 This portrait of a female protester buckling her helmet in Kiev is striking, but not unusual. Women have played a key role in this ongoing Ukrainian uprising. This image is especially meaningful this week, as International Women's Day approaches on Saturday. But here's the irony. Women's empowered status in Ukraine today has unexpected roots in Soviet times. That's right. Women of the former Soviet Union used International Women's Day back in 1913 and 1917 as a way to protest World War I and government corruption. In fact, the Russian Tsar abdicated four days after women organized a bread and peace strike in 1917. The next post-Zar government gave women the right to vote. Decades later, when the Soviet Union split up and Ukraine gained independence, many women even complained that their rights had actually deteriorated due to the disappearance of Soviet policies of universal daycare and the expectation that all women should have market jobs. It's a reminder that the struggles of this woman, of all women, are shared, even among folks who are otherwise enemies. That progress is uneven and that eventually success will require constant vigilance.