With Women’s Progress Under Attack, Women’s Equality Day 2025 Marks the Critical Importance of Voting Rights

August 25. 2025

For Immediate Release
Aug 25, 2025

Media Contact
Nazirah Ahmad
[email protected]

Noreen Farrell, Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates, sounds the alarm on escalating attacks on fundamental voting rights and freedoms.

Aug. 26, 2025 — Today, as we commemorate the 19th Amendment that granted some women the right to vote, we sound the alarm on escalating attacks threatening to erase decades of progress.

For over a century, the ballot box was the key that unlocked economic freedom for generations of women: every workplace advancement, every reproductive freedom protection, every pay equity law, and every safeguard against discrimination that women have achieved.

But the Supreme Court now threatens to further destroy the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the law that finally delivered on the 19th Amendment’s promise of voting without barriers for Black women. 

This mirrors suffrage’s original sin–the compromise that left Black women behind. While some women gained the right to vote in 1920, many women of color were denied access for decades. Since 1965 ,when Black women finally secured access, they have used that power to strengthen American democracy—voting at higher rates and consistently supporting candidates and policies that advance civil rights, even while facing the greatest economic and health barriers. 

Unfortunately, this Women’s Equality Day arrives not as a celebration, but as a warning about the precarity of voting rights. Republicans gerrymander Texas maps to hand the GOP three-quarters of seats despite a narrow majority, while Trump assails mail-in voting and the Senate considers blocking millions from registering to vote through the SAVE Act.

When women vote, women win economic power. Women’s votes delivered the Equal Pay Act, Civil Rights Act, and pay transparency laws in 14 states. When they can’t vote, government accountability dies.

Statement continued below.

Watch a Women’s Equality Day video message from ERA leaders.

Perhaps this explains the boldness of the Trump Administration as it rolls back rights made possible through women’s votes. As the Trump Administration guts federal agencies created to enforce civil rights, like the Department of Education, and removes enforcement tools from others (like disparate impact liability for employment discrimination), it exhibits no fear about defying the will of voters who demanded equality. 

We’re witnessing deliberate economic warfare designed to force women back into dependence. Dismantling childcare affects 74% of working mothers. Reproductive attacks threaten women already facing poverty. Pay discrimination rollbacks will widen wage gaps costing women of color nearly $1 million over their careers.

As the Trump Administration and other elected officials proceed with reckless abandon, let’s commit to there being a price. We must stand against the erosion of voter rights, call elected officials to account for their policy stances, and support those who will be harmed first and most by progress rollbacks, like women of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQI+ community.

Voting itself is not a silver bullet–the fight requires more. It demands organizing, litigating, protesting, and building coalitions. It requires defending truth and refusing to normalize authoritarianism.

As we honor Women’s Equality Day, let us do so with clarity and conviction, celebrating trailblazers while recognizing the fight for equality remains intersectional, ongoing, and tied to our willingness to act beyond the ballot.

To request an interview with Noreen Farrell, please contact Blake Case at [email protected] or (601) 832-6079.

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About Equal Rights Advocates
Equal Rights Advocates fights for gender justice in workplaces and schools across the country. Since 1974, they have been fighting on the front lines of social justice to protect and advance rights and opportunities for women, girls, and people of all gender identities through groundbreaking legal cases and bold legislation that sets the stage for the rest of the nation. equalrights.org