Explore lesson plans, resources, activities, and programs on the fight for women's rights in the 20th century

Students conduct historical research on individual and collective efforts to achieve gender equality in the United States by listening to and discussing a nonfiction picture book, analyzing an historical photograph, and researching and taking action on the current gender pay gap.

Students learn about gender discrimination in space exploration by analyzing a letter to President Kennedy from a female aviator training to be an astronaut.

Students discuss the issue of gender pay equity, examine the Equal Pay Act of 1963 for its strengths and weaknesses, and analyze the significance of the signatures, stamps, and markings on an official document.

In 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified and prohibited voter discrimination based on sex. Your students can make their own suffrage sash inspired by those worn by suffragists in the 20th century. You can pair the activity with a classroom discussion on the importance of voting access and civic participation.

Simon Coveney TD, formerly Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Defense, discussed Ireland’s foreign policy, the Irish-US relationship and key global issues with the late Dr. Robert Mauro, former director of the Irish Institute and founding director of the Global Leadership Institute at Boston College.

In this activity, students analyze documents pertaining to the woman suffrage movement as it intensified following passage of the 15th Amendment that guaranteed the right to vote for African American males. Documents were chosen to call attention to the struggle’s length, the movement’s techniques, and the variety of arguments for and against giving women the vote.