This year, Drexel University’s Vision 2020 will host Women 100, a series of programs and events celebrating women, promoting gender equality and serving as the largest commemoration of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States.

The Women 100 initiative is the result of more than a decade’s work from Vision 2020, a national coalition of organizations and individuals working to achieve economic, political and social equality for women. Vision 2020 originated at the Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership at the Drexel University College of Medicine in 2009. Led by Lynn H. Yeakel, Director of the Institute and Vision 2020 Founder and President, the first national event for Vision 2020 was a conference held at the National Constitution Center in October of 2010.

The conference, “An American Conversation about Women and Leadership,” hosted delegates from all of the 50 states and the District of Columbia who gathered to discuss women’s progress, bias and barriers and ways to eliminate gender inequality.

For the past decade, Vision 2020 has continued to host programs and events with an aim to promote the Four Pillars of Equality: Shared Leadership, Youth Education, Economic Parity and Civic Engagement. According to Marsha Braverman, the Director of Communications for Vision 2020, programming that sparks a dialogue about equality and issues affecting women will be the main focus of the year-long initiative. Organizers are hopeful that the initiative will help accelerate meaningful change toward that goal.

Educational information about women’s suffrage and the passage of the 19th Amendment will be presented through a variety of formats at locations throughout Philadelphia. From March 1 through September 30, 2020, the lobby of the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts will feature an interactive exhibition, A Seat at The Table, which will show visitors how women achieved voting rights and address the current status of gender inequality. This family-friendly exhibition is free and open to the public. Due to COVID-19, the Kimmel Center and event is closed for the time being, however, one can access the multimedia segment of the exhibition online at https://women100.org/seatatthetable/.

The SHE Leads Road Rally is a unique overnight event taking place on June 19-20, 2020. Participants will embark on a road trip led by women driving race cars from Philadelphia to Seneca Falls, NY, the site of the first women’s rights convention that occurred on July 19 and 20 in 1848.

Voter Mobilization 2020, a nonpartisan effort to get American women registered and voting in the 2020 national election, will take place at all Women 100 events up and until November.

Additional information about the Women 100 schedule of events and programs is available at women100.org.

“Through Vision 2020’s Women 100 celebration, we will lay the groundwork to complete the unfinished business of women’s equality,” said Yeakel.