Why do we need a woman's history month? Because women are part of history, even though history has been ignoring that fact for a long time.
Until the 70's, it was hard to find any curriculum in any school with a women's history topic in it. In 1978, a school district in California started a Women's History Week. That program was such a success that it spread all over the US and other districts adopted the program. In 1987, it was officially declared that March was National Women's History Month. 1987 - for those of you slow mathematicians, that's only 11 years ago.
So until 11 years ago, it was basically hard to find women's history in any education program. Most of you can probably vividly remember life 11 years ago. Doesn't seem that far away, does it?
I will be the first one to admit that I don't know how much good a Women's History Month does for uniting people. In a way, it just breaks us up into different groups even more than we are already broken up into.
At the same time, I truly believe that the best way for people to all come together is if we understand each other. If all we learn about are the white males of the past, how will we better understand the entire human race? How can you understand someone who isn't like you if you don't know about their history? Being a woman is a big part of me, no matter how much I like to think of myself as "just" a human being.
We have Women's History Month so that everyone has the chance to gain a better understanding of women. It's not to further segrogate people, it's to bring them together through education and appreciation. For a long time, history has been about white men - I don't think it's too much to ask to take one month and learn a little bit more about women.
There is one race, and that's the human race. But that one race is made up of a lot of different faces. They each have their own individual history and collective history that needs to be understand if we are all going to get along.
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