How Congress Can Improve the Lives of Women and Girls

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Congress designated August 26 as Women’s Equality Day in 1971. Forty-five years later, lawmakers can and should do more to make that notion a reality.

We recognize there are women and girls within and across all of the communities we represent — African-American, Latino, Asian American, LGBTQ and Native American people, immigrants, people with disabilities, people of faith, working families, and low-income people — and that all of the issues we care deeply about are issues that greatly impact the lives of women and girls. We could list hundreds of policies still needed today to improve women’s equality, but in honor of Friday’s anniversary of the 19th Amendment, here are 19 things Congress could do right now:

1. Ratify CEDAW.

2. Ensure equal pay for equal work.

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From AAUW’s Spring 2016 edition of The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap.

3. Pass comprehensive nondiscrimination protections.

4. Prevent pregnancy discrimination.

5. Raise the minimum wage.

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Economic Policy Institute

6. Provide paid family and medical leave.

7. Ban all forms of discriminatory profiling.

8. Make sure everyone can vote.

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New Voting Restrictions in Place for 2016 Presidential Election, Brennan Center for Justice

9. Reform outdated and unfair sentencing laws.

10. Pass comprehensive immigration reform.

11. Diversify the federal bench.

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This is the First Time Our Judicial Pool Has Been This Diverse, via the White House.

12. Open up employment opportunities.

13. Eliminate health disparities in all populations.

14. Keep all students safe.

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15. Improve access to broadband.

16. Expand access to early childhood education.

17. Protect older workers.

18. Make work schedules more predictable.

19. Ratify the disability rights treaty.

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