Today is Women’s Equality Day, the day selected to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote.

Since 1920 women have not only garnered suffrage but also the rights to choose contraception or abortion.

Women have also become more equal in the workplace — by 2008, it’s estimated that women will make up 48 percent of the workforce.

In the past few years more and more companies have hired female CEO’s such as Shelly Lazarus, Chairman & CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, one of the top advertising agencies in the world.

There is also Meg Whitman, President & CEO of eBay Technologies.

Women are long past going door-to-door selling makeup. They are now CEOs of makeup companies such as Andrea Jung, President & CEO of Avon Products. Many women have started and continue to start their own businesses.

Since 1920 the United States has seen women elected to political offices. Sandra Day O’Conner was the first woman elected to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981.

There have been 25 female governors in the U.S., fourteen of whom were mayors for major cities. Currently women hold 14 seats in the Senate and 59 seats in the House of Representatives.

Women have also held positions in the President’s cabinet such as Francis Perkins, Secretary of Labor, under FDR. Madeline Albright was Secretary of State under Clinton, and Condoleeza Rice is our present National Security Advisor.

There are areas that women are still not equal such as the fact that there has never been a female president. That seems to be the next logical step in women’s equality.

Although the wage gap still exists, women making 76 cents to every dollar that men make, there have been constitutional amendments made to ensure that men and women are not paid differently for the same job. Unfortunately, the wage gap persists on an underground level.

Women’s Equality Day can be celebrated by honoring those women who have helped make a difference for women everywhere such as Bella Abzug, the first Jewish Congresswoman, Gloria Steinem, feminist activist and author, and Susan B. Anthony, suffrage leader. The day can also be celebrated by wearing purple, gold and white to remember the women of the suffrage movement. Women’s Equality Day also deals with the continuing efforts to make women equal everywhere.