Celebrating Women's HERstory

FMF Spring Intern, Carmen Rios has shared some amazing insights on her perspective of Women's Herstory Month...

It is often that I realize many of my role models are women, and many of them share the same qualities- strength of heart, passion of mind, and ambitious and brave spirits that never stop working and fighting for something admirable and beautiful. They are, in their own rites, all pioneers; starting and completing the struggles of women in different industries and areas for equality.

I am curious to think of how many people realize the greatness of women they have learned about, lived with, worked with, and admired, both as women and as strong figures in their respective industries and areas. For me, I look to women like…

• Ellie Smeal, for starting the Feminist Majority Foundation and committing her life to the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes;

• And I could talk for hours about Hillary Rodham Clinton, a woman who suffered the brunt of political sexism but forged on and paved a new road for women in American politics;

• I’m sure most people can appreciate the journeys Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres have had in establishing themselves as regulars in the male-dominated world of entertainment, both being ethnic or sexual minorities and, now, household names;

• And women like Isadora Duncan who pioneered in the modern dance movement in the US that infiltrates so much of our creative world;

• Poets like Maya Angelou can inspire and move us with messages of female strength and pride with every syllable;

• Lucille Ball led the way for women in the world of comedy, that eventually led us to entertainers like Madonna, who push for the liberation of women with their art;

• And it is impossible to forget the travels of Amelia Earhart and Sojourner Truth, who not only pioneered missions and paths, but the roles of women in new positions for the entire world to observe.

As a young woman and someone passionate about women’s issues and equality, it is important to me that people appreciate not only the accomplishments heralded in Women’s History Month, but the individual stories of those women as well. As women, these stories are something that connect us- they are not someone else’s battles or someone else’s accomplishments: they are your story, my story, our herstory.

- Carmen Rios