I have a love/hate relationship with things like International Women’s day. I love the concept, but more than anything it makes me sad that such a day is required, that we need a specific day to recognize the accomplishments of women, and the inequalities that they face. So this was supposed to be bright and happy, and then, well, I wrote it….
She was a woman, yes, but that was so little of what she was. She was a scientist, and a pioneer. She was a child, and a mother, and yes, at one point she was a wife. She was a divorcée before it was okay to divorced, and it changed nothing because she always did it all on her own anyways.
People always asked her about her accomplishments, and they prefaced the question with, “As a woman” as if that made her accomplishments something, different, or other. Sometimes it was said in reference to overcoming adversity, and others it was said as if her medal was nothing more than a participation ribbon given to her on the basis of sex.
Yes, she was a woman, but she was so very much more than that. What she wished for was that someday her children would live in a world where a day for women was not required, and it would just be another Tuesday.
Anne McSommers' Writing Nook 