--- title: Women's Equality Day: The History of When Women Went on Strike description: The Women's Strike for Equality March took place on Aug. 26, 1970 canonical: https://time.com/4008060/women-strike-equality-1970/ author: Sascha Cohen article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-26T13:30:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:44:29.886Z article:section: History og:title: Women's Equality Day: The History of When Women Went on Strike og:description: The Women's Strike for Equality March took place on Aug. 26, 1970 og:url: https://time.com/4008060/women-strike-equality-1970/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d5401f422435b32/69886090524fc07383df4303/strike.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Women's Strike For Peace-And Equality og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Women's Equality Day: The History of When Women Went on Strike twitter:description: The Women's Strike for Equality March took place on Aug. 26, 1970 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4d5401f422435b32/69886090524fc07383df4303/strike.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Day Women Went on Strike > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 2023 TIME Women of the Year Red Carpet: Gender Equality [Watch (HLS stream): 2023 TIME Women of the Year Red Carpet: Gender Equality](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7NjQ5ZAO.m3u8) (3:45)  _Published 2023-03-09. Women and some notable men gathered from all over the world to celebrate International Women’s Day in Los Angeles on Tuesday for TIME’s second annual Women of the Year gala._ by [Sascha Cohen](https://time.com/author/sascha-cohen/) ## Sascha Cohen Aug 26, 2015 1:30 PM UTC  Women's Strike for Peace and Equality, New York City, Aug. 26, 1970. Women's Strike for Peace and Equality, New York City, Aug. 26, 1970. Eugene Gordon—The New York Historical Society / Getty Images by [Sascha Cohen](https://time.com/author/sascha-cohen/) ## Sascha Cohen Aug 26, 2015 1:30 PM UTC On Aug. 26, 1970, a full 50 years after the [passage of the 19th Amendment](http://time.com/3986075/19th-amendment/) granted women the right to vote, 50,000 feminists paraded down New York City’s Fifth Avenue with linked arms, blocking the major thoroughfare during rush hour. Now, 45 years later, the legacy of that day continues to evolve. Officially sponsored by the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Women’s Strike for Equality March was the brainchild of Betty Friedan, who wanted an “action” that would show the American media the scope and power of second-wave feminism. As TIME [observed](http://time.com/vault/issue/1970-08-24/page/14/) just days before the march, the new feminist movement emerged out of a moment in which “virtually all of the nation’s systems — industry, unions, the professions, the military, the universities, even the organizations of the New Left — \[were\] quintessentially masculine establishments.” The notion of women’s liberation was extremely controversial, and the movement was in its infancy. Friedan’s original idea for Aug. 26 was a national work stoppage, in which women would cease cooking and cleaning in order to draw attention to the unequal distribution of domestic labor, an issue she discussed in her 1963 bestseller _The Feminine Mystique_. It isn’t clear how many women truly went on “strike” that day, but the march served as a powerful symbolic gesture. Participants held signs with slogans like “Don’t Iron While the Strike is Hot” and “Don’t Cook Dinner – Starve a Rat Today.” The number of marchers exceeded Friedan’s “wildest dreams.” [TIME](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,902696,00.html) described the event as “easily the largest women’s rights rally since the suffrage protests.” It brought together older, liberal feminists like Friedan and Bella Abzug with a younger, more radical contingent of women. As Joyce Antler, a historian who participated in the demonstration, told me, many of these women “were veterans of civil rights marches and anti-war protests of the 1960s. We marched throughout the ‘60s and we had faith that this mattered.” The day of activism reached beyond New York City, as thousands of feminists across the country coordinated sister demonstrations. A full range of creative, confrontational tactics was on display, as activists infiltrated “all male” bars and restaurants, held teach-ins and sit-ins, picketed and rallied, in Detroit, Indianapolis, Boston, Berkeley and New Orleans. One thousand women marched on the nation’s capital, holding a banner that read “We Demand Equality.” In Los Angeles, feminists wearing Richard Nixon masks enacted guerrilla street theater. “The solidarity was completely exhilarating,” Antler recalls. The organizers of the day’s events agreed on a set of three specific goals, which reflected the overall spirit of second-wave feminism: free abortion on demand, equal opportunity in employment and education, and the establishment of 24/7 childcare centers. Over the next several years, activists would use multiple techniques — from public protest to legislative lobbying — in an attempt to turn these goals into realities. So how did they fare? The women’s movement was most successful in pushing for gender equality in workplaces and universities. The passage of Title IX in 1972 forbade sex discrimination in any educational program that received federal financial assistance. The amendment had a dramatic affect on leveling the playing field in girl’s athletics. Also, feminists made the workforce a more hospitable space for women with policies banning sexual harassment, something the Equal Opportunity Commission recognized in 1980\. Women’s participation in college, graduate school and the professions has steadily increased over the past several decades, although a gender wage gap still exists. In terms of abortion access, activists have also made great strides since 1970, but have suffered serious setbacks as well. In 1973, after legal strategizing by NOW and other reproductive rights groups, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in all fifty states. This was a major feminist victory, but it was also limited, as the decision only protected a woman’s right to terminate during her first trimester of pregnancy, allowing for state intervention in the second and third trimesters. Furthermore, _Roe v. Wade_ did not address the cost of an abortion, which was high enough to be out of reach for many women. In the years