OWEGO, N.Y. (WETM) – International Women’s Day celebrates the historic contributions of women across the globe in politics, the economy, culture and society. It also is a day to bring awareness and fight for gender equality.

Upstate New York has a rich history of change-making women. From abolitionist Harriet Tubman to giant modern-day figures like the late Ruth Bade Ginsberg, women in New York have been pushing for change for hundreds of years.

According to a list from U.S. News & World Report, three cities across the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier made the list of the best places in the country to honor Women’s History Month and March 8’s International Women’s Day.

Owego, N.Y.

The report explained that a hidden gem in Owego, Belva Lockwood Inn, honors the first woman to appear on a presidential election ballot and the first woman lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. She’s from Western New York, but in the 1860s, she became the principal of the Owego Female Seminary, the site of the inn today. The hamlet of Lockwood in Tioga County is also named after her.

Seneca Falls, N.Y.

The quaint village in the Finger Lakes is part of the larger story of hugely significant women activists in the 19th century. The home of the famous 1948 Seneca Falls Convention, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, the village is now home to the Women’s Rights National Historical Park, a six-acre campus showcasing the homes of suffragettes and places where they did important work.

Seneca Falls is also part of the story of one of America’s most famous suffragettes and abolitionists…

Rochester, N.Y.

Susan B. Anthony, a long-time friend of Cady Stanton, has an entire museum dedicated to her in her former home on Madison Street. The U.S. News & World Report list also said that this iconic red home was the site of Anthony’s arrest in 1972 for breaking the law that allowed only men to vote.