Women’s History Month

March marks the start of Women’s History Month, which officially came to be in America in 1987. Women throughout history have been ignored for their achievements and this month sheds light on them.

The history that women have been involved in has not been represented. In my almost 12 years of school women are rarely mentioned. One of the only times women are spoken about in history is in World War II. The problem about that is the only time women are represented is when they “filled in” for the men in war and were eventually just forced back into unemployment when the men returned because they had priority.

But why was Joan Clarke, a woman who was a code breaker, never talked about? And why was Hedy Lamarr, who invented a device to block enemy ships from jamming torpedo guidance signals during World War II, never mentioned?

Why were we not taught about Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer for NASA in the 50’s? Or the ‘Hidden Figures’, a group of women that did the math to send Americans into space for the first time? It took a long-overdue movie to learn what they did.

Some people argue that women are not talked about in history because there were not many women who changed the world. I would argue that that is false, and the only reason we do not know about the women in history because it has been buried beneath the ego of men. America has a funny habit of hiding their history.

The point of this month is not anti-men, but to give women in history the credit they deserve after being ignored for so long.

So the next time you turn on your heater or windshield wipers, remember that both were made by women (Margret A. Wilcox and Mary Anderson).

The next time you use GPS on your phone remember, that a woman made it (Dr. Gladys West).

The next time you use your ‘manly’ circular saw, remember that a woman made it (Tabitha Babbitt).

The next time you learn history, remember women made it.