When I was a young girl, my mom and I watched movies together with a wide range of those showing women as support to the hero. You know them: Tarzan and Jane, Roy Rogers and Dale Evens, and so on … then came “Xena, Warrior Princess,” “Wonder Woman,” and Princess Leia. But, even then, there were real-life women heroes for girls, young women and old to look up to, to emulate, and to follow in their chosen fields of work.

Contributions by women to history are numerous: Cleopatra, pharaoh of Egypt; Joan of Arc, martyr and military leader; Sacagawea, a Lemhi Shoshone indigenous woman who led and helped Lewis and Clark explore America; Amelia Earhart, first female aviator to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean; Rosa Parks, civil rights activist and international icon of resistance; Marie Curie, physicist and first female winner of the Nobel Prize for work in radioactivity (x-rays); Ada Lovelace, the first person on record to acknowledge the capability of what computers could do; Florence Nightingale, established the first nursing school in London that led to better health care; Mother Teresa, the greatest humanitarian of the 20th century was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; Fanny Mendelssohn, pianist and composer; Elinor Ostrom, political economist; Sophie Blanchard, aeronaut; Katherine G. Johnson, a mathematician who helped us fly into space, sending the first human to the moon!

In 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week. In 1987, being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9, designating the month of March as Women’s History Month. Countries all over the world have established a time to celebrate women’s roles in history. Women no longer live a supporting role. We have proved to be the heroes!

MARGARET KUTZERA,

Harrisville