What's left to be done?

As an immigrant woman of colour I am grateful for all the things that the North American civil rights and women's movements have allotted me. I take advantage of the opportunities to pursue without being discriminated against (at least not outright and to my face). I take advantage of my rights to vote. And very seldom do I actually think about how it got to the point that I can do those things. I walk into a university classroom and claim my seat for a semester without giving a second thought to the millions of men and women who did not have the rights much less the opportunities to do the same, not even a century ago. Nor do I consider the struggles of the countless women and men who demanded and fought for these opportunities that I and many others take advantage of.

The colour of my skin, the texture of my hair, the accent that suddenly comes back to me when I talk to a family member, they all serve as reminders of the non-human status that my people have held for hundreds of years...the reproductive organ that i have reminds me of the non-human status that my sex/gender have held for so many centuries. How do I separate those two identities? Sometimes I feel like I have to. But i can't. Those identities help make me who I am and i refuse to identify one as being more important than the other.

The point of all this is that there is still a long way to go before my race and my gender/sex are not the source of oppression, inequity and inequality in society...sometimes it feels like everything that could be done has already been done. What's there left for a young woman of colour who is just now finding her way into the field of social justice to do?