The official National Women's History Month 2024 poster.
We owe Women’s History Month to trade unionists and members of the Socialist Party in New York City who on February 28, 1909 organized a Women’s Day to celebrate the anniversaries of a garment workers’ strike the year before and a march by women in the needle trades for the 10 hour day back in 1857. The event was such a success the Socialists made it an annual event and took it national the next year. In 1911 the Socialist International took it up and spread it across Europe. After the interruptions of all solidarity movements caused by World War I, the observations resumed and spread. They were also adopted by the new Communist International (Comintern.)
In the U.S., however, the post-war period was marked by a Red Scare and a wave of the greatest political repression in history aimed squarely at Socialists, Communists, anarchists, and militant unionists. Despite the long-fought-for victory of women’s suffrage in those same years, the mostly middle class women who led the struggle did not want to identify their movement with the radicals. Even as Women’s Day spread globally, its observance here was limited to a kind of labor ghetto.
It took decades to regain a foothold in this country spurred by the new wave of feminism in the ‘60s and ‘70s and the rise of women’s studies and history in the colleges and universities. They got a boost in 1975 when the United Nations officially adopted International Women’s Day on March 8.
First to act were educators at the Sonoma, California school district in 1978 who added Women’s History Week centered on International Women’s Day to the official curriculum. It mostly centered on age appropriate projects highlighting leaders of the suffrage movement. The press picked up the story and spread it. Sonoma teachers took the idea to state and regional conferences and by the next year school districts across the country were adopting or adapting the idea and curriculum.
Sonoma’s Molly Murphy MacGregor brought the idea to a 15 day conference of the Women’s History Institute at Sara Lawrence College in September 1979 organized by Professor Gerda Lerner. The idea of Women’s History week caught fire and Lerner became a vocal national spokesperson for creating an official national event.
President Jimmy Carter acted quickly. In February of 1980 he proclaimed National Women’s History Week centered around National Women’s Day on March 8. His proclamation read:
From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well. As Dr. Gerda Lerner has noted, “Women’s History is Women’s Right.” It is an essential and indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision. I ask my fellow Americans to recognize this heritage with appropriate activities during National Women’s History Week, March 2–8, 1980. I urge libraries, schools, and community organizations to focus their observances on the leaders who struggled for equality—Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Paul. Understanding the true history of our country will help us to comprehend the need for full equality under the law for all our people. This goal can be achieved by ratifying the 27th Amendment [Equal Rights Amendment] to the United States Constitution, which states that “Equality of Rights under the Law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
School Districts, municipalities, and states began making proclamations. Politicians of both political parties were eager to curry favor with the growing women’s movement realizing that women not only made up a majority of the electorate but also actually went to the polls in significantly greater numbers than men. Even Carter’s explicit endorsement of the ERA was not then as partisan an issue as we might now believe. Republican Party platforms from the 1920’s on had endorsed the ERA. Many Republican women—and some male politicians—even supported the Roe v. Wade decision and reproductive choice. In fact, middle class suburban white women were a major force in the GOP.
Conservative icon Ronald Reagan was comfortable annually renewing Women’s History Week proclamations. Republican First Ladies Betty Ford and Barbara Bush were both vocal supporters of the ERA, abortion rights, and other feminist issues. Although not so vocal during her Born Again Christian husband’s Presidency, Laura Bush was known to hold similar views.
The non-partisan nature of support for women’s issues was illustrated when Utah Senator Orin Hatch and Maryland Democratic Representative Barbara Mikulski co-sponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution proclaiming a Women’s History Week for March of 1992.
A move to expand the one week observation into a whole month was taken up by some of the states. By 1986 14 states had adopted Women’s History Month. The same year the National Women’s History Project conducted a massive petition campaign to Congress urging to make the Month National. And they did annually from 1984-94.
By that last year Congressional Republicans were in full retreat on women’s issues as they became more and more beholden to the Religious Right who opposed both the ERA and reproductive choice. But Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all continued to issue Presidential proclamations.
Under the influence of the Tea Party, Congressional Republicans abandoned virtually any semblance of supporting women’s rights and became actively hostile to the point of prideful and open misogyny while Republicans in control of state legislatures propose ever more bizarre attacks on women. The elevation of an exposed sexual predator and open misogynist Donald Trump to the Presidency and his alliance with the hard core Religious Right made the transformation of the Republican Party into a bastion of White male privilege and hostility to women complete.
Meanwhile on the Democratic side the Obama administration initiated the landmark 2011 Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being report and advanced women’s causes and defended their interests via appointments and executive orders when Congress has blocked action.
The bitter and hard-fought contest between Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016 largely centered on which candidate was best for women, and whether women owed their support to the possible first major party female presidential candidate. There was a divisive split between older women and traditional feminist leaders on one hand and many younger, poorer women on that hot button issue.
However, women on both sides of that divide were spurred to run for office creating a mighty surge that swept women into power at every level of government in 2018. They were largely responsible for the Blue Wave that gave Democrats a firm majority in the House of Representatives. And they hit the ground running with a bold progressive agenda. Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously stared down the Cheeto-in-Charge over the Government shutdown and his beloved vanity project, the Border Wall and ultimately brought the House to vote to impeach him. Freshmen stars including Alexandra Ocasio-Ortiz, Ilhan Omar, Sharida Davids, and Illinois’ own Lauren Underwood struck terror in Republicans.
The dramatic events following the 2020 election victory by stanch women’s rights ally Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris including the attempted January 6, 2021 insurrection and siege of the Capitol, renewed attacks on voting rights and access, draconian state anti-abortion laws have place women’s rights in greater jeopardy than ever. Never was Women’s History Month so desperately needed.
This year the National Women’s History Project has Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion as the 2024 Women’s History Month theme:
The theme recognizes women throughout the country who understand that, for a positive future, we need to eliminate bias and discrimination entirely from our lives and institutions.
Women from every background have long realized that an uneven playing field will never bring equality or justice. Many feel the critical need to speak up and work harder for fairness in our institutions and social interactions.
During 2024, we recognize the example of women who are committed to embracing everyone and excluding no one in our common quest for freedom and opportunity. They know that people change with the help of families, teachers and friends, and that young people in particular need to learn the value of hearing from different voices with different points of view as they grow up.
Today, equity, diversity and inclusion are powerful driving forces that are having a wide-ranging impact on our country. As members of families, civic and community groups, businesses and legislative bodies, women are in the forefront of reevaluating the status quo. They are looking anew at what harmful social policies and behaviors exist and, often subtly, determine our future. In response, women in communities across the nation are helping to develop innovative programs and projects within corporations, the military, federal agencies and educational organizations to address these injustices.
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