First lady Jill Biden on Wednesday used a Women's History Month event at the White House to call on men to step up and fight to protect women's rights.

The first lady, speaking ahead of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, didn't mince words as she lamented that women find themselves relitigating "battles that we thought we had won a long time ago."

"We need more men to hold each other accountable when women are being hurt or being left behind," she said.

The Supreme Court declared last June that states can ban abortion. Since then, Republican-controlled legislatures across the country have rolled out regulations shortening the period when a woman can get an abortion and otherwise restricting abortion access.

"The fight for women's equality should have an end," the first lady said.

Harris, drawing upon her history as a prosecutor, district attorney and California attorney general, insisted that public safety and public health — the general welfare of the country — are intrinsicly tied to the economic security and well-being of women.

"Ultimately, the priority of women's economic empowerment then is rooted in core economic principles that include basic American values — specifically, the ideals of freedom," Harris said. "The freedom to dream with ambition and aspiration, the freedom to determine one's own future, including the fundamental freedom of every woman, not her government, to make decisions about her own body."

President Biden celebrated the work that his administration has done, in particular citing the American Rescue Plan and the Child Tax Credit, which he said greatly benefitted women and families.

But he called on Congress to "finish the job" and establish greater social benefits and protections for gender equity in America and abroad.

"We have to recommit to the work ahead to deliver a better future for our nation's daughters," Biden said.