Honoring Women for More Than a Month
First published in the print column, Strictly Haresay
In like the proverbial lion, this month of March not only gives us the official onset of spring, and the adjustment of setting our clocks ahead—back where they belonged all along—it is also the month dedicated to celebrating the contributions women have given to society.
Women’s History Month first began as Women's History Week on March 7, 1982. (I’m old enough to think that sounds fairly recent.) During the next five years, according to various online sources, Congress passed joint solutions to continue celebrating the week each March. A few years later, the The National Women's History Project pushed for designating the celebration for the full month. In 1987, the group petitioned to make March Women's History Month and as a result, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9, a resolution that declared March 1987 as the first-ever Women's History Month.
According to different online sources, the goal of Women's History Month is to “highlight the achievements and contributions made by a variety of women in a variety of fields.”
Highlight the achievements?
I find this brand of ‘honoring women’—right in line beside Jelly Bean Day and National Pig Petting Day—falls short of hitting the mark presumably intended.
Online hype pertaining to the subject lends advice on ‘ways to celebrate’ Women’s History Month. Suggestions include buying products from women-owned businesses; playing/watching female-led movies, music and games; reading female-written books, and then of course sharing what you’ve learned online.
This is the age we live in.
Am I alone in detecting a certain level of irony in all this? By my way of thinking, this type of ‘honoring’ any one demographic of society only serves to perpetuate the very inequities we’re supposedly working to eradicate. No one should buy something because it’s made by a woman, or listen to a particular song, or read a certain book because it is the work of a woman. We should put our money down where we feel we’re getting an exceptional product, making a worthwhile investment, regardless of the gender or race of the creator. How can we say we don’t want those distinctions to matter while continuing to point them out? Oh, right. We’re honoring them that way. Because consumerism is the best way to support and celebrate women’s achievements and contributions to the world.
Ok. I’ll play along. If a woman’s worth can be measured out in numeric values, let’s try putting some real numbers on the price of having a vagina. First, let’s put a figure on how many women, through the ages (we can only estimate because no true accounting has ever been kept) have been burned, stoned or beaten to death for transgressions which their male counterparts are never held accountable. Let’s talk about the number of sexual assaults upon women and girls that are still happening, and going unpunished, in an age where you can be arrested for leaving your dog in the car. Or the rising statistics in the world wide business of sex trafficking.
If those numbers don’t suffice, we could turn to numbers delineating the penalty for not having a penis—dollar figure discrepancies for same job wages, the cost of slower advancements in the workplace, or fewer opportunities for promotion. We can tally the earnings lost to women on maternity leave (because the birthing and care of a newborn is really just a vacation), and the cost of days, weeks and careers forfeited to the care of sick and elderly family members. Because these situations generally only pertain to you if you don’t have a penis.
If we were going to truly honor women, and not only what they have achieved (a truly patriarchal standard for measurement of worth), but all that they continue to endure, survive, overcome, reform and give birth to, we must do far more than make a point to watch G.I. Jane on Netflix this month, or jam out to Peggy Lee’s “I’m a Woman.”
If Women’s History Month is going mean anything or achieve anything, it has to touch the lives of real women on a more personal level than that.
Some time this month, take a special woman in your life out to lunch. Ask her about the stories her grandmother used to tell. And really listen. Then tell her how much her incalculable contribution to your life means to you; how much she’s helped shape you into the person you are today.
The next time the lady juggling three kids in the checkout line pulls her cart up behind you, let her go first.
If she’s your employee who has shown up and put in the effort and produced the results, give her the promotion and pay her accordingly. If you’re a woman and you see a young female in the act of selling herself short, step up, pull her aside, and remind her of her immeasurable worth and encourage her to behave accordingly.
I get that the first step toward change is raising awareness, and the point of establishing Women’s History Month is intended toward that purpose.
But if we are interested in moving forward, beyond the politically correct social media sound bites and truly honor women and all that they contribute, then we should advocate, not for the specialty treatment of women’s businesses or interests, but for a world where a person’s biological sex does not set them apart. We should strive for creating a world that holds them ‘so worthy’ every month of the year.
To not need a specified month in which to take note of women’s contributions would be to end, once and for all, the idea of women’s leadership, creativity, and autonomy as ridiculous or suspect the other 11 months of the year.
