Yet again I alert you to a holiday that Hallmark and Day-at-a-Glance may have omitted from your calendar: Women's History Month. Official recognition of women's role in US History began in 1978 with Women's History Week, in Sonoma, CA. In 1987 the United States Congress officially designated March as Women's History Month. Here are some varied historical facts to spark your interest in the celebration -- all the while remembering that one month is never enough. 1. When is International Women's Day? March 8. 2. Who was the unsung scientist who photographed DNA, leading to the most important biological finding on DNA's structure as well as the Nobel Prize?
Rosalind Franklin's work in X-ray crystallography provided the first direct evidence for DNA's double helical structure. Without her knowledge or consent, her colleague Maurice Wilkins gave Franklin's work to Watson and Crick, her scientific competitors. In 1962 the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was awarded to Watson and Crick for their detailed description of DNA's structure, using Franklin's photographs and crediting their source of her work, Maurice Wilkins. 3. Which country has equal representation of women and men in its government? None. Sweden comes closest with 42.7% women, the highest percentage of women in government. Cuba holds the #12 spot with 27.6% women and the US is in the #44 spot with a mere 13.3 % of women in elected seats.
4. What is the name of the first woman farmworker and union organizer out in the fields? Jessie Lopez de la Cruz withstood great hardship while empowering many women farmworkers and educating a lot of men along the way. She worked in the time of legendary organizers Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez. This Chicana community leader went on to become a member of California's Commission on the Status of Women. 5. In the mid-1800s, a Paiute woman had the role of liaison between white settlers and Native Americans in Nevada. Eventually she was chosen to be Chief, and became a lecturer and advocate with Congress in order to publicly expose the many injustices the US Government perpetrated against Native Americans. Do you know who she was?
Sarah Winnemucca (Thocmetony [Shell flower]) aimed to help the Paiutes return to their lost homeland, to help native people maintain their culture, and fight against corruption and persecution. Her autobiography details her important contributions and is one of the first books by a Native American: Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims.
6. Can you name the writer? "Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference -- those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older -- know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support"? In 1979 poet laureate, black lesbian writer extraordinaire Audre Lorde challenged academic white feminism in her famous talk entitled "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the House." She challenged the insider / other dichotomy in the women's movement and emphasized the necessity of understanding women's lives and potential for social change based on sexuality, class, age, race, ability and gender. --Cristina Booker |
