Moore Week 7 - Women's History Month

 

    This month is women’s national history month! Women’s history month is a whole month dedicated to celebrating the achievements of all women all over the world and is an opportunity to look closer at equality and opportunities for women. It’s not just celebrated in the U.S, but it’s also celebrated in the U.K, Canada, and Australia. 

Women’s history month is in March for a few different reasons. March 8th has been International Women’s History Day since 1911 and was officially recognized by the U.N in 1977. Eventually, International Women’s History day turned into a whole week when different organizations began celebrating the entire week instead. In 1980, President Carter designated the first official National Women’s History Week.  After several states declared the whole month of March as Women’s History Month, eventually in March 1987 Congress declared it the first Women’s History Month. There’s also been several important milestones and events for women’s history that have occurred throughout March like the passing of Title IX and the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, and the first women’s suffrage parade in Washington, D.C in 1913. 

Months dedicated to minorities like Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and LGBT Pride Month, all are really important because they help bring awareness to important issues surrounding those groups. This year during Women’s History Month, problems regarding the pandemic have been brought to attention. For instance, the pandemic has had an impact on the gender wage gap since many women have been forced to quit their jobs due to childcare or have lost their jobs. Economists have actually projected that due to the pandemic the gap is going to widen by 5 percentage points. 

In the end, I really think that it’s important that we continue to celebrate these months so that it can bring more attention to issues that people can often forget about during the rest of the year. It’s also a great way to honor those who have fought for these rights in the past, and to help bring light to how far we still have to go.

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