Today, in 1777, two years after Paul Revere’s famous ride, at age 16, Sybil Ludington rode all night on horseback, forty miles to rally militiamen after the Brits burned down Danbury, Connecticut. Whether the ride occurred has been in question since about 1956. The accounts of the ride come from the Ludington family, possibly in an effort to promote tourism.

Last week in talking about Revere, I asked who will warn us this time? I linked to the Alt National Park Service, an invaluable source for what is going on in this administration – clarifications, corrections and call outs of the lies and falsehoods perpetuated since before Election Day.

In reference to Sybil Ludington, I have the same questions. On social media we’re told of the women, so many women who are standing up to the fascism, and yet, when a woman warns us in 1777, we dismiss it as ‘maybe it didn’t really happen.’ And to be honest, I don’t really know if it happened. I do know that when women accomplish anything there is someone there to take the credit, to claim the discovery, and to shush the little lady. We dismissed Kamala Harris, the Vice President for four years, Senator before that. We dismissed Hillary Clinton, First Lady for eight years, Secretary of State for four, Senator before that, and accomplished lawyer before that. At what point, will women be taken at face value, and I don’t mean at pretty face value.

How can the women save us if we won’t listen to or acknowledge them?

Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, “Don’t forget the ladies.” We are not only forgotten but ignored, blamed, and pushed aside while (many, too many) men crush this country under crippling debt, ruin families, arrest women for biological functions, and allow them to die for those same reasons. We are not less than. We don’t need to apologize for existing.

If we were treated as we should be, as equality requires us to be, we wouldn’t need to constantly put ourselves in the stories to uplift us. We would already be there, and there wouldn’t be a question as to whether it is a true story or a folktale.