Good morning!
On Friday we sent you pictures of the Women’s HIstory Month proclamation ceremony that happened at Government House that day. We also captured video of the event. You can find this and other videos from the Governor’s Office on the Governor’s YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/governorofguam
Click here to watch the video of the First Lady & the Governor’s speeches, followed by the reading of the proclamation by Donna Kloppenburg, the Governor signing the proclamation, and footage of the attendees at Government House.
Text of First Lady Christine M.S. Calvo’s speech on women follows. Have a great day!
Remarks on Women’s History Month Proclamation
By Christine M.S. Calvo
My sisters, welcome to Government House,
We come from a special generation… one that witnessed the historic transition between a generation of women in the background… to a new generation that is a stratosphere above the glass ceiling.
Think about this: we spent our lives experiencing this liberation. Our generation grew up in classrooms that taught us that our role was in the kitchen and at home. Then the doors started opening for us. We could work at banks or be journalists… nurses and teachers. And then we started asking why we couldn’t also be doctors and executives… engineers and construction workers. We shed the notion that we are equal because of our gender… and, instead, we demonstrated our worth by our work and our merit.
There is no more appropriate example of this point than the recent lifting of the ban on women in combat. If you think about it, we are a nation that has evolved from an idea of freedom… to one that truly freed its people from injustice and the color of our prejudice one generation at a time. We were freed from tyranny and oppression… free to speak and assemble and worship… free from slavery… free to vote without consideration of gender, faith, or color. We have these freedoms because for a quarter-millennium, brave men have fought so that we can be free. And now women can fight for our freedom, too… for the ideals of our country… for the equality we stand for.
We should celebrate that in the long history of humanity… we were blessed in our lifetime to have been part of such sweeping change to our place in the world. We’ve certainly come a long way.
We owe this honor to the women who came before us… not just the heroes of the fight for women’s equality… but also our mothers and their mothers… the ones who endured. We owe the improved condition of our place in society to the brave women who fought for us to vote… to join the workforce and to receive equal pay… to compete in the sciences, the arts, and the humanities in our universities.
And equality isn’t all we should celebrate. There are differences between men and women that we should embrace… We should celebrate what makes us so very special. And there’s no blanket to cover this all. For some women, they can celebrate the expression of their femininity through their art or song. For other women, they can celebrate success in business that only their unique perspectives could have brought about.
For me, and I’m sure for many others, I celebrate what I love about being a woman in this world. I love being a mother and a grandmother. I love watching my kids grow and be happy. I love being a wife to a man who listens to me and who I listen to. He is my companion and my foundation, and I am that to him. I love being a daughter and a sister, an aunt and a niece to a very lively family. I love coaching the Academy rugby team because I love helping girls to become more confident and prepared for the world ahead.
These are the things that make me happy about being a woman. And, really, in the grand scheme of things what will matter in our lives will not be how far we climbed the social ladder… or how much money we earned… or whether we built worldly empires.
In the review of our conscience we will all wonder whether we loved as much as we should… whether we were kind and giving. Were we understanding and strong for others who needed us? Did we stand up on the rubble of our struggle and strife to fight another day, or to help another soul? In the history of women — no matter what freedoms we had or how society suppressed us — we should all be proud that this is our legacy. It didn’t matter if we were silenced, abused, enslaved, beaten, or victimized in any other way… through it all we’ve been strong, loving, kind, understanding, and giving.
This is who we are as women… and this is why the world is a better place for the children we bear, and the daughters who will bear more.
Thank you, and God bless all of God’s daughters.
By Christine M.S. Calvo
My sisters, welcome to Government House,
We come from a special generation… one that witnessed the historic transition between a generation of women in the background… to a new generation that is a stratosphere above the glass ceiling.
Think about this: we spent our lives experiencing this liberation. Our generation grew up in classrooms that taught us that our role was in the kitchen and at home. Then the doors started opening for us. We could work at banks or be journalists… nurses and teachers. And then we started asking why we couldn’t also be doctors and executives… engineers and construction workers. We shed the notion that we are equal because of our gender… and, instead, we demonstrated our worth by our work and our merit.
There is no more appropriate example of this point than the recent lifting of the ban on women in combat. If you think about it, we are a nation that has evolved from an idea of freedom… to one that truly freed its people from injustice and the color of our prejudice one generation at a time. We were freed from tyranny and oppression… free to speak and assemble and worship… free from slavery… free to vote without consideration of gender, faith, or color. We have these freedoms because for a quarter-millennium, brave men have fought so that we can be free. And now women can fight for our freedom, too… for the ideals of our country… for the equality we stand for.
We should celebrate that in the long history of humanity… we were blessed in our lifetime to have been part of such sweeping change to our place in the world. We’ve certainly come a long way.
We owe this honor to the women who came before us… not just the heroes of the fight for women’s equality… but also our mothers and their mothers… the ones who endured. We owe the improved condition of our place in society to the brave women who fought for us to vote… to join the workforce and to receive equal pay… to compete in the sciences, the arts, and the humanities in our universities.
And equality isn’t all we should celebrate. There are differences between men and women that we should embrace… We should celebrate what makes us so very special. And there’s no blanket to cover this all. For some women, they can celebrate the expression of their femininity through their art or song. For other women, they can celebrate success in business that only their unique perspectives could have brought about.
For me, and I’m sure for many others, I celebrate what I love about being a woman in this world. I love being a mother and a grandmother. I love watching my kids grow and be happy. I love being a wife to a man who listens to me and who I listen to. He is my companion and my foundation, and I am that to him. I love being a daughter and a sister, an aunt and a niece to a very lively family. I love coaching the Academy rugby team because I love helping girls to become more confident and prepared for the world ahead.
These are the things that make me happy about being a woman. And, really, in the grand scheme of things what will matter in our lives will not be how far we climbed the social ladder… or how much money we earned… or whether we built worldly empires.
In the review of our conscience we will all wonder whether we loved as much as we should… whether we were kind and giving. Were we understanding and strong for others who needed us? Did we stand up on the rubble of our struggle and strife to fight another day, or to help another soul? In the history of women — no matter what freedoms we had or how society suppressed us — we should all be proud that this is our legacy. It didn’t matter if we were silenced, abused, enslaved, beaten, or victimized in any other way… through it all we’ve been strong, loving, kind, understanding, and giving.
This is who we are as women… and this is why the world is a better place for the children we bear, and the daughters who will bear more.
Thank you, and God bless all of God’s daughters.