I’m taking a little detour today, March 8, because it’s International Women’s Day, and March is Women’s History Month.

This is a special time to honor great women and the women who will be great.  It’s a time to appreciate the efforts of the wise and brave females who forged and those who continue to forge this rough path to independence, respect, and equality.

You go, girls.

Because Women’s History Month is also a time to recognize the unique issues that women face in today’s society, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

I don’t want to rehash the recent idiocy behind the idea of an all-male congressional committee hearing on female contraceptive insurance coverage that reportedly wouldn’t allow comment from women.  Nor do I want to relive through my computer keyboard the subsequent radio host’s chauvinistic and discriminatory rant dujour on the same subject.  But I will say this: It’s the freakin’ 21st century!  C’mon, guys.

Women make up more than half the population in this country.  Why do we find we’re still climbing that tall, treacherous mountain to obtain equal rights?  After all these years, after all the great contributions and accomplishments from women everywhere, why?

I wish I knew the answer.  I only know that our day will come.  Victory will be ours.  I know that because the big difference between the women’s movement toward equality and the current men’s stronghold, is that women are better at taking care of each other.  Women grow themselves and their surroundings together, while most men tend to move apart from one another no matter what goal they are trying to achieve.  And that difference makes me proud and glad to be a woman.

But the fight is ongoing.  Suffice it to say, we need to step it up, ladies.  Stay informed, stay strong and dedicated — not just this day or this month, but always and forever.

As I type these words, I stop briefly to remove my sweater because I am having a hot flash.  I don’t have a lot of these flashes, thankfully, but they do pop up now and again  — just to remind me that I am a woman.  Apparently, Mother Nature has a sense of humor.

Like I needed a reminder.  I need a reminder to put the trash cans out on Thursday nights, or to take my vitamins.  But a reminder of my gender?  Never.  I don’t need hot flashes for that.  The business world, the political world, and society in general reminds me of that in many ways every day.

Though the independence of women was a quite different venture in my mother’s world than it is in mine, and in her mother’s world even more so, there is an undeniable common thread connecting us all.  Strength.  Women are inherently strong, on so many levels, and you can’t squelch that forever.

So, forge on, sisters.  And take a moment today to remember and honor the important women in your life — and the men who easily offer them love and respect.  Honor the women you cherish, the women who taught you how wild and wonderful this gender can be.  Take care of them and yourselves.

Together, strong, healthy, supportive, committed. That’s how you get things done, boys.