It's Friday, March 18, 2022, the day of the week when I pass along a quotation meant to be inspiring. Today, we're more than halfway through Women's History Month, which originated 44 years ago in Northern California (where I'm from), and soon spread to the nation, courtesy of Congress and President Jimmy Carter. It lasted one week at that time, but by 1987 it was a month-long commemoration.
International Women's Day, observed this year on March 8, has even older origins. It comes out of the labor movement in the United States, dating back at least to 1908, during a New York City garment strike (led by female immigrants), and was accorded U.N. recognition in 1975. Although I usually write about American politics and U.S. history, the international provenance of women's history tributes impels me this morning to quote Ukrainian women -- four in particular.
On Feb. 24, when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the airwaves of the free world were suddenly flooded with disturbing footage of refugees, almost all women and children, fleeing their homeland for safety in neighboring lands. These images were accompanied by interviews in which these mothers and children explained that their husbands and sons and fathers were remaining behind to fight. But that's not the whole story.
Even before the Russians invaded, about 10% of those serving in Ukraine's military forces were women. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civilians have armed themselves and joined the resistance to foreign occupation. Many are women, including some who brought their children to safety in Poland or elsewhere and are now returning. So are Ukrainian women who were living abroad. They are going home, some of them as warriors, others in humanitarian roles.
Among them is 50-year-old Iryna Orel, who spoke to ABC News as she stowed her luggage on a train from Poland to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
"I will go back and help. I am a health worker, so the hospitals need help," she said. "And I will stay until the end."
Another woman told CNN she's returning to Kyiv to fight "Russian terrorists" alongside her husband. "If I have to do this, I will do it for my country, for my relatives, for my friends," said Mariia Halligan. "I'm not [a] man, I can't kill. I'm a woman and my work [is to] keep balance and help, and be kind, and care about relatives, family, friends and all Ukraine."
Viktoriia Kramarenko, a 55-year-old volunteer medic, certainly sounds as though she could kill if it comes to that. As the Washington Post reported, she has spent the three weeks of this war on the front lines in the city of Irpin, where Russian artillery and missiles have killed many civilians, some in their homes, while destroying the city's infrastructure, and trapping those inside, including her parents.
"I realize that I'm ready to tear the enemies' throats with my teeth," she told a Post correspondent. "Each and every one of us will do that to them. And the land will burn under their feet."
Also near the front was Tatiyana Veremychenko, 40. She took her two daughters to safety in Poland, leaving her husband behind, but after only three days felt the call of her country and went back to Ukraine.
"It's my homeland," she explained. "And I think that I can probably be more helpful if I go there than if I stay here. Ukraine is equally important for the men and for the women. We have the strength, the will, and the heart. And women have them as well."
And that's our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics. Reach him on Twitter @CarlCannon.