Every March, for the past thirty-five years, Women’s History Month has been nationally observed. So why is Women’s History Month so important?
Despite society’s advances since 1920, women are still underrepresented in cultural, societal and historical contexts. Women’s history has been grossly overlooked throughout time and is often ignored by writers of history.
Women’s History Month provides much-needed opportunities to highlight accomplishments, achievements, advancements, milestones, and innovations of historic women.
“For me, in this context of what I do for work, it is really about taking the opportunity to highlight voices of women who are/were doing interesting research, and helping to bring those voices to the USM community,” said Clara Perka, graduate assistant in the Women and Gender Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine (USM).
A modern example indicative of the importance of women’s history can be found in a 2019 bill, titled “An Act Regarding Pay Equality”, signed by Governor Janet Mills. This bill states, “An employer may not discriminate between employees in the same establishment on the basis of sex by paying wages to any employee in any occupation in this State at a rate less than the rate at which the employer pays any employee of the opposite sex for comparable work on jobs that have comparable requirements relating to skill, effort and responsibility” (SP0090, LD 278, item 1 Maine Legislature).
Since women have, historically, been paid less than men, this bill states that an employer cannot base pay on what an employee has been previously paid. This brings to light the issue of the wage gap and prevents unequal pay on the basis of sex for the same job. The fact that this bill’s implementation was so recent says a lot as to why women need equal and equitable representation.
It is an individual choice to bring marginalized voices, like those of women, to the forefront of conversations, but that individual choice has a great impact on the outcome of history.
Representation matters; it is indispensable. “More effort has to be put into the varying experiences of what women’s history looks like – they’re half the population. When you don’t know what’s happened from the many perspectives of half the population, that’s a problem,” said Dr. Julianne Siegfriedt Ph.D., a lecturer of the Women and Gender Studies Program and the Sociology Department of USM.