Anchorage Assembly to mark Women's Equality Day tonight

The Anchorage Assembly is set to adopt a resolution tonight marking Women's Equality Day, and it notes a milestone reached this year: for the first time, a chamber of the Alaska Legislature is majority woman.

Twenty-one women now serve in the 40-member Alaska House, the resolution says, the first time either the House or Senate has had a woman majority. The observance marks the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which barred denying the vote on the basis of sex; the resolution cites both Aug. 18 and the federal observance date of Aug. 26.

The resolution also names two firsts in Alaska public life: Austin Quinn-Davidson, who became Anchorage's first woman mayor as acting mayor in 2020, and Mary Peltola, the first Alaska Native woman elected to Congress.

It notes that women continue to face obstacles including domestic violence, citing the 2020 Alaska Victimization Survey, which found that 48 percent of Alaska women over 18 had experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime.

The resolution is on the Assembly's consent agenda and creates no new program or spending.