be knocked back decades.
