This United State Of Women Video Is Powerful

The United States is celebrating Women's Equality Day on Friday, Aug. 26. While the day was created as a commemoration of the 19th Amendment, or the right to vote (for white women), it is more than that. Since the founding of this nation, women's rights have come a long way. However, there is still plenty of work left ahead of us, plenty to strive for, which depends on our own organizing and activism. To me, that's what Women's Equality Day is about. Women have always been fierce leaders of social movements, that's why this United State of Women video is so powerful.

No, in 2016 women are not equal. We are not equal to the men in our lives, and even among one another. Our experiences are different. Women experience sexism, racism, ableism, xenophobia, and other systems of violence, and sometimes various systems at the same time. Women don't typically make as much money as men in the same positions — or even as other women in the same professions. Women are still blamed for the sexual violence we experience; we are not allowed agency over our own bodies for no other reason than men in office who still want to control our bodies through legislation.

For these reasons, this United State of Women video is especially powerful and also important.

The video includes various women like Michelle Obama, Connie Britton, Oprah Winfrey, Jessica Williams, Laverne Cox, and Kerry Washington, to name a few, coming together and sharing a message of why "we are the united state of women" and how women are so powerful when we fight for justice together.

However, what makes the video especially powerful is that in some ways, it really comes off as a series of demands:

"When we work, we get paid the same as everyone else, doing the same job."

"We will be the boss of a company — of our company — of a whole empire."

"We're in charge of our own bodies. Every beautiful part, every powerful part. Every which way we want to use them."

"It's our choice when to say 'yes' and when to say 'no.' Because duh, literally duh."

It's time for the rest of the world to take women's voices, women's experiences, women's demands, and women's lives seriously. We aren't asking; we are demanding. Because, as the women featured in the video say, "When we do better, everyone does better."

Check out the full video for yourself. And keep fighting the patriarchy.