Happy Women’s History Month to everyone! As we take this time to celebrate women everywhere and the accomplishments made by women each and every day, I wanted to pay special attention to some women who have made history. I personally admire all of them and feel incredibly grateful to know who they are and what they have done for me. Growing up we all had role models, these were and are mine:
- Angela Y. Davis
Dr. Davis is a feminist who taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz but retired in 2008. She has had a history of activism since the 1960s and in her time she co-founded “Critical Resistance,” an organization dedicated to dissolving the prison-industrial complex, and she was involved in the second-wave feminist movement. Davis has written several books regarding the Black Liberation Movement as well as Women’s Liberation, some names being Women, Race and Class and Freedom is a Constant Struggle. In her spare time, she continues to write and teach, working constantly. Dr. Davis has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of fame and in 2020, Times named her as one of the top one hundred most influential people in the world.
2. Marsha P. Johnson
Born in 1945, Johnson was a gay liberation activist and an advocate for gay rights, helping found The Gay Liberation Front and many more groups. She was a drag queen and gender non-conforming, presenting both fem and masc. In her time she was involved in the Stonewall Riots, an important moment in queer history representing both change and the oppression the LGBTQIA+ community was struggling with at the time. Marsha was described as “warm” and “kind-hearted,” reaching out to her community to help in any way she could. In 1992 she passed away, the day is not known. She is a queer icon and a memorable figure to trans people everywhere.
3. Kshama Sawant
Kshama Sawant is an Indian-American, political activist and a member of the Seatle City Council. In her time in office, she raised the minimum wage in Seattle to $15/hr, a historic victory for working-class people everywhere. In 2020, she was involved with the Tax Amazon campaign, designed to ensure that Amazon employees would receive fair wages and other benefits. As a local politician, she has advocated for expanding public transport and ending racial profiling. Sawant is still serving on the council but will retire at the end of 2023; she plans to launch “Worker’s Strike Back,” a national labor movement.
4. Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry; she is also a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and the director of the “Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.” Throughout her life and career, Kimmerer has combined indigenous teachings with her love of science in her teaching and studies. She has written an award-winning book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, which received the 2014 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. In her writing, she strives to show the interdependence between people and the natural world. As an indigenous woman, she has dealt with much backlash in the scientific community and the world, but today she is a well-respected professor and scientist.
These women may not be well known, but they are important and each has something different which they have brought into this world. Women’s History Month is an intersectional celebration of the heart and souls of people who identify as women; it’s a time when we stop to reflect on who our Mothers, our friends, and peers mean to us and how we can help them. We need to have solidarity with all women right now, especially at this time when bodily autonomy is being stripped away. As a community, we are crafting a future for those who come after to inherit. My wish as someone who doesn’t identify as a woman but fights for Women’s Liberation from patriarchy is that we matter and we are heard. I don’t want the people around me to be celebrated once a month every year. I don’t want just a month; I want equality; I want equity and an end to violence against women. Happy Women’s History Month, let’s continue to make history.