Women have been undermined for decades. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

As women, we started off as housewives who cooked, cleaned and smiled pretty for our husbands. Our rights were connected to the men in our lives. We couldn’t vote or work.

The “100 Years of Power Timeline,” stated that was all true until 1848, when the first Woman’s Rights Convention took place in Seneca Falls, New York.

Using the same website, throughout the 1800s many things moved forward in the women’s rights movement. One instance of this was in 1890, when Wyoming became a state. Wyoming was the first and only state at the time which allowed women the right to vote.

Moving on to the 1900s, the “100 Years of Power Timeline” tells of Jeannette Rankin, a women’s rights activist, who was elected into the House of Representatives. This made Rankin the first woman to hold a seat in a federal office.

Then the famous Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white male on a public bus and was later arrested, starting a whole new era of civil rights.

In the 1900s, many women of different races and religions were elected into a variety of federal positions. For example, Patsy Takemoto Mink was the first woman of color and Asian-American woman to be elected into Congress. 

Finally, on Aug. 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment granted American women the right to vote. This was also known as the end of the women’s suffrage movement, after a century of protesting.

All the women who fought for the rights women have today are nothing less than strong, beautiful and confident. 

Growing up in a harsh world, like the one we live in today, was hard. Little girls were told that we couldn’t build houses because it’s a man’s job, we couldn’t fish because that is a man’s hobby, we couldn’t love football because that’s a man’s passion.

I remember being a little girl and thinking, “Why do the boys have all the fun and girls can’t?”

While the women’s rights movement was passed and ratified, we still live with restrictions on what women can and cannot do.

Those stereotypes may be invisible to the naked eye and they aren’t set in stone, but they are the underlying stereotypes many individuals still have about women.

I thought it was hard being a little girl in such a broken world, then teenage years hit. Women are judged for everything: our appearance, our intelligence, even our life choices.

Women are called out for wearing too much makeup but are ridiculed for not wearing any at all. We are told we can’t wear certain clothes without being catcalled, shamed or called derogatory names. Women can’t even be a construction worker without being called “butch” and being told the job isn’t meant for women.

While I am still young and still have lots to learn and figure out, I have formed a belief that women are powerful beings and we can do whatever a man can do. I don’t consider myself a feminist, but I do believe women deserve more than what has been handed to us.

Harper Bazaar kindly listed powerful quotes from even more powerful women.

“A girl should be two things: Who and what she wants,” Coco Chanel said.

I strongly support Chanel’s choice of words, because it is true. Women don’t have to be a thousand things to please other people, the only thing we need to be is who and what we want to be to please ourselves.

“Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful, and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams,” Hillary Clinton said.

The word “woman” shouldn’t define the abilities and capabilities of what the female population can achieve. A female can achieve anything her heart desires and there are no limitations to that. The world is our canvas that we can make our own. 

As history has stated, women are powerful, strong, hardworking, achievers who aren’t afraid to paint the town red with what we believe is right.

In the end, women are capable of anything a man is capable of.

Geiger can be reached at [email protected].