The month of March is celebrated for a numerous amount of things but one that is more known and popular is Women’s History Month. This awareness is to bring light to the struggles that women faced back then and also now.
Celebrating women’s history dates back all the way to 1978 in Santa Rosa, California. An organization called the Education Task Force of Sonoma County Commission planned a week called “Women’s History Week” which was celebrated during the week of March 8th in order to correspond with International Women’s Day. This week-long celebration had highlighted women’s contribution to society, history and culture. One of the events held for this week-long celebration was an essay competition held at numerous high schools in which students write essays honoring a female that they see as heroic or a big contributor to society. One of the bigger events held was a parade put together by the Education Task Force of Sonoma County.
This celebration was not intended to continue the following year but many committees across the country began organizing their own women’s history celebrations, some of which are conferences. The push and popularity of this celebration reached the oval office and in the year 1980 President Jimmy Carter had issued the first Presidential Proclamation. This proclamation declared the Week of March 8th 1980 as the National Women’s History Week. President Carter said this in his speech, “…men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. …”. This spoke to many United States citizens and made them realize the importance of what everyone brings to building the nation.
Subsequent presidents after Carter continued to proclaim a National Women’s History Month. Between the years 1988 and 1994, congress had passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995 each president has done just that. Each year the National Women’s History Alliance selects an annual theme which in 2021 that theme had been catching the spirit of hard times.
For many years, the contributions and actions of women throughout the world had been overlooked or written off as the idea of a man. So much has changed from then to now and so have the rights and respect for women and their contributions. Not only is this month meant to celebrate the contributions and actions for the United States Nation but as well as the action of bringing light to the hardships and trials of women not only in the United States but all over the world. Mrs. McAndrews is an economics, government and AP government teacher and her response to the importance of women’s history was,” I know a famous quote from William Ross Wallace, `The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ Women have a huge influence on how people are raised and how they learn. They also have much importance in kids’ lives.”
]Cindy Newsome is a Spanish I and III teacher at Hughson High and similarly said, “My favorite quote is from a very famous woman named Elanor Roosevelt is,’No one can make you feel less than you are without your permission.’ Now a quote from me,’Don’t depend on anyone to do what you can do.’ Take a moment to appreciate the hardships that women and men around the world face.”
