National Women's History Month

From the National Women's History Month Project - The purpose of women's history is not to idealize women. On the contrary, the stories of women's achievements present a full view of the complexity and contradiction of living a full and purposeful life.

Learning about the extraordinary achievements of women helps diminish the tendency to dismiss and trivialize who women are and what they accomplish. In celebrating women's historic achievements, we present an authentic view of history. The knowledge of women's history provides a more expansive vision of what a woman can do. This perspective can encourage girls and women to think larger and bolder and can give boys and men a fuller understanding of the female experience.

How are our children --girls and boys alike --going to understand the importance of women to American culture and history if their education includes little or nothing about the significance of women's contributions?

We know from research and from anecdotal studies that learning the stories of women's success, talent, and accomplishments expands a sense of what is possible for girls and women. Information about women and their successes gives males and females alike a perspective that challenges some of our cultures' most unconscious and archaic assumptions about women.

Thus, women's history becomes a story of inspiration and hope. A story of courage and tenacity. A story of promise, possibility and purpose.