When the subject of Women’s Heritage comes up--as it will do at least one month every year thanks to Congress--you can generally expect a canned bit about suffrage and bra burning, or Susan B. Anthony. Ms. Anthony’s contribution was great, but all too often we forget that the timeline of Women’s Heritage is long and peppered with amazing pioneers: women like Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, and Margaret Atwood, or men like Frank L. Baum and William Taft. For me, Women’s Heritage is much more personal. It is more real, because it is my heritage.

We Area Family

My grandmother was a first generation Irish-American; my grandfather was a first generation Italian-American. They had a very traditional marriage. He worked outside the home, sometimes multiple jobs, to ensure the finances. She was a homemaker and caregiver--a mender of torn clothes, scuffed knees, and broken hearts.  Together they raised their daughters and sons to believe that they could do anything.  My aunts, uncles, and father have all raised their own families since then; raised a generation of boys and girls to become men and women--all of whom believe they are of equal value and bare equal responsibility for their own lives.  This is why I am able to do all the things, great and small, that I’ve done in my life. These people mean far more to me than any name recalled from rote learning because they are a part of me.  I am their legacy.

What’s Next?

Had I been standing beside Ms. Anthony on that glorious day in 1920, I would have had one question: What’s next? The 19^th Amendment may have granted women a sacred right, but every single decade since has presented new challenges--the future will be no different. Now we are freer than ever before, with opportunities our forbearers never conceived. I still have one question: What’s next? Women’s Heritage is a misnomer. Every man has a mother, sister, aunt, daughter, or wife and men have much to lose if we don’t work together to continue the work of those who came before us. As a generation, we have been given charge of a great legacy.  But we are merely caregivers, baring great responsibility for the world which we hand off to our children. Complacency will never do--we must look back with reverence, but not forget to look forward and lay claim to our destiny.

Becca Donato-Hardie