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<\/a>Deirdra Harris-Glover March is Women\u2019s History Month, and there are so many reasons for women of all cultures and ethnicities to be proud of our work.<\/p>\n Without Ada Lovelace, we would not have the modern computer. The Apollo 11 mission and Project Mercury relied on women like Katherine Johnson, Miriam Daniel Mann, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Kathryn Peddrew and other female black \u201ccomputers.\u201d Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston, and Beth Henley have left their mark on the arts, and society would be a much different place without fierce women like Fannie Lou Hamer, Judith Sargent Murray, and Kalyn Free.<\/p>\n It disheartens me to see so many young men and women rapidly backpedaling from calling themselves feminists. I am a humanist above all else, because I believe every person is worthy of human dignity. However, I identify as a feminist because women\u2014particularly women of color\u2014still face grievous inequity when it comes to advancement and pay in the workplace, health care, recognition and respect in our fields of study and practice, and violence of all types against our persons.<\/p>\n Women have fought and died for the right to assemble, and for the right to vote. Women of color have had it doubly hard. Women\u2019s voices are being silenced by a predominantly white, male legislature. Family planning, cancer screenings and contraception are on the chopping block every legislative session.<\/p>\n More men named John head corporations than all women of any name. Women are paid significantly less than men in every occupation. Even when women move into a field traditionally dominated by men, the pay for that type of work decreases.<\/p>\n In a country of relative freedom, it\u2019s fairly easy to stand by the status quo and forgive its flaws. It\u2019s easy to be swept up in the American promise of the \u201cland of opportunity, pull yourself up by your bootstraps\u201d mentality, but over half of us lack boots with the proverbial straps.<\/p>\n To address racial and ethnic bias and inequality, we must all do our part to dismantle privilege and fight for one another\u2019s value. Similarly, to address gender inequalities, men and women have to work together to call out sexism where it stands, even within our own hearts.<\/p>\n Although much of this is personal and community soul-searching, let\u2019s not forget one of the first struggles deemed a women\u2019s issue: suffrage.<\/p>\n This is an important election year. Some of you may be voting for your first president. There\u2019s still time to register to vote and to become informed about the issues and the stakes of this election. Regardless of how you vote, make certain you know where they stand on women\u2019s issues. Be familiar with their opinions on the ethnic, religious and racial plurality that forged our nation, and how they might seek to change that. More importantly, seize your own agency, and find ways to speak out against inequality when you see it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Deirdra Harris-Glover Staff Writer March is Women\u2019s History Month, and there are so many reasons for women of all cultures and ethnicities to be proud…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_plus_post_options":"{}","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong>Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n