Do you know what year women got the right to vote? Can you remember what decision legalized birth control for single women? Can you name three feminists besides Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton?

We are in the middle of both Women’s History Month and Reproductive Justice Week. It is vital that everyone take this opportunity to learn where the rights of women — which we often take for granted — were first earned through the blood, sweat and tears of those brave revolutionaries who came before us.

Nowadays, many women don’t consider themselves feminists but would be horrified if their rights were revoked. The simple act of valuing the rights of women makes you a feminist. That goes for guys, too.

Every woman at this school is benefiting from those women who cleared the path into academia. Every woman striving to be a doctor, a lawyer, a professor — every single one is using the rights that women before her earned. Every woman who voted in the November election used power given to them by our mothers and grandmothers. It is small repayment to learn about these women in order to thank them for their hard work.

If we don’t learn how our rights came to be, we will be unable to expand our rights further. In fact, if we do not know what our rights are or from where they derive, we just might lose them.

This is a busy time of the semester. While there are a myriad of events going on in celebration of Women’s History Month and Reproductive Justice Week, learning about our history is as easy as Google. Go ahead: learn something. Be that much more active in protecting the rights of women.