Presidential Documents

44721 

Federal Register 

Vol. 74, No. 166 

Friday, August 28, 2009 

Title 3— 

The President 

Proclamation 8402 of August 25, 2009 

Women’s Equality Day, 2009 

By the President of the United States of America 

A Proclamation 

Today, our country renews its commitment to freedom and justice for all 

our citizens. As we prepare to celebrate this women’s day of equality, 

we reflect on the sacrifices once made to allow women and girls the basic 

rights and choices we freely exercise today. The future we leave to our 

daughters and granddaughters will be determined by our willingness to 

build on the achievements of our past and move forward as one people 

and one Nation. The fight for women’s equality is not a woman’s agenda, 

but an American agenda. 

We honor the resilience, accomplishments, and history of all women in 

the United States. We celebrate the courageous women who fought to uphold 

a fundamental principle within our Constitution—the right to vote—and 

in so doing, protected the cornerstone of our vibrant democracy. These 

visionaries of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 sought to ensure that 

our country lived up to its founding ideals. Although only one, Charlotte 

Woodward, at the age of 81, had the opportunity to exercise her newfound 

right, the struggle reminds us that no righteous cause is a lost one. We 

also commemorate women like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a poet and 

lecturer who formed the National Association of Colored Women; Antonia 

Pantoja, a tireless advocate of education equality within the Latino community; Sarah Winnemucca, a voice for peace within the Native American 

community; and Patsy Mink, author of Title IX and the first woman of 

color and Asian American woman elected to the United States Congress. 

These women’s talents, and the contributions of countless others, built upon 

the framework of 1848 and forged paths for future generations. 

Our Nation has come a long way since that ground-breaking convention 

in New York. Women have occupied some of the most significant positions 

in government. They have delivered justice from the bench of our highest 

court, fought for our country in foreign lands, discovered cures to diseases, 

and joined the ranks of the greatest business leaders of our time. Female 

college graduates now outnumber their male counterparts. Women have 

sought equality through government, demonstrated by the signing of the 

Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, and the establishment of the White 

House Council on Women and Girls. They have sought equality through 

advocacy, exemplified by the efforts of thousands of women’s organizations. 

America has made significant progress toward becoming the fair and just 

society the suffragists once envisioned. 

Yet, today, our work remains unfinished. Far too many adult women remain 

mired in poverty. Women are still subject to pervasive discrimination at 

school and harassing conduct in the workplace. Women make, on average, 

only 78 cents for every dollar paid to men. Underrepresented in many 

facets of our economic and public life, from government to boardrooms 

to the sciences, women have yet to eradicate all barriers to professional 

development. 

We stand at a moment of unparalleled change and a time for reflection 

and hope. We cannot allow the vibrant energy and passionate commitment 

of our trailblazing women to fade, and we can never forget the responsibility 


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44722 Federal Register / Vol. 74, No. 166 / Friday, August 28, 2009 / Presidential Documents 

we bear to the ideals of liberty and equality for all. Each generation of 

successful women serves as a catalyst to empower, enlighten, and educate 

the next generation of girls and boys, and we must devote ourselves to 

promoting this catalyst for change now and in the future. 

On this Women’s Equality Day, we resolve to continue the important work 

of our Nation’s foremothers and their successors, and turn their vision 

of a more equal America into our reality. 

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States 

of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution 

and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 26, 2009, as 

Women’s Equality Day. I call upon the people of the United States to 

celebrate the achievements of women and recommit themselves to the goal 

of true gender equality in this country. 

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth 

day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the 

Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirtyfourth. 

[FR Doc. E9–21015 

Filed 8–27–09; 11:15 am] 

Billing code 3195–W9–P 


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