| On August 26 we celebrate Women’s Equality Day.
And in a wild coincidence, the Mattel toy company has launched a lineup of dolls spotlighting high-achieving women just as it’s new movie, Barbie, is setting box office records. Okay, so maybe not a coincidence. Women’s Equality Day marks the date in 1920 when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was certified granting women the right to vote. Congress officially designated the commemoration at the request of U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY) in 1971. (Abzug, nicknamed “Battling Bella,” was another high-achieving woman in her own right with a fascinating history.) Those five women pictured with this post, just in case you don’t recognize all of them, are: Katherine Johnson, a NASA mathematician whose calculations paved the way for America’s spaceflight programs. Including the launch of… Sally Ride, who became the first American woman in space (aboard Shuttle STS-7) in 1983 following in the footsteps of other heroic women such as… Rosa Parks, who famously refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person thus launching the Montgomery bus boycott, a milestone in the civil rights movement… Frida Kahlo, a brilliant Mexican artist celebrated for, among other things, her depiction of the female experience and form, but who died in her prime at age 47 shortly after protesting the CIA’s invasion of Guatemala… Amelia Earhart, the legendary aviation pioneer, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and who vanished at age 39 during a flight over the western Pacific. |
Two other contemporary women we might mention in this Barbie-themed item: Deena Taylor, the director of Barbie Global Brand Marketing at Mattel (let’s agree that getting a major motion picture made about your product is a marketing coup) … |
… and Greta Gerwig, the Barbie movie director who shattered opening weekend box-office records including being the biggest film opening ever by a female director. Here’s where you can read more about Women’s Equality Day |
