Celebrating Women: A Note from Lieutenant Governor Catherine Baker Knoll

This entry is part of a series in celebration of Women's History Month. Catherine Baker Knoll is the first woman to serve as Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Progress has made it exciting. Promise has made it inspiring. Neglect has made it necessary.

For two centuries American women have played catch-up, a consequence of being overlooked and underestimated.

Now, we’re witnessing women emerging as business leaders, educators, physicians, attorneys, and public officials. And finally, after 43 male presidents of the United States, a woman is making a serious run at the White House.

That Hillary Clinton is a no-doubt-about-it contender to become America’s Commander-in-Chief is a credit to her talent and tenacity. It's also the natural outgrowth of a step-by-step determination by women throughout the nation that they want a slice of the pie they have been baking all these years.

When I endorsed Senator Clinton very early in her campaign, I did so not because she was a woman, but because she possessed an abundance of the characteristics for leadership that I know are recognized requirements for the leader of the free world.

Being keenly knowledgeable of how our government works bolstered her qualifications.

Being a successful senator from New York solidified her strength.

Being a woman put her in touch with the real problems of real people.

One of the prominent lessons of women’s history is that history itself does not wait around for those who are reluctant to make it. It only bestows its blessings upon those willing to stand up and speak up.

Women’s history is being written faster now, in permanent print, not in invisible ink. It’s being written all year around, not just in March.

Any reasonable review of the turning points of our time will reveal the presence of leaders who did something for the first time. That’s why we salute Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, Helen Keller, Sally Ride, and Billie Jean King.

What they did in their time encourages us to believe we can do even more in ours. They blazed a trail, never free of ridicule or immune from criticism, but a trail that had to be discovered with guideposts carefully installed for future generations to follow.

Regardless of one’s political leanings, all women will serve themselves well by admiring this latest trail to be explored, the uneven, untraveled road to the White House for a woman. If Hillary Clinton makes that journey and becomes the long-awaited first woman to do so, it will be a clear case of women’s history happening right here in front of us.

This year, the real Women’s History month may not be in March, but in November.