Why Writing Women Back Into History Matters
March 9, 2010
by Anna Belle Pfau
|March is Women’s History Month! My favorite time of year… Official recognition of women’s history began 30 years ago with then-President Carter’s 1980 Presidential Proclamation recognizing the first Women’s History Week. Seven years later the week was expanded to a month. This was a critical and necessary step for the progress of women, especially because women had been excluded from history, or subject to sexist treatment when they were included. The theme of Women’s History Month this year is Writing Women Back into History, something that is desperately needed, and much to my delight, is happening.
I was a 22 year old young mother of a daughter when my eyes were opened to the subject of women’s history. I took a class in American women’s history in 1994 to fill a general education requirement at the community college I attended. When I started that class I had no idea that women did not have the right to vote until 1920, nor did I know anything about the long and arduous fight to get there. I was not even familiar with Abigail Adam’s famous plea to her husband to “remember the ladies.” I had never heard the term “Rosie the Riveter,” nor was I aware of the first or second wave of feminist progress. I knew that Susan B. Anthony had once been on the silver dollar, but I did not know what she had done to earn that brief honor. In short, I knew nothing of women’s history.
Dr. Anne Kearney, bless her beautiful heart, spent the semester catching up 29 adult females and one adult male on the history they’d missed out in elementary, middle, and high schools they attended, whether they were public or private. Over the course of four months we were introduced to Phillis Wheatley, Republican Mothers, Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Eliza Pinckney, The Grimke’ sisters, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Rosie the Riveter, and many, many others. And I began to see over the course of those four months how my present and future had been paid for by the hard work of these incredible women.
It changed me. Forever. It gave me a perspective I will never forget or lose sight of. Suddenly I understood something about my place in the world, and suddenly I knew of women who had done incredible things. It made me feel that I could too. Learning about women from my own nation’s history made me determined to educate people on this topic, and join the struggle to continue to create that history. This is the power of writing women back into history. Changing perspectives and lives with knowledge inevitably alters the trajectory of our future. And as you can see from the links, people are writing women back into history.
Every effort at social change must include some way to educate people. If people don’t know there is a problem, they will not know to fix it. Furthermore, it takes incredible intelligence and character to strike out on your own, to buck trends and social conventions, to carve out a new path. Being the first person to take a risk is so daunting and scary that even Copernicus turned it down. We love to talk to of trailblazing and individualism in our country, but precious few of us are actually able to realize that common value. There is often little need to. We already have plenty of role models for women in many areas of life; we just need to make girls and women aware of them. We are when we help build this movement, recognizing that women’s history is a persuasive way to educate all Americans about women and their accomplishments, as well as their current needs.
The greatest beneficiary of my education in women’s history has been my daughter. Her entire childhood has been steeped in these stories, and she is always reporting to me when she is exposed to the topic. At 16, she is well versed enough and unafraid enough to bring the subject up herself in class, and to ask her teachers what they are doing for women’s history month in the classroom. She is why I keep writing women back into history. What are you doing this month to help write women back into history?
Another excellent piece, Annabelle! And I love your question: “What are you doing this month to help write women back into history?”
I had a few interactions with my new community in regard to women’s history. One was with my local independent bookstore. The other with the librarians who work in the children’s wing of my local library.
Both interactions were intense and not easy. The bookstore would not believe that they had no books on American Women’s History. They had just come out of Black History Month and had a lot of materials. They had one picture book on Coretta Scott King (who I know of from your writing) but the book only talked about the civil writes movement in general and nothing about Coretta Scott King’s unique contributions. There was nothing else except a boring looking Middle School reader on Queen Elizabeth. So finally, they realized that they had nothing but it took some work to get there. I later emailed them with suggestions and they said they would order some materials and if they got the materials soon enough they would put up a display.
My local library was very rude to me. I asked them what they were doing for women’s history month and they told me that there was a display in the adult section. I then asked them if there would be a display in the kid’s section. They responded “I don’t know!” and quickly headed off. I followed the librarian and asked if they had any plans or interests in celebrating Women’s History in the kid’s wing and they repeated “I don’t know!” and ran away. At this same library I have also offered to donate my collection of women’s history picture books which are in new condition and are recent publications. I was told that they might be able to sell them a their yearly book fair where they sell books the library no longer uses or donated materials that they do not want to add to the collection. I plan on writing a letter to the board about these interactions.
It’s not easy. You are right in that reading the stories of Alice Paul, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Sanger, etc. can inspire women. I do think that if they can do all that they can do I can indeed keep working to try and get women’s history in my community acknowledged.
I believe women’s history is as important as anything: abortion rights, political representation, violence against women, etc. Because if we don’t know our own stories how will we ever get where we want to be?
It’s a small thing, but every couple of days I’m changing my Facebook profile picture to the picture of a woman whose accomplishments may have gone unnoticed by our history books or who is not known for “all that she was”. An example would be the provocative actress, Hedy Lamarr, known for being the first actress to appear nude in a movie, but not for holding the patent for a communications system that allowed the Allies to create unbreakable codes during WWII. Or as we celebrate the Oscars this week and applaud the money making ability of today’s actresses, to recognize Mae West as the first woman in Hollywood to make a million bucks. Thanks to “Schoolhouse Rock” most school children of my kids’ era know that Elias Howe invented the sewing machine, but do they know that Josephine Cochran invented the dishwasher? I’m having fun doing it, and my FB friends are responding to it with “Sheroes” of their own.
Samantha, it’s NOT a small thing. I got started promoting women’s history via 1-to2 paragraph brief e-mail biographies I started sending around to friends and family in the late 1990s. It just grew from there. Any effort is a needed (and I must stress, appreciated) effort.
Alison, you are also why I keep writing women into history. Watching your zest and zeal for the topic in the more than year that you’ve been reading these articles has been so gratifying, and helps me feel less alone. Someone else cares as much as I do! That is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Thank you.
Anna Belle, great to see you back. love your question. i joined the people changing their profile picture on FB to honor women.I am still pushing female composers. made a list of 76 historic female composers with bios and works and am sending to classic channels inviting them to play exclusively female composers or interpreteres during womens history months. no response yet. sent a scholastic page about a diary from a girl in 1917, whose mother and aunt was picketing the white house to my daughters principal and hope they will take up the subject.
http://www.scholastic.com/dear.....tm#summary
and then this article inspired me to write to the governor and ask him about activities to honor women’s history month. here it is:
Dear governor,
As you know it is women’s history month. what I am missing is, that anybody is paying attention to it. During the month of February every school had a program, from kindergarden onward the story of “uncle tom’s cabin” and the milestones of the civil rights movement are told in school. from my experience as parent there is absolute silence on the women’s rights movement. we should be celebrating the 90 year anniversary of our right to vote. we need to remember the 11 sentiments and resolutions Elizabeth Cady Stanton proclaimed in 1948, we need to remember how the national women’s party fought from 1913 to 1920 to finally push through suffrage extended to women. we are still not done. several sentiments from 1948 are not fulfilled. We need to remember that it is not long since women could open their own bank accounts, keep the money they earned, could own land, and keep custody of their children when a husband died. the effects of gender stereotypes hurt women to this day. Equal rights for women are not established in the constitution. this is to civic’s lessons not taught currently.
female heroes: there are female heroes and we need to teach our children about them. Maryland has a Rachel Carson house. I wonder how many children ever heard about this pioneer of the environmental movement. Or Clara Barton is a Marylander. I am looking forward that you have a message during womens’ history month and encourage teachers to teach about the struggles, unfair conditions women had to overcome and the break-throughs they have achieved
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