Belatedly, we open the observances of this year’s International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month with a story which was shared recently by a Native American scholar at the Chicago, Illinois gathering of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE). 

“One day, there was a huge fire in the forest. Bear asked antelope: did you start that fire, and antelope responded, definitely not. I think that giraffe started the fire. Giraffe vigorously denied starting the fire and instead blamed the elephants. On and on, the blame game went as all of the animals denied responsibility, while blaming someone else. At one point, the animals looked up and they saw a tiny hummingbird zipping to the river, filling her mouth with water and dropping the water onto the fire. One of the animals piped up and asked the hummingbird, what she was doing? Her response was that she was doing what she could to put out the fire. Following her example, the other animals eventually joined in.” 

Women from around the globe are just like that hummingbird. Against unimaginable odds, these women are doing their part to put out the fires in their personal lives, in their professional lives and in their civic lives. Sometimes, the fires are crises that are threatening to destroy life as we know it. Other times, the fires are opportunities that make things better for society and ourselves, our loved ones and our organizations. Despite the immeasurable challenges, however, women, just like the hummingbird, often refuse to give in to unhealthy and destructive fires.

Higher education institutions like the University of Oregon are viable allies for women, as they war against destructive forces and to broaden access for themselves and others. Through courageous research, insightful teaching, inspiring creativity and formidable resilience, women lead the way with critical thinking as a crucial building block of democracy. Women are at the forefront of good fights to maintain their God-given freedoms to control their own bodies. From the fight for American independence to the Civil War, Civil Rights and Human Rights in America and beyond, women have always played a special role in removing barriers that prevent us from being our best selves.

Just as the instance of the hummingbird in the story, women can and should play an important role in innovating and leading with insight and resilience, but they cannot do it alone. Instead, they must have support and help from others as well. In higher education, this is often about ensuring that efforts to empower women are focused on fixing the systems and structures that hold them back rather than fixing the women, who are already brilliant, resilient and talented. It simply means ensuring that promotion and tenure guidelines as well as merit systems are inclusive of the multiple ways that women vastly make contributions. It also means ensuring that the definitions of leadership are broad enough to recognize collaboration and consensus building as viable forms of leadership.

Finally, it is important to be reminded that International Women’s Day is about all women. All women — whether they work inside or outside of the home — whether they are celebrating Ramadan, Passover, Easter, Nowruz or another holiday this spring, are fighting for better education in our rural and urban schools or fighting for the survival of their countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Latin America. In observing this year’s International Women’s Day as well as Women’s History Month, let women continue the fight in leading by example and refusing to bow to anything that undermines freedom, justice and, above all, the common good.