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Women and girls make up 51% of the American population.
Yet our nation's signs and symbols, monuments and role models are overwhelmingly male. -
We might tell girls they can be anything they want, but the visual overrides the verbal.
Girls can't be what they can't see. -
American history is filled with outstanding women who contributed immensely to our nation's development.
But not a single national holiday is named for a woman.
From left to right: Mercy Otis Warren, Sacagawea, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Alice Paul. -
National Statuary Hall in the Capitol features statues of 100 great Americans, two from each state.
Only nine of the statues are of women. -
U.S. postage stamps deliver messages about our nation's history and heritage to a vast audience.
Stamps commemorating men outnumber stamps of women by three to one. -
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Throughout the country, the overwhelming majority of streets, schools, and buildings are named after men. -
Even parades are biased. Since its inception in 1924, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade has featured 108 giant character balloons: historical figures, cartoon heroes, and other pop icons.
Only ten of those balloons have depicted females. -
In a world of male role models, how can young women and girls break the internalized glass ceiling?
Girls need women to look up to.
Welcome to EVE!
EVE is a group of people committed to creating Equal Visibility Everywhere for women. We're a brand-new (March 2010) not-for-profit dedicated to achieving gender parity in the symbols and icons of the United States.
We're taking on statues, stamps, street names, currency, national holidays, and more.
- Follow the EVE Blog for news, announcements, and opinions from the staff of EVE. Also check out our popular Facebook page.
- Our Celebrations project is kicking off with a bang! We’re putting Amelia Earhart back in the skies—in the form of a giant helium balloon! We’re bringing women's history to the streets (and skies) with a new line of parade balloons featuring Great American Heroines. Amelia is our first entry, and if we raise the money by the end of July, she'll fly in a parade this Labor Day!
- Our National Statuary Hall project is well underway, with sub-projects in the following states: Ohio, Maryland (Harriet Tubman), Kansas (Amelia Earhart), Florida (Marjory Stoneman Douglas), California, and New York.
- Our Streets & Buildings project is starting up with a proposal to rename several streets in Washington D.C. after prominent women who resided in the city.
- Our volunteers are working away on compiling data for our Monuments & Memorials project, with special attention to Women's Heritage Trails. We'll be bringing that online later this summer, along with a geographical cross-index that groups our street name, statue, and monument/memorial projects for a given city or state.
- Check out our How You Can Help page if you'd like to lend a hand, and watch our Calendar for upcoming events.
- Watch and share this wonderful video commentary about us from Susan Block for KSDK in St. Louis (and huge thanks to Judge Block and playwright Joan Lipkin, who helped with the script):
by Suzanne Scoggins, EVE Director of Communications
July 29, 2010 · No Comments »
Visitors to our website the past few days have seen the wonderful new video about us right on the front page. If you haven’t watched it yet, check it out.
The video came as a total surprise to us: we had no idea Judge Susan Block (she’s retired from the Circuit Court) was recording this commentary for KSDK in St. Louis. She’s a regular commentator for the station, and was turned on to EVE by the fabulous feminist playwright Joan Lipkin, also in St. Louis.
Huge thanks to both Susan and Joan for this labor of love. And hello, St. Louis!
Read more posts in the EVE Blog
Project Update: Celebrations
Balloon Fever
July 26, 2010 by Lynette Long, Ph.D., President of EVE · 2 Comments »
Last Friday I asked you to push us over the halfway point with our balloon fund in time for us to place the order—and you did it!
I never thought much about giant helium balloons except to ogle at them as a child during parades. I don’t remember the bands except for the fact that there were bands, or floats except the fact there were floats, but I can still see the balloons in my mind’s eye. Maybe it’s their sheer magnitude or the fact that they defy gravity that makes them so special. I guess that’s why EVE decided on its balloon project. What better way to get people to see women than to make them larger than life—way larger than life.
My first task as a newly appointed balloon producer was to go to a parade and watch how parade-goers responded to the balloons. I marveled at the smiles they brought to everyone’s faces, the way people crowded around just to watch them be inflated and come to life. I saw parents position their children when they saw a balloon approaching so they could take their picture with the balloon in the background. Why not? Balloons are fun, larger than life, playful: a little bit of whimsy in a serious world.
EVE’s first balloon will be Amelia Earhart. Why Amelia Earhart? We thought over a lot of possibilities. There were literally hundreds of female historical figures to choose from, but a few key things favored Amelia: the historic nature of her accomplishments, the striking visual of a red Lockhead Vega against a blue sky, the fact that she was not a controversial but rather a much beloved cultural icon, the fact that the balloon would be aerodynamic, and most importantly, that she would send a message to young girls that they could do anything, anything at all.
But when we embarked on the balloon project, we had no idea how to build a balloon. It isn’t quite like going to your local shopping mall to a build-a-bear workshop. So we started by partnering with one of the three major balloon companies in the country, StarBound Entertainment. With over twenty years in the business, we figured they knew what to do. …continue reading
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Project Update: Media
Google Doodles and invisible women
July 27, 2010 by Suzanne Scoggins, EVE Director of Communications · 2 Comments »
The Google Doodle logo honoring Alphonse Mucha, which Google ran on July 24, 2010, instead of honoring Amelia Earhart, whose birthday was the same day. But hey, why honor a real-life heroine when you can put up calendar art of a fantasy sylph in a transparent gown?
