Saturday, August 26 was Women’s Equality Day in honor of women winning the right to vote on the same day in 1920. It is a day to celebrate all of accomplishments of women, including those in science and medicine.

Today, we may take the opportunities for women in the veterinary profession for granted, but there was once a day when men dominated. Before Rosie the Riveter and the revolution of women in the workforce in the 1940s, Evelyn Hermann Keagy graduated from CSU as the first woman veterinary student in 1932.

By 1947, the Association for Women Veterinarians held its first meeting. Their advocacy in the 1970s led them to an American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) proposal to end discrimination against women and to encourage women veterinary students. The resolutions were rejected. In the 1980s and 1990s, women continued to find roles as veterinary students, veterinarians, and leadership positions. CSU named Sue VandeWoude as our first woman dean in 2022.

Even as we celebrate, it’s also important to take stock of the work we still have to do as a society, including related to those women with intersecting identities that experience unique barriers within systems where they have been denied access, agency, and empowerment. These intersecting identities include women who are also women of color, women with diverse abilities, women who are first generation, women from low-income backgrounds, and women who are LGBTIQA+.

While Florence Kimball was the first American woman to earn a D.V.M. in 1910 from Cornell University, Alfreda Johnson Webb was the first Black woman veterinarian, receiving her D.V.M. in 1949 from Tuskegee University. This was almost 40 years later!

On #WomensEqualityDay, let’s take a moment to appreciate the women who have been part of CSU’s history, carving out space for other women to follow their path. We strive to be a welcoming and supportive place for all our faculty, staff, and students and know the work is not over to bridge equity gaps.