I have very little recollection of women's history month before high school. Even then, it seemed like this great, ambiguous cloud of obligation: we digested it like itineraries and programs, not history and substance. It ignited very little curiosity or pride, and instead filled us all with a nationalistic sense of duty--a universal "oh, ah, look at how awesome women are and how equal we are today."

We are awesome. We are not equal.

Now that I can see for myself all the complex systems which create this inequality, I still can't critique my maternal mentors and elders for all that they did not teach me. How is someone supposed to teach an eight-year-old about how her body will become hypersexualized and that the requirements for her femininity will make her and break her if she does not find her own voice? How can you tell them that society is going to do everything it can to prevent them from finding that voice? How can you help a thirteen-year-old come to terms with the fact that, in countries all over the world, including ours, her standing in society is demeaned and oppressed? How can we soften the blow of realizing that some of the methods of oppression feel like they trip us, when we see that they have gone unchallenged by ourselves and our loved ones?

If I should have a daughter in this lifetime, I know I'll have to find answers for these questions. If I don't, I'll fail her. What's even more disappointing, is that failure is expected of me. I'm supposed to teach her that beauty is pain, that boys don't like bossy girls, and that her gender is a cage we must all be complicit in or else she's also a failure.

I want her to know that women's history is not a term which means "less valid than actual history." I hope she knows that in celebrating the legacies and actions of women throughout the centuries, that she can puff her chest up in pride that there is no one who can take that away from her, and us as people. I hope that she knows "a woman's strength," and "a woman scorned" are not dilutions of those raw, human emotions. Their social scripts are not ones she has to follow: she can be a woman without the scorn, and she can be scorned without having to show it like a lady. Her feelings, her experiences, are valid and autonomous.

I want her to know names. I want her to be able to hear the words of Angelou and rise again. I want her to know Marie Antoinette behind her dramatisized reputation of excess and snobbery--the woman did not just let her people eat cake. I want her to know that while there were men like Martin Luther King and Thurgood Marshall, there were also women like Ella Baker and Angela Davis. I hope she knows that Laverne Cox can always provide inspiration for being yourself, being unapologetic, and being kind. I hope she knows she can be just as sassy and outspoken as the great Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

I want her to know that the history of women is on her skin and in her blood at all times, always there, always humming. That even though we have come this far, we have so much more to do. Perhaps she'll find inspiration to become part of the battle directly, or she'll find other means of producing happiness in her life. Above all else, I hope she remembers that the ability to self-determine, wasn't just given to her. It was fought for, it was fought against, and it is disputed and fragile to this day. May she have the compassion and the wisdom to know it is not just a fight for her own freedom, and if so much as one other woman still remains confined, she herself can never be truly liberated.

For now, my responsibility is doing my part to make it so she doesn't have to have the same rude awakenings as I did. My responsibility is to fulfill my segment in the great histories. And, by God, we have so much to do.