Why Women’s History Month?

The fact that Women’s History Month follows Black History Month does not mean it is an afterthought, being stirred by the success of the expanded Negro History Week celebrations Carter G. Woodson initiated one hundred years earlier. The added fact that the celebration began in 1988 just means that oftentimes changes are slow to come. 

The need for and the appropriateness of Women’s History celebrations have existed as long as and for the same reasons as Black history.

In March 2025, Women’s History Month celebrations are needed because too many people have no idea who ELLA BAKER was. Here was a woman whose human and civil rights activism spanned a half century. She was often a behind the scenes organizer working with W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Thurgood Marshall, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As the chief initiator in the development of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, she served as a mentor, role model, and counselor for Diane Nash, Stokley Carmichael, Bob Moses, and the Ladner sisters, Dorie and Joyce. Her activism also encompassed the work of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and grassroots organizing in the Mississippi Delta. She was not just a speaker and theoretician. She was an activist par excellence. 

Since she was such a major figure for such a long time, one can easily ask the question, why is she not as recognized as DuBois, King, Randolph, and Marshall or even Carmichael and Moses? The answer lies in the fact that like so many other female activists, she was sometimes pushed into the background; she has been neglected, overlooked, and otherwise devoid from the pages of history. Women’s History Month celebrations then certainly should be occasions for recognition until the general histories hurry and catch up.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT is another such woman. Most people having heard of her merely recall her as the wife of President Franklin Roosevelt. Here was a woman, however, of whom it was widely known that she persuaded the president to take actions regarding civil rights and social welfare issues. In addition to that, she headed up a United Nations committee that drew up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to several documents, she was the major writer and lobbied tirelessly to get the declaration adopted by the UN and the USA, although America never ratified it.

Unlike Baker, Roosevelt’s work was well-known. Yet, she too has been neglected or overlooked by writers. Her husband is rightly recognized for the pivotal role he played in American history. That, however, should not cause anyone to feel she was just in the White House as a housewife or socialite. Her place in history must be recognized in Women’s, American, and World history.

In addition to often being overlooked and neglected, like African Americans, women are often so stereotyped and discriminated against until they usually have to be twice as good as men in order to be given the same opportunities or recognition. 

As testimony to that reality one can look at the careers of KATHERINE JOHNSON, DOROTHY VAUGHAN, and MARY JACKSON, the three Black women portrayed in the movie “Hidden Figures.” These women demonstrated mathematical genius that was superior to their white male counterparts. They did it while having to overcome almost unbelievable Jim Crow conditions. Because they were Black as well as female, they were only grudgingly permitted to do the work they did. Much of the expert work done by Johnson, for example, was falsely claimed by her supervisor. It was years later before their story was told. Women’s History Month helps provide the opportunity and adds the pressure necessary to expose their truth and to destroy the myths and lies about the limitations of human beings who are females.

These are obviously not the only examples that could be discussed. We can easily point to HILARY CLINTON and KAMALA HARRIS, who both far out-stripped Donald Trump in terms of relevant education and training, job preparation and experience, moral character, and mental stability, as victims of sexism or gender discrimination. 

We can point to hundreds of female teachers, including GLADYS NOEL BATES and DR. JESSIE MOSLEY, having made outstanding contributions to thousands of communities and millions of families while being held back from further development and higher positions. They also received lower salaries than their male counter-parts. (It is also worth noting that male teachers were and are also being underpaid because teaching is often viewed as a female occupation.) 

We can point to the millions of women –mothers, grandmothers, and otherwise – having nurtured, counseled, assisted, and inspired working class youngsters in their quest to master the challenges of life in modern America.

The question then is not so much the need for Women’s History Month. It is more how to broaden and adequately protect women’s history in an age where many government officials seem dead set on suppressing the history and opportunities of all but white males, using the mantra, “make America great again.”