Good morning 99percenters!

Did you know that March is Women’s History Month? The commemoration began in 1981 when Congress passed a resolution asking the President to proclaim “Women’s History Week" beginning March 7, 1982. Fast forward and since 1995 Presidents have issued a series of annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.”

I can think of no better person to quote when it comes to the challenges women have faced and often still face in our country than Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a suffragist, women’s rights activist and writer who was instrumental in the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848.

This is an excerpt from Solitude of Self, an address she delivered before the Committee of the Judiciary of the United States Congress, Monday, January 18, 1892:

The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for higher education, for the full development of her faculties, forces of mind and body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought and action; a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage, of custom, dependence, superstition; from all the crippling influences of fear, is the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life. The strongest reason why we ask for woman a voice in the government under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe; equality in social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, is because of her birthright to self-sovereignty; because, as an individual, she must rely on herself. No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency they must know something of the laws of navigation. To guide our own craft, we must be captain, pilot, engineer; with chart and compass to stand at the wheel; to match the wind and waves and know when to take in the sail, and to read the signs in the firmament over all. It matters not whether the solitary voyager is man or woman.

I offer a few suggestions that would pay tribute to women - and please take a child, or grandchild along so they can absorb our history. Of course, do them as your time and schedule permit.

• Visit the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, NY.
• Visit Amelia Earhart’s birthplace in Atchinson, Kansas.
• Take a virtual tour of Clara Barton’s home in Maryland.
• Read Pearls and Pinstripes by Judith Richards Hope.
• Read Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved.

Fair warning - any reference to Beloved will send every right-wing “patriot” within 25 miles around the proverbial bend. Please do it sooner, rather than later. Thank you in advance.

This is an open thread. Tell us what you’re doing today, or anything else that strikes your fancy. The floor is yours.