Women's suffrage is honored at Stephens

Sarah Kegley said she loves everything about being a woman.

“Being a woman, especially in today’s world is exciting, because women have a voice now,” said Kegley, a junior at Stephens College studying fashion design. “It’s not just a man’s world anymore.”

Kegley and other Stephens women expressed their thoughts on equality and womanhood on a poster in Stamper Commons on Monday.

It was one of several events the school held to celebrate Women’s Equality Day, which marks the 86th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote.

Rebecca Stith, director of leadership and programming for Stephens, said that because Stephens is a women’s college, school officials thought it was important to celebrate the day.

“It’s important so that you appreciate what we have now and work hard to continue making progress,” she said. “(Women’s suffrage) showed them to work hard for what is important to you.”

Along with writing their thoughts on the poster, students celebrated with a cake in the dining hall and took a quiz on women’s equality.

“The quiz has questions to do with the long process for equality,” Stith said. “It took them 72 years to get it. The U.S. was very far behind the rest of the world.”

Yet, even now, said Laura Hernando, a senior majoring in theatre arts, many women “don’t step up to the plate and they expect other people to speak for them. A lot of people don’t appreciate it and don’t work hard to progress more now that we have all these rights.”

Students are in their first full week of the fall semester at Stephens, which began classes Thursday with an increase of about 280 new freshmen and transfer students. That represents an 11 percent increase from last year and more than 40 percent from fall 2004, said Sarah Berghorn, a public relations managerfor Stephens. Total enrollment this year stands at about 900 students.