Marking women’s history month

March is Women’s History Month and, according to the National Women’s History Project, the theme for 2010 is “Writing Women Back into History.”

Congress designated March Women’s History Month in 1987, and it was created to increase awareness and knowledge of the ignored history of 51 percent of the population.

Up to the 1970s, women’s history was virtually unknown in academia, schools or among the general public. Even the history of the 72-year campaign for the vote had all but disappeared. But in 1978, educators in California started celebrating women’s history during the second week of March to coincide with International Women’s Day, which first took place in Europe on March 8, 1911 during the worldwide battle over votes for women.

After 1978, celebrations of women’s history began to occur country-wide, and in 1981, Congress issued a Joint Resolution for a National Women’s History Week. In 1987, the week expanded to the whole of March.

The President usually issues a proclamation declaring March to be Women’s History Month across the nation, but a 2010 proclamation was not available to the time of writing.

What Did You Do In the War, Auntie?
What To Do For Women’s History Month

An easy and rewarding way to commemorate Women’s History Month is to sit down and record stories of aunts, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, cousins and friends.

Women’s history has been forgotten because their work on the frontier or the home front has been considered only a backdrop to prominent people like presidents and big events like wars.

Women’s history has been easy to lose because women were traditionally expected to marry and they took their husband’s family name. There are also fewer documents recording women because they have operated traditionally in the private sphere.

Older women, who grew up when a woman’s place was in the home; who, when job-hunting they looked up the “Women Wanted” newspaper columns; who received little or nothing on divorce because housewifery wasn’t paid; these women are an important source of women’s history.

It is important to capture their stories now because they are dying off, yet they are the ones who enjoyed good pay and being central to the workforce during World War Two – only to find themselves downgraded or sidelined when the war ended when the men returned.

Uniques are also an important source. Uniques are women who never married and/or never had children. With them the story is in why they blazed new trails for women and where it led them.

For everyone, besides recording the interviewees’ personal information like name, date and place of birth, questions about preferences and aspirations will reveal how being a woman pointed to other choices and directions.

For a free copy of Writing Women Back Into History Gazette click to the National Women’s History Project on the web at http://www.nwhp.org/.