after the decision, backlash to _Roe_ triggered many varieties of legislation that further eroded women’s access to the procedure. Perhaps the least amount of progress has been made in the area of childcare, which remains prohibitively expensive for many American women. In 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act, which would have set up local day care centers for children on a sliding scale based on family income, but Nixon vetoed the bill. While President Obama has spoken about making affordable childcare a national priority, there are no current plans to offer government-funded, round-the-clock care in the United States as feminists had initially envisioned. [As of 2014](http://time.com/money/3620600/how-to-save-on-childcare-daycare/), the average annual cost of enrolling in a daycare center for an infant is, in most states, higher than the cost of a public college in that state. So the long-term results of the Strike for Equality March have been mixed. But in the short-term, the event did accomplish one major goal: it helped make the feminist movement visible. In the immediate aftermath, a CBS poll showed that four out of five adults were aware of women’s liberation, and NOW’s membership grew by 50%. “The huge number of marchers, young and old, made a convincing case that this was a movement for everyone,” Antler explains. In this sense, the event exemplified cross-generational solidarity among women. Today’s intersectional feminist activists hope to build coalitions across race, class, and sexuality as well, as they work to fulfill the unfinished mission of their foremothers.  **_Historians explain how the past informs the present_** _Sascha Cohen is a PhD candidate in the history department at Brandeis University_ _, specializing in the social and cultural history of 1970s America._ ### 17 of History’s Most Rebellious Women ![Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot, Russia
Members of the feminist punk rock collective were jailed after protesting Russian President Putin in a church. The group has since used its notoriety to promote human rights issues. The very name of the band is meant to turn something passive into something powerful.](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9e8c82abe9d143e4/6986846c13c79fe273190eb6/rebellious-women-through-history-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot, Russia Members of the feminist punk rock collective were jailed after protesting Russian President Putin in a church. The group has since used its notoriety to promote human rights issues. The very name of the band is meant to turn something passive into something powerful. Yuri Kozyrev—Noor for TIME  Tawakul Karman, Yemen Tawakul Karman, chair of Women Journalists Without Chains — a Yemeni group that defends human rights and freedom of expression — pressured former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down from power, which he held from 1978 to 2012\. She was arrested several times during her peaceful protests. Hani Mohammed—AP  Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu has been the foremost leader in the effort to democratize the Southeast Asian nation as well as a courageous advocate for human rights and peaceful revolution. She spent 15 years under house arrest when the government refused to cede power to her after her party was elected. Alison Wright—Corbis  Corazon Aquino, the Philippines When Corazon Aquino's senator husband was assassinated in 1983, Aquino ran against 20-year autocrat Ferdinand Marcos in his stead. Though Marcos claimed victory, Aquino led a peaceful revolution across the nation of impoverished islands. Aquino became President of the Philippines upon Marcos' resignation. Willia Vicoy— Reuters/Corbis  Phoolan Devi, India Phoolan Devi began a streak of violent robberies across northern and central India, targeting upper castes. In 1981 she led her gang of bandits to massacre more than 20 men in the high-caste village where her former lover was killed. Devi negotiated her sentence with the Indian government to 11 years in jail. Getty Images  Angela Davis, the U.S. Angela Davis, a political activist, scholar and author, was accused of supplying the gun in the death of a federal judge. She fled, landing her a spot on the Most Wanted list. Davis was caught in New York but was acquitted in 1972, backed by activist supporters who demanded her freedom. Hulton Archive—Getty Images  Golda Meir, IsraelAlthough best known as Israel's Prime Minister during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Meir made her mark on the revolutionary Zionist movement during the pre-state period when during a 1948 trip to the U.S., she raised $50 million from the Jewish diaspora community, making a state of Israel possible. Bettmann—Corbis  Vilma Lucila Espín, Cuba The spirit of the Cuba's communist revolution was most vividly embodied by its "First Lady," Vilma Lucila Espín. After training as a chemical engineer, Espín took up arms against the Batista dictatorship in the 1950s and debunked the notion of the docile Caribbean woman with her full army fatigues. AP  Janet Jagan, Guyana Chicago-born Janet Jagan and her husband founded the People's Progressive Party in Guyana, which sought to promote Marxist ideals. Her hand in protests got her thrown in jail by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. She was elected Guyana's first female President in 1997. Harry Benson—Getty Images  Jiang Qing, China After marrying Chairman Mao Zedong in 1938, Jiang Qing climbed the ladder of the Communist Party, eventually becoming the leader of the infamous Gang of Four. Jiang refused to apologize for the criminal charges that were eventually brought against her, instead spending a decade in prison before dying. Bettmann—Corbis  Nadezhda Krupskaya, RussiaAlong with fellow radical Vladimir Lenin, Nadezhda Krupskaya helped set up the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in 1895\. Police arrested them both, and they married while exiled in Siberia. After her release in 1901, she ran Iskra (the Spark), an international newspaper for Marxists. Hulton-Deutsch Collection—Corbis  Susan B. Anthony, the U.S. In 1851, Susan B. Anthony met fellow women's-rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the outspoken duo began touring the country arguing the case for women's suffrage.U.S. marshals arrested Anthony for voting illegally in 1872\. She died before the 19th Amendment was passed. Frances Benjamin Johnston—Corbis  Emmeline Pankhurst, Britain