March 2, 2010

March is Women's History Month

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President Obama creates the National Council on Women and Girls

President Obama creates the White House Council on Women and Girls, Women's History Month last year.

It’s that time of year again. National Womens History Month is upon us, and this year’s theme, according to the event’s sponsors — the National Women’s History Project and the Library of Congress — is “Writing Women Back into History.” According to the NWHP site, “History helps us learn who we are, but when we don’t know our own history, our power and dreams are immediately diminished.” They go on to quote Myra Pollack Sadker:”Each time a girl opens a book and reads woman-less history, she learns she is worth less.”

At the Library of Congress, the month-long celebration of talks and exhibits looks to redress that wrong, and fill in that absence, honoring women in the arts and sciences with talks, exhibitions and teachers guides for students to explore and learn their history

The Learning Network blog at the New York Times has also created a curriculum with lesson plans, reading lists and archival materials for all age groups. Their suggested curriculum includes readings from historic newspaper front pages, such as a New York Times article from January 12, 1915, “Suffragists Lose Fight In the House,” covering when the United States House of Representatives rejected a proposal to give women the right to vote. Or from a Times article on August 26, 1920, “Colby Proclaims Womens Suffrage,” reporting about the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing American women the right to vote, taking effect.

The historic front pages are a fascinating thumbnail glimpse into the struggle for equal rights for women. And lest we forget, that history is still in the making: It was just last year that President Barack Obama signed an executive order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls, saying “that women still earn just 78 cents for every dollar men make and that one in four experience domestic violence in their lifetimes. And while women make up 49 percent of the workforce, they account for only 3 percent of the Fortune 500 chief executives,” according to a report in the New York Times‘ The Caucus blog.

Obama went on to say, “When these inequalities stubbornly persist in this country, in this century, then I think we need to ask ourselves some hard questions. I think we need to take a hard look at where we’re falling short, and who we’re leaving out, and what that means for the prosperity and the vitality of our nation.”

Let’s hope that this month, the White House’s newly formed council will give us a positive year one report.

Valerie Merians is the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

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