Women’s History Month & Celebrated Moments
Photo by NY Times
As we enter the month of March, we also enter Women’s History Month. This month is a celebration of the contributions women have made to history and society. It is a time used to honor and think back upon crucial moments, such as Women’s Suffrage, the 19th Amendment, which gave voting right to some women, the Feminist Movement, and countless more. It has been celebrated annually in the month of March in the United States since 1987.
The celebration and establishment of Women’s History Month developed from a weeklong celebration organized by the school district of Sonoma, California. This celebration took place during the week of March 8, which was chosen to match with International Women’s Day. During this week, hundreds of students took part in a “Real Woman” essay contest, presentations were given at dozens of schools, and a parade was held. It was a few years later that when idea had caught on within other communities across the country. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter published the first presidential proclamation that declared the week of March 8th as National Women’s History Week. Seven years later, in 1987, the National Women’s History Project successfully appealed to Congress to expand the event to the entire month of March. However, while Women’s History Month has been celebrated for almost 50 years, the contributions and achievements made by women and the milestones that are celebrated, span back countless years.
In the United States, these milestones start to be seriously noted near the mid-1800s. In 1848, the first women’s rights convention organized by women, the Seneca Falls Convention, was held in New York, with 300 attendees, including organizers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Sixty-eight women and 32 men signed the Declaration of Sentiments, which inspired decades of activism, and eventually lead to the passage of the 19th Amendment. In May 1851, Sojourner Truth, a formerly enslaved worker who then became an abolitionist and women’s rights activist, delivered her famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. In 1869, the legislature of the territory of Wyoming passed America’s first woman suffrage law, which granted women the right to vote and hold office. Then, in 1890, Wyoming was admitted to the Union and became the first state to allow women the right to vote. This then begins the Suffrage Movement that sweeps across the nation, with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founding the National Woman Suffrage Association in May 1869.
Moving to 1916, the first birth control clinic in the United States was opened by Margaret Sanger in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Sanger’s clinic was deemed illegal under the “Comstock Laws” which forbade birth control, and the clinic was raided just 10 days after opening. When she had to close two additional times due to legal threats, she closed the clinic and eventually founded the American Birth Control League in 1921—the foundation to today’s Planned Parenthood.
On August 18, 1920, the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was completed. It declared “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” The Amendment is nicknamed “The Susan B. Anthony Amendment” in honor of her work on behalf of women’s suffrage. Despite many women being able to now vote, women of color were very often denied their own right to vote. This issue would be present until 1965, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, when President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act.
Title IX of the Education Amendments was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in June 1972. The Amendment stated that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Less than a year later, in January 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the Constitution protects a woman’s legal right to an abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision.
Then, starting in 1981, more women began claiming their positions among the U.S. Government. Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in by President Ronald Reagan as the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981. Janet Reno was sworn in as the first female attorney general of the United States in 1993, and Madeleine Albright as the nation’s first female secretary of state in 1997, both women having been nominated by President Bill Clinton. 10 years later, in 2007, U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi became the first female Speaker of the House. Then in 2019, she reclaimed the title, making her the first lawmaker to hold the office twice in more than 50 years. In 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to receive a presidential nomination from a major political party. Then, in January 2021, Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first woman and first woman of color vice president of the United States. After her election, Harris claimed "While I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last."
In a nation not designed for them, the range of accomplishments held by women is truly something to celebrate. Even now in the present, more and more women make a place for themselves among male dominated fields. The tasks they undergo are certainly daunting ones, with possible risks and limits they still face. Still, when remembering the remarkable women throughout history— what they strove for and what they had to go through to achieve it—it only seems right to continue their dreams with heads held high.
Happy Women’s History Month.