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Little girls with dreams become women with vision.

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August 26 is National Women’s Equality Day. This is when we commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting women full and equal voting rights. Passed in 1920, this amendment is now closing in on its 100-year anniversary.  Although women enjoy full and equal voting rights, many will say that the battle for women’s equality has a long way to go.

Last December I wrote a blog sharing some ideas on incorporating women and women’s history into the curriculum throughout the year, not just as a stand-alone annual event for Women’s History Month. In that blog, I shared some ideas for featuring women in every subject. Those ideas work well with any integration of Women’s Equality Day into your classroom.

In addition to regularly featuring women and women’s issues in your classroom, sometimes it is necessary to feature content created explicitly for girls. These sites offer information from traditionally male-dominated fields in a way to encourage girls to participate.

Here are five suggestions for locating information to encourage girls to follow their dreams no matter what they are:

• TeachersFirst Women’s Suffrage Resources – this collection of 26 resources includes links and reviews for many websites featuring information on women’s suffrage. Many of these sites feature collections of primary sources including images, videos, letters, and other documents.
• TeachersFirst Women’s Resources – a larger collection of resources from TeachersFirst with 90 resources that contain information on women. Some feature primary sources, others take a look at women across the world and in different religions, and others focus on powerful women and girls throughout time.
• A Mighty Girl – this site features extensive collections of books, toys, movies, music, and more dedicated to raising strong and powerful girls. Unlike some other sites, A Mighty Girl contains information for girls of all ages. Especially compelling is the site’s book list. Use filters to find books by age level as well as genres including fiction, biography, and social issues. A Mighty Girl is an excellent site to use as a reference when looking for resources featuring strong female role models.
• SheHeroes – this is another site created to inspire girls to become future leaders. Designed for girls ages, 8-14 SheHeroes features articles and videos sharing positive female role models in many different fields including sports, activism, and politics.
• Women, Their Rights and Nothing Less – NewseumED offers this collection of primary source documents about the women’s suffrage movement. Free signup to the NewseumED site is required to access these materials; it is well worth the minute it takes to create your account. This collection, designed for middle school and older, includes lessons correlated to standards, an interactive timeline, and a Women’s Suffrage map including information from around the country focusing on women’s battle for the right to vote.

Students learn from the examples we provide. Take the time to feature strong women and girls throughout the year while celebrating days like Women’s Equality Day as a specific example of women’s role in history and challenges still faced by today’s women and girls.

What is your favorite resource for teaching about Women’s Equality? How do you teach girls to follow their dreams and not feel gender restrictions? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.