''There’s a popular idea, perpetuated by colonialists, Western travelers, and national historians, that women in Myanmar have long enjoyed status equal to men. I have heard this myself from Burma experts who didn’t understand why I, a gender policy specialist, wanted to go to Myanmar. But historian Tharaphi Than, author of Women in Modern Burma, has a different view. There have been a few powerful women in Myanmar, she argues, but their stories, told again and again, have crowded out the stories of the unequal majority. Yet, as I was also beginning to learn, Myanmar has a rich history of women who refused to play by the rules—journalists who kept writing, artists who kept painting, and soldiers who kept serving their country even when they were attacked, dismissed, and demeaned. Which is why I was here in Mandalay, to gather those less-told stories of remarkable women, past and present, for a children’s book that would inspire a new generation of Myanmar girls to dream big...''