Women and History: We Do More Than Sew!

March is National Women's History Month , a celebration and acknowledgment of women throughout United States history.  This is a great time to learn and discover the reality of women in this country.  It's also, very sad that we have to set aside a month to focus on how women have helped shape the United States.  Think about it, there are 31 days in March, 365 days in a year, and of that amount 23 days are attuned to women in history.  Barely 6% of the year!  Wow, and this takes in half of the world's population.  Okay, what's wrong with this picture?  Well, it's actually a heck of a lot better than when I was a girl in elementary school.

That's right. I was thinking about the people we learned about when I was in school.  Not very many women come to mind.  As a matter of fact, I think I must have felt like Lucy in this Peanuts comic strip when I was young:

Yeah, I really felt like her.  We learned about  American heroes:  Paul Revere, George Washington, John and Samuel Adams, Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Abe Lincoln, Kit Carson, Lewis and Clark, Nathan Hale, Jim Bowie, General Grant, General Eisenhower, General Patton, and JFK.   We learned about the traitors or enemies of the US:  Benedict Arnold, General Lee, General William Howe, George III,  Hitler, and Santa Anna.  But, where were the women?  What did they do?  Sit around sewing?  

Well, if we think about what I was taught in elementary school and high school; yep!  Here are the women I remember learning about:  Pocohontas, Betsy Ross, Sacagawea, Louisa May Alcott, Harriett Tubman, and Susan B. Anthony.  That's it.  These are the only women I remember, and guess what?  One of them supposedly sewed the flag!  Wow!  Pretty sad.  I can name more men throughout history than women!  It's not because women didn't do anything.  No, it's do to the nature of our patriarchal society.  Let's face it, unless you were a white male, you didn't get much research time or mention in the history books.  

Thank God, that has and is being challenged and changed.  Guess what people! Women did a lot of things in history and today!  YES!  When I was a child, I was being told by the media and society that women were to be mommys, wives, teachers, and nurses.  As a teenager and young adult society decided that women could be cops, private investigator's military personnel, truck drivers, pastors and doctors.  Now here I am smiling a big grin knowing that women are in every field as men!  Politicians, governors, Secretary of State, even running for President!  AWESOME!  

Wait though, there are those who want to take women and put them back in the home, back in the closet so to speak where their talents, courage, innovations, and ideals are hidden from the young girls.  There are those who believe women are secondary citizens, whose whole worth is based upon motherhood, if even that.  Pretty sad isn't it.  Yeah, it is.  There are countries on Earth who treat women in this way and to know that there are people who think this in the United States is horrifying!  I know what I am talking about here.  

You see, once upon a time a little girl who was 9 years old wanted to be a pastor.  She told that to the minister of her church (a man).  This man told her, she could never be a minister.  She asked why.  He answered:  "You're a girl.  Girls can't be ministers".  You want to know devastation?  You want to know anger?  You want to know heartbreak?  Yeah, that's what happens when little girls are told they can't do something because they are a girl.  Now, this is a real story and is what my daughter was told.  Pretty sad, huh?  When she told me what happened I informed her that if she wanted to be a pastor she could.  No one has the right to tell you, you can't just because you're a girl.  Okay, so where am I going with this?  To you parents out there, support your children's decision.  Don't let them not have a dream.  If you have daughters, let them know they can do whatever they can achieve!  If you have sons, they too, can do anything, and so can the women around them.  Get rid of the negativity and open the mind to new thoughts and opportunities!  

Women in history?  Oh yeah, there are so many we know and learn about now that it is wonderful to be female.  Sappho, Cleopatra, Nefertiti, Empress Justinian, Caterina Sforzi, Lucretia Borgia, Elizabeth Bathory, Queen Mary, Elizabeth I, Isabella, Caroline Herschel, Theano, Aglanike, Arete of Cyrene, 

Abella, Sophia Brahe, Loredana Marcello, Catherine Littlefield Greene, Abigail Adams, Phillis Wheatly, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Margaret Corbin, Deborah Samson, Sybil Ludington, Clara Barton, Sujourney Weaver, Sally Tompkins, Cathay Williams, Amelia Earhart, Jackie Cochran, want me to continue?  There are so many that I don't have the time or room to put them in here, but they were an amazing part of history.  Whether for science, political, soldiers, writers, whatever they were there and they did what they were born to do.  

So, take a little time and do more than talk about women in history.  Learn about these women.  Share their stories.  Bring them to life again by understanding that women are a part of this world as well and have worked to bring freedom to ALL people in the United States.  

Have fun!

Work Cited

Peanuts, Charles Schultz.