Activist Sojourner Truth delivered a speech entitled "Ain't I a Woman?" at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. One famous line stated, "If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!"
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Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) were famous American suffragettes who fought to earn U.S. women the right to vote.
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This 1869 artist's rendering shows a crowd of women gathering to join the National Woman Suffrage Association, which was led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
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This postage stamp, showing Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Carrie Chapman Catt, was first issued in 1948 in Seneca Falls, N.Y., to honor 100 years of progress in the American Women's Movement. The first Women's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls.
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Approximately 20,000 supporters followed Dr. Anna Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters, in a 1915 women's suffrage march down Fifth Avenue in New York City.
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Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) was an American women's rights activist who helped gain women the right to birth control, which has allowed generations of women to plan their families and careers.
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This 1920 "Suffrage Victory Map" of the United States shows which states had granted women the right to vote at that time, from full suffrage to partial suffrage.
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Feminist activist Betty Friedan was one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. The group's goal is to secure educational, political and professional equality for all women, and they promoted the creation of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.
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An amendment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, called Title IX, stated that nobody can be excluded from participating in any program or service in education or other federally funded activity on the basis of sex. Title IX revitalized the women's rights movement and had a lasting effect on women's sports in schools.
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Women of all races have fought for women's rights over the years. In November of 1969, these women carried a Women's Liberation banner in a march that supported the Black Panther Party in New Haven, Conn.
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Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) was an American politician and peace activist, and the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1972, she received the first Susan B. Anthony Award from the feminist National Organization for Women.
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In 1976, these young women, in Pittsburgh, Pa., were demonstrating in favor of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. The amendment was intended to guarantee that rights could not be denied based on sex.
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The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 provided for women to take unpaid leave during a pregnancy if necessary, as well as after the baby was born. The FMLA also required employers to allow employees time off for personal or family illness, adoption, foster care or military service.
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The Tasaru Safehouse for Girls, founded in 2002 by Agnes Pareyio in Narok, Kenya, was established to help protect young Maasai girls from the practices of female genital mutilation and marriage under the age of 18. Luckily, those practices are becoming less common.
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The Fatima Al-Zahra Center for Women's Rights, established in Hilla, Iraq, in 2003, was the first center of its kind in the country and offers women classes on nutrition and health, computer training and more.
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At this April 2009 demonstration, different groups of Afghan women gathered both for and against a new family law for the Shia minority (about 10 percent of Afghanistan's population). One of the law's provisions states that "a wife is obliged to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband." However, supporters of the law say that it offers Shia women economic protection.
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The issue of female self-immolation is gaining attention in the region of Afghanistan near the border with Iran. The practice is related to tensions between increased awareness of women's rights and the traditional subordinate role of women. This 30-year-old Afghan woman, shown in 2010, inflicted these burn wound on herself in 1994.
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International Women's Day, in March 2010, drew a crowd of women in Afghanistan. According to independent human rights watchdogs in the country, stronger efforts should be made to fight forced marriage, gender violence and a lack of women's education.
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Many Afghan women turned out to vote at a September 2010 parliamentary election in Mazar-e-Sharif, despite the fact that the Taliban threatened violence and warned women to stay away from the polling stations.
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In many industrialized countries, women still do not have the civil rights we take for granted, such as the right to vote. In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive (although they can purchase cars), leave the home without a male guardian, hold high office or vote.
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Rwandan women's rights activist Esther Mujawayo-Keiner (right) was presented with the World Social Award by Queen Noor of Jordan (left) at the Women's World Awards show in Vienna, Austria, in 2009.
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This October 2009 women's football match between Palestine and Jordan was Palestine's first, since religious and cultural barriers in the Middle East often ban women from male-dominated sports. Men were kept from sitting with women at the match.
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Famed feminist Gloria Steinem, who founded Ms. magazine in 1972, was presented with a framed copy of the magazine at the "Women, Money and Power" summit in October 2009 in Washington, D.C.
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Katherine Spillar, current editor of Ms. magazine, and feminist Gloria Steinem attended "An Evening with Gloria Steinem" in March 2010. The event benefitted the Women's Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, which raises money for women who can't afford emergency contraception or a safe abortion.
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Finally, we take a look into the distant past. In ancient Egypt, men and women had the same legal rights but unequal social standings.
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