As a girl born into the tail end boomer/leading edge Gen X group, I grew up with the notion that the battle had been won. I believed that women had achieved equal rights and were granted dominion over their own bodies. I felt fortunate to be born into an age when everything had been settled by the strong, fearless women who came before me. I remember as a child seeing women on TV burning bras at protests and wondered why they were still fighting. I thought these rights were now written in stone and had no idea that they would be threatened. I was wrong.

As a mother of young daughters I don’t know how I can ever apologize enough to them. For it was my lack of political interest and complacency when I reached adulthood that caused them to lose rights that I had once known. I was initially dismissive of the zealots in this country trying to reverse the rights that women had fought long and hard to achieve. I focused on my own career and day-to-day minutia without deliberating on the fundamentalist’s agenda and coup of the Republican Party. Once I began to realize their true agenda, I made sure to vote against them on Election Day. This gave me personal satisfaction but falls far short of what is required to stop this onslaught against women’s rights. I was lazy.

As a woman I am wide awake now. I am mad at myself, my generation, and the traitorous women who feel the need to turn back the clock on women’s rights. My intent is not to wallow in what I should have done in the past but to channel my energy into stopping the erosion of women’s rights. I intend to continue voting for pro-women/pro-science/pro-medicine candidates while contributing my personal time and financial resources to women’s causes. While I can’t change the past, I can change the future. I will fight.