International Womens Month

International Womens Day was Wednesday, March 8, 2017, but the whole month is a good time to reflect on women, women's rights, and progress we have and have not made towards the equal rights and treatment of women.

Did you know? As late as the mid 1800s....

Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law

Women were not allowed to vote

Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their formation

Married women had no property rights

Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity

Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to women

Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representation in the levying of these taxes

Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned

Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law

Women had no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept women students

With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to participate in the affairs of the church

Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect, and were made totally dependent on men

        -Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1848

The question of whether women were citizens of the United States is subject to discussion, since their rights clearly were not the same as men and they did not have the right to vote until 1920.

 

Another argument against expansion of citizenship rights has been that “natural law” or “religious law” should supersede claims for political rights. Women, it was argued through the early 20th century, should not be given the right to vote because it was seen as “unnatural” and against the intentions of God. One young woman worker on strike during the winter of 1909-10 for higher pay and safer working conditions was arrested and dragged before a judge who, sentencing her to jail time, informed her that she was “on strike against God and Nature.” Similar arguments have been made more recently against extending employment and marriage rights to gay people.
-Anneliese Orleck, Professor of History, Dartmouth College

 

• Women have served in the military in countries all over the world, defending their countries alongside men.
• Currently about 15% of all people serving in our military, or more than 165,000, are women.
• Here are some facts about women in the United States military: http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/24/us/military-women-glance/index.html

In case you thought the struggle for women was over many years ago, consider:
In the 1970s, which is not even 50 years ago:

• Women still were not paid the same for men doing the exact same job. Why? The excuse was, men were usually the primary breadwinner in the family and thus merited more pay.
• Women were expected to wear dresses to work. Once there was a slight relaxation of this common expectation, pants could be worn, but only in the form of a pants suit with a particular type of blouse. The clothing of a woman was much more important than that of a man.
• Even women in more professional careers were expected to make coffee for meetings simply because they were women. 
• If a woman got married, she was expected to quit her job to stay home and run her household.
• If a woman stayed working after marriage, she was certainly expected to quit her job once she became pregnant. It was assumed she would be staying home with her child.
• Women who returned to work after having a baby, having someone else care for the child, were looked down upon.
• If a woman's husband was offered a job in another city, it was assumed she would then be leaving with him: There was no discussion about what she wanted or whether it was good for her career.

• Women in traditionally male careers were not to be trusted, such as a woman doctor, attorney, engineer. There was thoughts of: Why get a degree when you're just going to get married and stay home anyway? In fact, even completing a high school diploma was considered a waste for girls until the 1950s or so.
• In some jobs, the employer could (and did) give a pregnant woman different duties so that she wouldn't be seen by the public once she started to 'show.'
• Also in terms of pregnancy, young women who became pregnant outside of marriage were often sent away to have their babies and give them up; friends were told the girl had gone on a trip or to live with someone several states away for a while, and in some cases their parents disowned them altogether, 'kicked them out.' There was no punishment for the father of the baby.
• Girls wore dresses to school, not pants and certainly not jeans.
• Protests were common, with women demanding equal pay and respect. But women who participated were thought of as radical.
• Women who voiced their opinions, whether at home, at work, or in public, were 'troublemakers.'

The U.S. Dept of Labor statistics on women in the workforce may surprise you: https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/stats_data.htm

 

 

Black History Month

February marks Black History Month in the United States.


It started out as National African American History Week, the 2nd week in February, in 1926, The reason for this date? Both Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were born in February.


Read about the Emancipation Proclamation, signed in January of 1863, here: http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/emancipation-proclamation

Did you know this about Lincoln and the Proclamation?  http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation


The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1868 gave former slaves citizenship, but it had its flaws: It did not necessarily guarantee them their Constitutional rights. This was debated for years through Congress and the Supreme Court.


.The 15th Amendment gave men of color the right to vote (but not women, nor could any woman vote until 1919).

Shocking, right????

Note the use of the Roman Numerals XV

For a look at many constitution-related documents, follow this link to the National Archives site: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs

The celebration of the contribution of African Americans expanded to the month of February in 1976, and became Black History Month. It is about more than slavery, though. Here is just a brief listing of African Americans and their contributions to America:

• Harriet Tubman was well known for her work with the Underground Railroad, guiding slaves to freedom in the north. She will be the first woman featured on money, the $20 bill.
• W E B Dubois, Founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization began in 1909 and is still thriving today.
• Hirem Revels was the first Black senator
• Spelman College, in Georgia, was the first college for African American women http://www.spelman.edu/

• Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, in Alabama, was the first college for African American men: http://www.tuskegee.edu/

• Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 because she would not give up her seat on the bus to a white man. Here she is being fingerprinted:

• Martin Luther King worked tirelessly in a peaceable manner to achieve equality for African Americans. Read about his remarkable life here: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html

• Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, an African American, made the decision that interracial marriage is legal. In the past, it was not: You could be arrested for marrying someone of a different race.
• Shirley Chisholm was the first African American in the House of Representatives, from New York. She served from 1969 to 1983.
• The first African American in outer space was Guion Bluford, Junior.
• Read about astronaut Ron McNair, who has a TRIO scholarship program named for him:
•     https://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/mcnair.html 

• The McNair Scholarship is unique in that it is for graduate students (those who have finished their Bachelors Degree) https://www2.ed.gov/programs/triomcnair/index.html
• Colin Powell was the first Secretary of State of African American background
• Condoleeza Rice was the first African American and first female to be Secretary of State.
• Barack Obama was the first African American elected president.
• We currently have 1 African American in the Senate, and 43 in the House of Representatives.

Young people talk about being mixed-race here: http://themash.com/blog/news/2012/11/15/mixed-race-teens-talk-about-identity/


What is the significance of Black History Month to you? Think about it, talk amongst yourselves, and see what we all have in common.