Today is March 1st and the first day of Women’s History Month. As a woman, mother of two daughters and aunt of three nieces I am keenly aware of the importance of women in society today and for the future. There is still a lot of work to be done. Every woman has her experience with sexism. Here are a couple of mine.

A church I attended had a month dedicated to celebrating woman and posted photos of women in the wall. Indeed, women had worked tirelessly at the church organizing food drives and educating children and producing worship services. What wasn’t apparent was they were blocked from leadership. Women weren’t allowed to hold positions in eldership despite leading multiple Bible studies and missions trips. Regardless of the flattering lip-service, the men were not going to make room for women at the table.

The secular sphere isn’t much better. Of the six full-time photographers at the city newspaper I worked at after college, they were all white males. I was hired to file negatives and maintain the chemicals. I had hoped it would give me an in and a be a step towards working as a news photographer. There was one woman photographer who came in weekly to shoot the food layout for the recipe pages. That was it. When an opening come up for another photographer they hired a guy from out of state. Despite my experience working at several publications during college, winning awards and having a proper degree I wasn’t even considered. The one thing no one told me was how navigate the glass ceiling.

Statistically, I am not alone in my frustrations. Despite making up half the population and work force, women are constantly undervalued. This pandemic has only exacerbated the gap with women losing their jobs at a much higher rate than men.

There is probably going to be a lot of people and institutions posting about women this month, but celebrating women isn’t the purpose. The end goal is to recognize us as vital and worthy so we will be included in decision making, allowed leadership roles, better compensated for our paid work, recognized for our artistic and scientific contributions and not punished for our unpaid tasks of birthing and raising children. Women are making history right now and while it’s good to honor the past, it’s worthless if we ignore it’s lessons.