A Tribute to Us on National Women’s History Month

Those of us born under the female gender know how to recognize the privilege of being a woman. Being a woman in a world that has been masculinized since the origins of our history, in which symbolism and labels have played a vital role in conceptualizing, with vigilant observance, the role of women in society.

Without ignoring the vast contact with the outside world that men have had to build much of our history, in more than 50 years, we women – with courage and risk – have won a fascinating career that, in the times of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, was unthinkable.                                                                             

One of the most common human behaviors that have influenced the nature and development of the female role in society has been sexism, which from its conceptualization, acquires some variants, of which we have witnessed in theory and practice: economic domination, “undervaluation of labor activity” and the conception of women as “second-rate workers.”

We can add legislative domination, “no representation of women in laws,” and intellectual domination, “inferiority in intelligence, in mathematical capacity, in objective capacity, in logic, in analysis, low IQ.”

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I gather these three elements to highlight the awakening and settlement of the role of women in the family, sexual, intellectual, and economic-labor-legislative, among others, demonstrating the vast evolutionary career that began in society since the late 50s and that in our 21st century continues to battle, with extremist feminist expressions, which denote the most significant advance of gender liberation.

Thanks to this flexibilization, the daughters of our grandmothers -those born at the end of the 50s- took on the task of making this advance; those steps forward, to turn their close history into one, in which their realization, the expression of their talents, the claim of their rights, their economic independence and the development of their intellect, marked the gap between yesterday and today, for them and for us.

With their strength and courage fed on their history, breaking paradigms, social barriers, and entrenched rejections, these mothers managed to integrate into the labor market, with the tight time to take their children to school and have their hot snack back home. Those mothers taught us that being a woman represents our capacity to Be, Do, Build, and be Productive, leaving a mark in the history books.

Today I know many daughters of these women that I feel proud of because they are exceptional and to be admired. They are women born in the 70s and 80s who have realized their dreams and have made their way to reinvent themselves and rewrite real stories for our sisters, daughters, nieces, and future feminine seeds. They will nurture new languages around our valuable role, hand in hand with men, who have also encouraged this path of independence and gender awakening.

Like me, I can mention many women who have launched themselves to turn their talents into productive work after completing the demanding task of studying, earning salaries, and making savings their larder for their family’s future of their dreams.   

They are women who today take their services, their products, and their knowledge to productive sectors, communities, to people in need or underprivileged.

I can mention a professional in international relations who returned to her hometown after 30 years, where she opened her Yoga studio, creating her name and brand. An industrial engineer with a background in logistics who is devoted to supporting entrepreneurs and artistic talents in Latin American countries after graduating with a Ph.D. in cultural management. A talented musician who today thrives in developing therapeutic workshops in Miami to heal the soul. An educator who facilitates the procurement of economic resources for people affected by violence in Mexico, and a psychologist with more than 20 years of experience in human talent, she creates her food brand to market in Florida, United States.

Like they say in Spain, ¡flipo con ellas! These women are the granddaughters of those grandmothers who did not have such luck and the societal flexibility of a more open and balanced world. We are the result of that path, wrinkled by difficulties and restrictions but kneaded by the hope and freedom to fulfill our purpose. 

We will continue to sow paths of equality, opening doors of recognition, reconciliation, balance, and opportunities for the new generations, which add profoundly to the economies, to the well-being, and the continuous evolution of men and women in a world in which communion and the sum of the parts, multiply, rebuild and flourish.