By Sophia Rutti
March is coming, and everyone knows what that means: the last of winter’s storms (hopefully), spring break and Women’s History Month.
Women’s History Month was created in 1987 after the National Women’s History Project lobbied for seven years to turn International Women’s Day into National Women’s History Week and finally into the monthlong celebration of women’s achievements that we have today.
The birth of Women’s History Month came about in the 1980s when it was brought to people’s attention that less than 5 percent of content in history texts was devoted to women. This wasn’t because women in history had lain dormant for centuries but rather that their accomplishments were brushed over and unrecorded.
Women’s History Month focuses on the successes of centuries’ worth of women in the hope that people will recognize that women were active well before Rosie the Riveter.
In Northern Virginia there are many women of note, both contemporary and throughout history, who have affected the world. For those of us who look up to these women, there are several ways in which we can get involved and celebrate Women’s History Month.
You could swing by one of many museums that honor both women and Women’s History Month:
1. National Museum of Women in the Arts
2. National Women’s History Museum
3. Sewall Belmont History & Museum
The theme for this year’s Women’s History Month, as chosen by the National Women’s History Project, is “Weaving the Stories of Women’s Lives.” With that in mind, it’s time to pick up a novel, poem or short story by one of the many great female writers. There are countless female writers worth reading but here are ten to get you started.
1. Sappho (570 BC)
2. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)
3. Jane Austen (1775-1817)
4. Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)
5. Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1869)
6. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
7. Agatha Christie (1890-1976)
8. Barbara Cartland (1901-2000)
9. Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
10. J.K Rowling (1965-)
As Virginia Woolf once said, “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
For a more comprehensive list of notable female writers, click here.
Many notable women have come out of Virginia, ranging from Pocahontas and Martha Washington to Sandra Bullock and Missy Elliott. Vote below for your favorite.
Spend this month thinking about the many women who were ignored by history but whose advances we could not imagine living without. The queens, the female leaders, the female scientists, the female writers and voices, the suffragettes and all of the women that young boys and girls look up to now.
Take the month of March to remember them in the hopes that they will be remembered all year-round as role models for children who need them.
Check out the following websites to learn about National Women’s History Month and the women that inspired it:
2) National Women’s History Project
