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Incorporating Women’s Voices

Something to be Said

Shadows (by Barnes, Djuna)
Ethan Frome (by Edith Wharton)
The Yellow Wallpaper (by Gilman, Charlotte Perkins)
Woolf Essays (by Woolf, Virginia)
Mrs. Dalloway (by Woolf, Virginia)
The House of Mirth (by Edith Wharton)
The Book of Repulsive Women (by Barnes, Djuna)
The Age of Innocence (by Edith Wharton)
The story of Mary MacLane (by MacLane, Mary)
To the Lighthouse (by Woolf, Virginia)

This month the world celebrates the continuous social, political, and artistic contributions women make while simultaneously calling attention to their imbalanced representation. In the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, Women’s History Month corresponds with International Women’s Day, March 8, a renowned holiday in some places and a day of protest in others.

In many places around the globe, calls for suffrage and gender equality provoke reexamination of the artistic and social efforts of women leaders. Kate Sheppard, the New Zealand suffragette who employed persuasive public speeches and tactful writing (she penned two impactful pamphlets, “Ten Reasons Why the Women of New Zealand Should Vote” and “Should Women Vote”), helped to successfully advocate for women’s suffrage in 1893.

Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), a text that is considered one of the earliest works in feminist philosophy, Mary Wollstonecraft sought reason and equal education as a way to close the enormous disparities between men and women. Lydia Maria Child, an abolitionist who championed for the rights of Native Americans as well as women, was an important pioneer in the United States. Her essays, novels, and short stories, including An Appeal In Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans (1833), The Oasis (1834), and a collection of short stories, Fact and Fiction (1846), often challenged male superiority and white supremacy.

The need to incorporate women’s history into, simply, history, has not diminished since inception of the world’s various women’s rights movements. The Earnings Gap Between Men and Women, published by the United States Women’s Bureau in 1976, breaks down the glaring injustices women have and continue to face in the workplace. Current activists like Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist for female education, and recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, have shown incredible courage and hope. Her continued fight is proof that during March, and every month, we need to give gravity to the works and thoughts of of talented women leaders.

By Logan Williams