Kadena celebrates women's equality

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Angelique Perez
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AB, Japan --  Team Kadena recognized Women's Equality Day by holding a photographic exhibit at the Rocker NCO Club Aug. 26.

The exhibit highlighted the advances women have made throughout history through informational displays and photographs featuring various female leaders and the contributions they have made both to the women's rights movement and to society. Other areas of the exhibit presented the accomplishments and strides that women are making today.

The exhibit highlighted women in government, sports, writing, music, space, and medicine. There was also a voting station to celebrate the day women received the right to vote.

Instituted by Rep. Bella Abzug and first established in 1971, Women's Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, the Women's Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave U.S. women full voting rights in 1920.

"It's very important to show the progress and history of women and how far we've come from the days that most people thought we were just house-wives up to today where we are in [outer] space," said Master Sgt. Porchia Brissett, event coordinator for Women's Equality Day. "We're CEO's of major companies, and in major positions in the government. Back in the day, anything like that was just unheard of."

Attendees at the Women's Equality Day events said that it is important for womenremind themselves where they've come from and the vast contributions that women with vision and determination have made to the world despite tremendous resistance.

"Because of women's equality acts in the past that got us to where we are today I have a chance to make a difference," said Yolanda Sapp, an education technician at the Kadena Education and Training office. "I can help people with their education, I can vote, and I can state my opinions."

According to the organizers, one of the purposes of the exhibit was to remind people that while women have achieved almost complete equality in the United States, there is still more progress to be made both at home and around the world.

"While I was doing my research I thought about what powerful women there are in the world and as I look in the room and how they've planned every detail of today's events I thought about what powerful women we have right here," said Mrs. Sapp. "How they are able to pull something together like this, to do the research, to show our heritage, to show the integration of us into the military and into the government.