{"id":1567,"date":"2009-03-23T17:16:43","date_gmt":"2009-03-23T22:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2009-03-23T17:16:43","modified_gmt":"2009-03-23T22:16:43","slug":"girl-talk-reinventing-womens-history-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2009\/03\/23\/girl-talk-reinventing-womens-history-month\/","title":{"rendered":"GIRL TALK: Reinventing Women’s History Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As GWP readers know, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re celebrating Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History Month this March. When my 8-year-old daughter came home from school with an assignment to write a biography about a woman from history, with the understanding that it could be a sports figure, a celebrity, a writer, a politician\u00e2\u20ac\u201dany woman–I was at first dismayed. But I then grew excited about finding some strategies that can improve this month-long celebration of women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history. I know we can do better, and I know girls deserve better!<\/p>\n

For starters, the open-ended nature of the assignment overwhelmed my daughter. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mom, how can I choose?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More important\u00e2\u20ac\u201dfrom my perspective at least\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhow many women has her curriculum introduced as possible subjects for this assignment? The answer: not many. So while the field of choice was wide open in theory, having encountered few \u00e2\u20ac\u0153important\u00e2\u20ac\u009d women in school she really didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have many possibilities to consider.<\/p>\n

Equally troubling to me: are a sports figure and a politician the same type of historical figure? Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get me wrong, I have nothing against athletes or politicians, but I do think that assignments signal educational values. Given the curriculum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s limited attention to women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history, should my daughter be in the position to decide which life will define it?<\/p>\n

But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m writing to offer some suggestions for reinventing women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history month, not to complain about it. In fact, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been thinking a lot about the balance between identifying problems versus creating solutions within feminism ever since I read Courtney Martin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s provocative analysis of a New York Times op-ed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So here goes:<\/p>\n

Five Things You Can Do to Reinvent Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History Month
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.<\/strong> Volunteer to Talk in a School or Girl-Serving Group.<\/strong> Whether or not you have school-aged children, schools and nonprofits would welcome your expertise (and yes, if you are a GWP reader, I mean you). And I do mean welcome\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwith open arms! Most teachers love classroom guests, and kids love a break in the routine. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to give an academic talk, just a few highlights about an important woman you admire or about why women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history matters. You still have time to make a difference this month, and if not, volunteer in April (or May, or September).<\/p>\n

2.\tShare Your Ideas for Assignments with Teachers<\/strong>. Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking to the parents out there. If I have a casual moment with my daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s teacher (at pick up time one day, maybe) I will mention my thoughts about how she could make this assignment stronger (read: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153more feminist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). Having a short list of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153important\u00e2\u20ac\u009d women from which to choose, and talking with the whole class about all of them, for example, would teach the whole class a bit more women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history.<\/p>\n

3.\tAdvocate for Curricular Reform. <\/strong> I know, this is a steep hill to climb, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m in this race for the long haul. We can make interventions like the ones I mention above right now, but we really need to find new, inclusive approaches to teaching history (and English, and math, etc.). That can only happen when we have some broader thinking about K-12 curricular reform.<\/p>\n

4.\tWrite Feminist Children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Literature.<\/strong> Again, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m dreaming big. The list of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history month\u00e2\u20ac\u009d books at my public library was bleak. It included books on pioneers, explorers, and aviators. Well, okay. But I can tell you that those topics seem pretty foreign and uninteresting in my daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s media-saturated world where she uses \u00e2\u20ac\u0153text\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a verb even though she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a cell phone. We need some better books, and we need some that make history seem lively, relevant, and fun.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

5.\tTalk with Girls (and Boys) About Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History. <\/strong> This is not exactly the same as my first suggestion. When this assignment came up I was struck by the fact that my daughter and I rarely talk about the need to recognize\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor even study!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwomen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s accomplishments. That seems a little crazy to me, especially given that my own background is in women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s studies. Yet it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to go along with the status quo, and my daughter is proud of her success in school. What would it mean to suggest that school is leaving some important things out? Whether or not you have children, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure you encounter school-aged children in your family or among your social network. I think we can all do more to talk about what gets left out, and why it matters.<\/p>\n

What would you add to my list? <\/strong>And in case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wondering, my daughter wrote about Michelle Obama, definitely my kind of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153important\u00e2\u20ac\u009d woman who is making history every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As GWP readers know, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re celebrating Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History Month this March. When my 8-year-old daughter came home from school with an assignment to write a biography about a woman from history, with the understanding that it could be a sports figure, a celebrity, a writer, a politician\u00e2\u20ac\u201dany woman–I was at first dismayed. But I then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1905,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21103],"tags":[21351,21395,21926,21927,21929],"class_list":["post-1567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-girl-talk","tag-feminist-history","tag-girls","tag-womens-history","tag-womens-history-month","tag-womens-leadership"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1905"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}