Earlier this month I came across Shelby Knox’s post on how Google Doodles (you know what those are, right?) manage to almost entirely ignore women. I thought at the time, “oh wow, we have got to pull this together with our EVE stuff.”
And now we have. Or rather, Shelby Knox has, in this wonderful post about Google Doodles, Amelia Earhart, and EVE:
Read more posts in Media Project
Project Update: Stamps
Even cartoon stamps ignore women
July 21, 2010 by Suzanne Scoggins, EVE Director of Communications · 2 Comments »
“Will Beetle Bailey ever run out of hideouts where he can catch a nap?” asks the AP, reporting on the U.S. Postal Service’s new series of stamps commemorating the Sunday funnies. “Will Sarge ever tire of tracking him down and putting him to work?”
Here’s another question: Will the folks at the post office ever miss an opportunity to ignore females?
I’m thinking the answer is no.
Read more posts in Stamps
Project Update: Streets & Buildings
Beating the streets
June 26, 2010 by Lynette Long, Ph.D., President of EVE · No Comments »
The Octagon House was home to Dolley Madison after the White House burned.
In this summer heat, EVE volunteers have been beating the streets researching the names and addresses of famous women who were born in D.C. or spent part of their lives in D.C. In our quest for equal visibility, we found out some interesting things.
- Jackie Kennedy lived in five different addresses in D.C. …all in Georgetown.
- Other First Ladies have also lived in Washington, D.C., exclusive of the White House. Eleanor Roosevelt lived on R Street NW, Dolley Madison was a resident of the Octagon House, and Mary Todd Lincoln spent many months at the Lincoln Cottage on the grounds of the Soldiers’ Home.
Read more posts in Streets & Buildings Project Updates
Project Update: Statuary Hall
Bill would allow D.C. to place statues in Statuary Hall
July 13, 2010 by EVE · No Comments »
From the Washington Post tonight:
The District still doesn’t have a vote in Congress, but it is moving closer to gaining some new representatives in the Capitol.
The House Administration Committee is expected to approve a bill Wednesday that would add two statues from the District to the National Statuary Hall Collection, which includes statues of historical luminaries from each state. About a third of the 100 statues are in Statuary Hall, an ornate domed room on the second floor of the Capitol, and the rest are in nearby hallways and the Capitol Visitor Center.
Because the District is not a state, it has been deprived of the chance to put two of its native sons or daughters in the halls of Congress. But Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) has led a years-long fight to correct that, and the city picked its two representatives — Pierre L’Enfant, the architect who designed the city, and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass — four years ago.
Read more posts in Statuary Hall Project Updates
Project Update: Currency
Brother, can you spare a quarter?
June 20, 2010 by Lynette Long, Ph.D., President of EVE · 4 Comments »
From the U.S. Mint:
“Launched in 1999, the United States Mint’s 50 State Quarters Program was a 10-year initiative that honored each of the nation’s states in the order that they ratified the Constitution or were admitted into the Union. Each quarter was produced for about 10 weeks and will never be produced again. State designs are displayed on the reverse (tails) of the quarters, while the obverse design displays the familiar image of George Washington.”
So what’s the problem? Each state got their own quarter, as did the District of Columbia and each of the five U.S. Territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa), for a total of 56 beautiful brand new quarters, celebrating the history and grandeur of the United States.
It’s not the fact that the states got the quarters that’s a problem. It’s what they collectively chose to put on the quarters that’s a problem. Many states chose to illustrate America’s noteworthy topological features such as the Great Lakes (Michigan), the Rocky Mountains (Colorado) and the 10,000 lakes (Minnesota). Some states chose to honor significant historical events such as the Louisiana Purchase (Louisiana) or the journey westward by wagon train (Nebraska). Animals were a popular choice: Alaska appropriately chose the bear, Washington State the salmon, and Oklahoma their state bird, the scissortail flycatcher. The quarters are all unique and beautiful.
But here’s the rub. Ten states chose to honor specific individuals or events associated with individuals. Nine of those states honored men. Only one state honored a woman.
What men were honored? John Muir (California), Caesar Rodney (Delaware), King Kamehameha I (Hawaii), Abraham Lincoln (Illinois), Lewis and Clark (Missouri), George Washington Crossing the Delaware (New Jersey), the Wright Brothers’ first flight (North Carolina), the four presidents of Mount Rushmore (South Dakota), and Duke Ellington (Washington, D.C.). If you include Massachusetts’ quarter depicting a Minuteman and Wyoming’s quarter with a cowboy riding a bucking bronco, there are actually eleven quarters honoring men or featuring prominent male figures. Eleven.
Who was the lone woman honored in this sea of masculinity? Helen Keller, from the great state of Alabama. My hat is off to her.
The lack of women on our nation’s quarters is a serious issue. These quarters are not a relic from the past. They were minted between 1999 and 2009, and women still were not included. Out of the 112 images that comprise the fronts and backs of our nation’s quarters, there is only one picture of one woman.
Have we contributed nothing to our country? How did we become so invisible? What does this say to our sons and daughters about the status of women?
Read more posts in Currency