Women’s History Month is celebrated to remember the great achievements that the women before us have accomplished. The hard work, pain, sweat, tears and blood that the women before us endured to pave the way for a bigger and brighter future for the very women reading this. The long, hard race with many baton passes that the women before us ran so well. 

Well known women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt are easy to remember during this month. The right to vote, the Underground Railroad, flying and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights are hard things to forget. But, there are many more women, women who we mustn’t forget to thank for their achievements in furthering our role in society as females. 

Women like Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to be elected to congress and the first Black woman to run for president. Maya Lin who became a famous architect after she won a contest to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. after which she designed the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. Jean O’Leary who is a lesbian and gay rights activist as well as the founder of Lesbian Feminist Liberation which was one of the first lesbian activist groups in the women’s movement. These women must be remembered for their phenomenal accomplishments as well. 

Women’s History Month is a time to familiarize ourselves with our ancestors – the women of our past. A month to seek to learn more about women who made having a CEO job, succeeding as a single female or being a lesbian something that can be celebrated, prided in and possible. 

But Women’s History Month is also a reminder. A reminder that our work here is not yet complete. A reminder that all the women who came before us, who fought so hard to give us fundamental rights, would not stand for us giving up that fight now. Now it is our turn, our turn to fight for more rights, more equality, more justice and more accountability. 

It is our turn to demand that men be held accountable for verbal and sexual abuse in the work place. It is our turn to protest for equal pay between the genders. It is our turn to stand up for all women, no matter their race or sexual orientation, and fight for equality. It is our turn to thank our ancestors for the good race they ran, take the baton and run even faster until everyone is equal.