Celebrating Women in History

“Each time a girl opens a book and reads a womanless history, she learns that she is worth less.” Myra Pollack Sadker

​​History connects us, like the threads that create a tapestry, stitching us securely into a multigenerational quilt of life and community. History helps us learn who we are. When we don’t know our own history, our power and dreams are inherently diminished. History must tell the whole story.

It is likely that you already know about some interesting women in history, like Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Amelia Earhart, to name a few. However, there are so many more amazing women that you may not have heard about, and here are a few. Knowing the achievements of women expands our sense of what is real and what is possible. 

In 1999, shortly before the Ken Burns documentary, “Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony” was produced, a survey was done by General Motors, who was going to sponsor the film. They wanted to see how many people knew who these women were. These two women helped transform a nation! The very sad and very disturbing result was that fewer than 1% could identify either woman as being connected to women’s rights. 

Women’s history is, by its very nature, political. By understanding the differences in gender over time, we can better respond to those who tell us how men and women “should” act, live, or feel. What is needed is a historical consciousness. A complete history helps us to find that consciousness.

Here are a few women who help complete our history as women as we celebrate Women's History Month in March.

Jovita Idar Vivero was an American journalist, teacher, political activist, and civil rights worker who championed the cause of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants.

 Marsha P. Johnson was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.

Harriet Robinson Scott was an African American woman who fought for her freedom alongside her husband, Dred Scott, for eleven years. Their legal battle culminated in the infamous United States

Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857.

How Women's History Month came to be...