Have you ever heard the idea that if you ask a woman who she is, she’ll tell you who she serves?
Think about it. When women introduce themselves, you often learn who they’re connected to before you learn anything else—whether they have a partner, children, or a family depending on them. And not long after, you’ll hear about the spaces they pour into. The community organizations, the schools, the churches, the people who receive whatever time and energy is left over.
I say that to say: one of the most beautiful things about women is that they are always in motion, always building, tending, and doing. Sometimes for others. Sometimes for themselves, but even that is often in service of being able to give more later. They say you can tell who a woman is by who she shows up for.
Who does she take care of?
Who benefits from her energy, her presence, her expertise?
Who does she check on, advocate for, stand beside consistently, without being asked.
As we reflect on Women’s History Month, what if we moved beyond the “firsts” and the famous names? What if we told a different kind of history? A legacy that begins in kitchens and carpools, lives in group chats and waiting rooms? A history of traditions born on calendars full of events, and in grocery stores with carts full of ingredients waiting to be turned into magic? Influence born over the washing machine and neatly folded clothes, or the impact that comes out of late-night prayers and early-morning preparations?
What if we honored not just the women who broke barriers, but the women who broke their backs holding everything together for everyone? What would happen if we sat with these contributions, giving them far greater consideration and thought than ever before? What if we counted them as praiseworthy and substantial contributions from women in our past, present, and future during Women’s history month?
Women’s History Month is not just about who was first, it’s about who kept, and who keeps, showing up. The grandmothers who held families together through migration, segregation, and economic instability, and still managed to make everything from scratch, from clothes to cornbread. The mothers who made a dollar out of fifteen cents, who quietly and faithfully made a way out of no way, for their families and communities. The women today, still doing that same work, now with walmart delivery, doordash, and shared family calendars.
The world runs on the invisible labor women give so freely, serving as everything to everyone, everywhere. Carrying the weight of a household, a family, a community, and sometimes an entire workplace on their shoulders. Before the day even starts, women make sure the kids are fed, hair is parted straight and braided tight, edges are laid, and faces are shining with cocoa butter like armor against the world. Advocating in classrooms, in doctor’s offices, in school board meetings, and at kitchen tables, women make sure our children are seen, protected, and pushed toward their potential. How is it that women show up even when it’s inconvenient, when it’s exhausting, and when no one else does?
And then they go to work.
A woman can positively impact how a child sees themselves, how a family survives, how a business thrives, and how a community stays connected – all before serving dinner at 6:30 pm. Women are logistics, tenderness, discipline, and joy all at once. As we name large scale movements and “firsts” that women have carried throughout history, we must also name all of the unseen, quiet, continuous efforts that have consistently kept our families and communities together –- because that, too, is history. So much of what sustains us, lovingly executed by the hands and intention of women, has never been written down or aptly appreciated.
If Women’s History Month teaches us anything, it’s not just what women have done. It’s how much they’ve held down—and how the “small stuff” they do, is in all actuality the very, very big stuff. As we celebrate the monumental movements and historic firsts women have achieved, we must also honor work that has kept everything in motion –the work of women that rarely makes the headlines, but has carried families, nurtured communities, and sustained life itself.
Look at us! We’re making history y’all!