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Entry bubble March is Women's History Month

By: Jim | February 29, 2008 | Category: General

suffragettes in front of Cleveland headquarters office

Hi, everybody. I’m Jim, the newest – and oldest – member of the blog team.

Some of you out there are wondering why a guy would be writing about Women’s History Month. Let’s just say I try to be a bit non-conformist. Back at San Diego State, the idea of taking a year of “western civ” and similar classes to meet my graduation requirements wasn’t appealing. I enrolled in classes that I hoped would be interesting and unusual. Women in American History was one of those classes. On looking back at my working class Ohio upbringing, I bet my parents thought I was becoming some sort of radical.

It turns out that I really enjoyed the class because we weren’t simply memorizing lists of dates and events. The class was more interesting because some of the ideas we discussed in the classroom were borne from women’s first-hand accounts of everyday life and its challenges—like a pioneer woman’s diary entry about how she had to sift the worms out of the flour to make the day’s bread. I was surprised to learn that that in 1851, my home town Akron, Ohio was the site of a women’s rights convention, the one in which escaped slave Sojourner Truth made her noteworthy “Ain’t I Woman” speech.

Speaking of surprises, I got one while I was on USA.gov’s History, Arts, and Culture page looking for some additional Women’s History Month information. There’s actually a Women’s Rights National Park. The National Register of Historic Places has a travel itinerary of places where women made history. Sounds like a road trip is my future.

| View Comments [4] | envelope E-mail This Entry | Tags: girl   history   jim   suffrage   women  

Comments (4):

blue comment bubble Posted by Nancy on February 29, 2008 at 12:52 PM EST

Yay! I'm not the oldest Gov Gabber anymore. Welcome to the blog, Jim. :)



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blue comment bubble Posted by SusanB on February 29, 2008 at 04:45 PM EST

You wrote: "Some of you out there are wondering why a guy would be writing about Women’s History Month. Let’s just say I try to be a bit non-conformist."

Yea, heaven forbid a guy would write about women! Maybe a better reason than your "non-conformity" is that women make up over 50% of the population, that women have played a significant role in our nation's history, that that role has often been ignored and/or devalued, and that you want to do your part to draw attention to women's accomplishments, to shine a light where there too often has been darkness.

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blue comment bubble Posted by Citizen Jmaximus on March 01, 2008 at 08:36 AM EST

Somehow, within the last 20 years or so history and civics classes have seem to be left at the way side in the public k-12 schools, but I can't think of a more important subject. Too many people in this great country have no idea of the struggles we went through to get where we are today. However on the bright side the democratic primary race between Clinton and Obama seem to have lit a fire of new civic interest, let’s hope it continues.

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blue comment bubble Posted by Jim on March 03, 2008 at 10:15 AM EST

Thanks for your comments folks. Sorry about the delay--still in training mode here.

Susan B - Thank you for being the first person to respond. I hope readers with little sisters or daughters will take the time to talk to them about women's accomplishments throughout history.

And Jmaximus - There is some good news out there. I found some school districts have posted women's history lessons plans thru USA.gov.

And Nancy - Thanks helping me figger out how to respond to our readers.

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