Erie County Commission on the Status of Women

09/03/2026

“The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day; a movement is only people moving.”

As stated by The 19th News, when Gloria Steinem spoke, the world listened — and kept talking and evolving through it.

The Erie County Commission on the Status of Women would like to honor and spotlight the life of Gloria Steinem, one of the leaders of second-wave feminism and a feminist thought leader for generations, who died Wednesday at the age of 92.

Steinem was the founder of Ms. Magazine and a tireless champion for the feminist movement.

08/26/2026

Did you know? In 1973, Congresswoman Bella Abzug, one of just 16 women serving in the U.S. House of Representatives at the time, championed legislation designating August 26th as Women’s Equality Day, commemorating the certification of the 19th Amendment and women’s constitutional right to vote.

Learn more from International Women's Day at https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Missions/15559/The-USA-s-Women-s-Equality-Day-provides-an-important-platform-for-change

Women's Equality Day in the United States of America is an important day for forging gender equality and taking action

08/21/2026

Save the Date for the Erie County Commission on the Status of Women’s Women and Work Roundtable Discussion Series on September 10, 2026!

RSVP by 9/4/2026 to [email protected]

08/21/2026

This week, August 18, marked the 106th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. For a history of the journey to ratification, read historian Heather Cox Richardson’s piece the how a stalwart suffragist movement demanded that an all-male congress and president to do the right thing.

On August 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S.

08/19/2026

Across the country, national park signs about women and LGBTQ+ history are disappearing. The revisions have scrubbed or softened accounts of violence, slavery, activism and lived experiences, raising questions about whose stories the government considers worth telling.

Learn more from the The 19th News at

The revisions have scrubbed or softened accounts of violence, slavery, activism and lived experiences, raising questions about whose stories the government considers worth telling.

08/06/2026

Today marks — the day we use to shed light on the persistent wage gap experienced by mothers in the workplace. The motherhood penalty affects hiring, promotion, and lifetime earnings. And it's even more severe for Black, Latina, and Indigenous moms.

07/24/2026

This week marked Black Women's Equal Pay Day and the release of the Commission’s report, in collaboration with Cornell University ILR School, on the status of Black Women and Women of Color working in Erie County.

The report, "Concrete Ceilings and Folding Chairs" - Black Women at Work in Erie County, is available for review athttps://www3.erie.gov/csw/sites/www3.erie.gov.csw/files/2026-07/concrete-ceilings-and-folding-chairs_black-women-at-work-in-erie-county_0.pdf

We also want to highlight the discussion hosted by Equal Pay Today, A Project of Equal Rights Advocates, "This is What Democracy Pays Like: A Conversation with Black Women Leaders on the Fight for Equitable Wages, Wealth, and Power Under Hostile Circumstances". View this recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZKeyxx_zv8

07/24/2026

07/22/2026

When a copy of the Declaration of Independence was printed, Mary Katharine Goddard printed her name into history.

Printing the Declaration with the signers' names was a bold political act: it transformed the document from an anonymous proclamation into a public list of people who had committed treason against the Crown. By adding her own name, Goddard joined them at great personal risk.

Learn more on this from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum at

As Baltimore's postmaster and printer to the Continental Congress, Mary Katharine Goddard produced the first official copy of the Declaration of Independence to include the signers' names—and added her own.

07/21/2026

July 21, 2026. The day into the next year when the average Black woman must work to earn what white, non-Hispanic men earn in one.

In New York, full-time Black women workers earn 66¢ to every $1 a white, non-Hispanic male worker earns in 1 year. We must call for change.