Celebrating Women’s History Month
Nguyễn Thủy Tiên
Happy Women's History Month to the students and staff at Barbara Ingram! International Women’s Day is celebrated globally on March 8th to recognize the achievements of women from all cultural, economic, social, and political backgrounds. The history of women’s suffrage and feminist movements goes further than when German activist Clara Zetkins and Russian politician Alexandaar Kollontai declared March 8th, 1911 as International Women’s Day. Years passed, and it wasn’t until February 1980 that the U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaimed March 8th to be the start of International Women’s Week, and it wasn’t until 1987 that the U.S. Congress declared March as Women’s History Month.
The history of Women’s History Month can be traced back to the 1800s. In America, working women in New York City protested against the poor conditions of their work environments. There were also conventions for women’s rights such as the Seneca Falls Convention in New York and the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Ohio.
However, At the Seneca Falls Convention, no women of color were at the meeting, and for a long time, the women’s suffrage movement has excluded women of color from its spaces. Unjust treatment of women isn’t exclusive to white women. Women of color, especially black women, experience inequality in a different position because as a WOC, it’s more than just sex and gender. For women of color, it’s also the color of their skin. White feminism is a term designated for feminism that focuses on white women and gender-based equality. It neglects to recognize the oppressions of women of color and fails to integrate intersectionality into its causes. At a predominately white high school, we should enter this month without the white feminist perspective in our minds, but instead the idea that all women should be equal.
So, how do we fix this? How do we remove the image of feminism being straight, cisgendered, able-bodied, white women who meet Eurocentric beauty standards? To support intersectional feminism is to include women of color in these spaces and to listen to WOC voices. To unlearn white feminism is to learn about non-white women in both history and the present like Maya Angelou and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie the way we’ve learned about Susan B. Anthony or Taylor Swift, to encourage WOC to pursue the same careers that white women are encouraged to, and much more.
In celebration of International Women’s Month, The Phantom will share the stories of exceptional women of color from all over the world of all backgrounds. If women of color fail to be represented, then the idea of feminism doesn’t achieve equality for all.
Maya Angelou, Image by Chester Higgins Jr.
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