<\/p>\n
By the presidential proclamation, March has been designated Women\u2019s History Month -a month to honor and reflect on women\u2019s overlooked contributions throughout American history.<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s History Month was once started as Women\u2019s History Week and originally began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California in 1978. The movement spread across the country the following year as each community found different ways to celebrate Women\u2019s History Week.<\/p>\n
Eventually in 1980, many women\u2019s groups such as National Women\u2019s History Projection (now known as National Women\u2019s History Alliance) successfully lobbied for national recognition. By February, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th as National Women\u2019s History Week. When Public Law 100-9 was passed by Congress in 1987, March was designated Women\u2019s History Month. Throughout 1988 and 1994, additional improvement upon the proclamation by congress, each president has issued an annual proclamation since 1995.<\/p>\n
Every year, the National Women\u2019s History Alliance designates a theme for Women\u2019s History Month. As of 2024, the theme celebrates \u201cWomen Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.\u201d This theme recognizes women who understand the need to eliminate bias and discrimination from individuals\u2019 lives and institutions.<\/p>\n
Aside from how we celebrate Women\u2019s History Month in March, we should also consider the contributing factors that lead to this month-long celebration. In the early 20th century, most women in the United States did not work outside the home; yet, those who did were primarily young and unmarried. In fact, as categorized by the Census Bureau, 20% of all women were \u201cgainful workers\u201d; meanwhile, African American women were twice as likely to join the labor force due to many of them being more likely to remain in the labor force after marriage.<\/p>\n
During this time most women lacked significant education, while those who did were employed as piece workers in factories or as domestic workers. Statistics showed that fewer than 2% of all 18-24 year olds were enrolled in an institution of higher education and only \u2153 of those were women. Fortunately, as time went by, the women\u2019s labor force continued to steadily increase. While the women\u2019s workforce increased, so did the graduation rate as a whole. Eventually the stigma attached to work for a married woman diminished and formal barriers were removed following WW2. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act, which mandated equal pay for equal work and sought to eliminate gender based disparities in compensation.<\/p>\n
Although we\u2019ve come a long way and overcame many obstacles, we must be mindful of how there are still social injustices today. As March comes to an end, that does not mean we should stop acknowledging women\u2019s contributions throughout history. Their works and fight for social inequality has influenced modern society, and we should continue to strive for our independence and equality.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Published:<\/strong>\u00a0Fri, 22 Mar 2024 11:20:29 +0000 by\u00a0r.labarr<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By the presidential proclamation, March has been designated Women\u2019s History Month -a month to honor and reflect on women\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-announcement-college-related"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chronicle.hvcc.edu\/wpdev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}