It’s important to recover the names of women whom history might neglect—think about the power of the research that led us to name the heroes of Hidden Figures fame: Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. Look to the stories of women in the Bible, both named and unnamed, who broke barriers and lifted others up.

It’s also important for us to know that these were real women—not paragons. Some of the highly lauded women’s suffrage leaders used racist tropes in their advocacy, and many did not press forward after the adoption of the 19th Amendment to work for effective access to the vote for women of color or for poor women. This makes it all the more important for us to stand against voter suppression today and to be willing to examine who is excluded and who might be harmed if we are not alert.

So, let’s celebrate. Let’s remove curtains of race or gender that hide accomplishments of our foremothers. Let’s learn from them and from the people around them about breaking barriers so that women and girls have freedom to flourish and to follow God’s call. And let’s lift up our sisters, showing leadership and giftedness at every age and all over our organization and our communities.

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This episode originally appeared in the March/April 2021 issue of response, the award winning magazine from United Methodist Women.

Visit www.UnitedMethodistWomen.org to find out more.