Having little knowledge about my great grandparents except for where they lived, I have no idea how they felt about women's rights or if my great grandmother was an activist when the movement began in 1848.
What I do know is that someone's great grandmother marched for me, and because of her and other brave, determined women throughout history, I can vote. I can buy property. I can practice whatever birth control method I choose. I can have a legal abortion instead of resorting to hangers and/or back alley quacks. I can have a career AND a family, or I can choose, if financially able, to be a stay-at-home mom. I can attend many universities which traditionally enrolled men only. I make money as an athlete comparable to what men make. My college has a substantial budget for women's sports as well as for men's. I am more tolerant of other races. I have many opportunities to be neighbors with, to work with, and to be friends with those of color, those in the LGBT community, and those of all religions.
So, regardless of who bequeathed these rights to me, I am ever grateful, and it is that gratitude that makes me speak up and speak out. An essayist said in describing her experience in the Women's March after the last presidential inauguration, "I no longer accept the things I cannot change. I change the things I cannot accept." If I can help make that statement become fact, I will have done my part in perpetuating what someone's great grandmother did for me.
