Friday – A Freedom Hard Won

For American woman the battle for freedom has been long and hard. Equality while it is coming more and more into balance in certain segments of society and pockets of the globe is still not a reality. The war against injustice has not been won. Some battles have been won. Some rights have been established. And, yet, it seems that sometimes the greatest enemy for women is the attitudes and conditioning of other women.

When we as women, or men, do not celebrate the success of women and support their desire to succeed and make their lives and their children’s lives better, we set back the quest for freedom as surely as sexual harassment in the workplace, as surely as less pay for women versus men, as surely as every sexist joke that is spoken in thoughtless jest.

I have seen miracles in my lifetime in the changing roles of women. Powerful women create a powerful nation and a powerful world for our daughters and sons yet to be born. Condoleezza Rice, Oprah Winfrey, Hilary Rodom-Clinton, Martha Stewart, Meg Whitman, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Anita Hill, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Cassatt, Gertrude Stein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Julia Child, Dorothy Parker, Anais Nin, are but a few and the list goes on and on and gets stronger and stronger.

Today, on Women’s Equality Day, I celebrate woman. I celebrate the warrior goddess that empowers us to continue until every woman has the right to be who she is by choice and not by expectation.

The best protection any woman can have is courage.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton