2018 is gearing up to be the Year of Women in United States politics. Record numbers of women are running for public office in national, state, and local races. Their zeal is credited, in part, to the women's marches held globally after the 2016 election of Donald Trump and the Me Too movement that has examined sexual harassment and sex discrimination under a bright light.
Women have historically fought for political participation. In South Dakota, women gained the right to vote 100 years ago this November. Ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution came two years later.
The nation observes that achievement annually on Aug. 26, Women's Equality Day.
In Rapid City, the women's progressive political group Democracy in Action holds an annual observance. This year, Dorothy Brewick looked into women's history and included information on the Iroquois Confederacy and its influence on the United States' form of government.
SDPB's Victoria Wicks sat down with Brewick, a retired history teacher, and Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, author and professor emeritus in American Indian studies and also a member of Democracy in Action.
The link below tells of a Texas college student's resurrection of a 1789 amendment that led to its ratification in 1992. This case might give support to ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment even though its 1982 deadline has passed.
https://www.history.com/news/the-strange-case-of-the-27th-amendment
Below are links to two analyses, by Politico and by NPR, of the potential effect of having more women in the House and Senate.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/104-women-in-congress-does-it-matter-113903
