Class, Sassy, and Totally Badass(y): Women of the Ages
We all have those people in life we look up to, who have inspired us at different stages of our lives.
Me?
It comes down to a handful of women that showed up, didn’t conform to a male-dominated society, and persevered.
This year’s Women’s History Month theme celebrates the women who not only fought to earn us the right to vote, but for those who “continue to fight for the voting rights of others.” [1]
It’s amazing to think that in 2020 we’re still having to fight for our various rights.
And it’s not to say that we still have to fight because we aren’t as capable as men or as gifted or as whatever the hell else has been said against women when compared to men, but that we haven’t always been given the same opportunities.
Just look at Katherine Johnson. She not only had to overcome her gender, but her race. She was “one of several hundred rigorously educated, supremely capable yet largely unheralded women who, well before the modern feminist movement, worked as NASA mathematicians.” [2]
But she did it. Hollywood even made a movie about the accomplishments she and a group of amazing women achieved. (Grossing 236 MILLION dollars worldwide proving the world is ready to know about these women and wanting change.)
Fast-forward in time a few decades, and while women have more rights than they once did, women are still left to pick up the pieces that men leave when they, well, leave.
Divorce, no matter what religion or ethnicity or class or other arbitrary group separator you can think of, was shameful and something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. But it wasn’t a bad thing for the men. No, they could get up and leave, oftentimes leaving the woman with kids, expenses, and a tarnished reputation.
This still happens, but now women can and have started to stand up for themselves more. They’re figuring this shit out, and making the best of their situation. Sure, nowadays most marriages end in divorce, so there’s not much of a stigma surrounding it, but we have a lot more single moms out there who are killing it at home AND at the office.
And today, women are taking back who they are.
From burning bras to not shaving to wearing what they want to wear, women are standing up and saying enough is enough.
We’re demanding equal pay for equal work.
We’re not letting men get away with harassing us.
We’re owning who we are and not apologizing for it.
The women of today (myself included) are lucky that we no longer have to conform to the ideals that men have placed on us. We can be kick ass; we can be the boss; we can be WOMEN.
But perhaps the one thing that inspires me the most this Women’s History Month, the woman I’ve been lucky enough to look up to my entire life is my own mother.
She came to the US from Argentina, and at 29 years old, she was a single mother. She didn’t let anyone or anything hold her back from what she wanted to do. My mother moved us from San Francisco, CA, and getting her BS from San Francisco State, WHILE PREGNANT WITH ME, to Costa Mesa, CA, and eventually to France (where she got her MBA, amongst other diplomas), all without anyone’s help.
And now? Well, she’s a mini mogul.
She showed me that if I wanted something, that if I put my mind to it, I didn’t need anyone’s help, either. Now, here I am: a successful entrepreneur who’s killing it at being a single mom.
Here’s to all of us women!
Stay strong and stay true to who you are.
Sources:
[2]nytimes.com