International Women's Day

Yesterday, March 8, was International Women's Day.

I know this because I received no less than 10 emails from a variety of interested parties (including Planned Parenthood, Michelle Obama, the Poetry Foundation, ThirdLove, the New York Times, the Parliament of World Religions, the UU Bookstore, the NAACP and Harvard Divinity School) by midday.

I mentioned this to my husband at dinner. Oh, yeah, he said.

And then he said, it's Women's History Month too, right?

Yep, I agreed.

How long has there been Women's History Month? I'd never heard of it, he added.

Really, I asked - trying to not be visibly aghast, but you know I don't have a poker face. Really, I repeated. And then when I composed myself, I added:

Well, I don't know how long...actually...but I've known about it at least since Hillary Clinton went to Beijing for the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. But, it's probably been around for longer than that and actually I've probably known about it since I was a young woman reading Our Bodies Ourselves.

Oh, he said. And added, I do know about Black History month.

That's good, I smiled.

How many other history months are there, he wondered out loud.

Good question, I said. Off the top of my head I know of a few (I am a Unitarian Universalist religious educator, after all):

Asian Pacific American Heritage,
Gay Lesbian Pride Month,
Hispanic-Latino Heritage Month,
National American Indian Heritage Month.

(BTW, there are also months for Italian and Irish Americans, Older Americans, Jewish Americans and more. To see a fabulous list, check out: Month Long Observances List - Wiki

And then, he said, is there an International Men's Day?

Yes, everyday.

A Men's month?

Yes, all of them.

Really? he asked.

Yes, I said, and we both smiled.

White male privilege, right?

Yep.

And we moved on.

Women's History Month has its roots in two other observed holidays (holy days for us women:-)):

the first International Women's Day in 1911

and

the first Women's History Week observed by the school district of Sonoma, CA in 1978 (go wine country!)

Congress, in 1987, declared the month of March as Women's History month after being petitioned by the National Women's History Project that same year.

Some of you may have known this. Thanks to my husband for asking. I don't think I would have looked it up.

Read more about Women's History Month at these sites:

Women's History Month - Wikipedia

Women's History Month - gov

Women's History Month - women's history project

Polaroid of my beautiful and courageous aunt Lena with my cousin Ginger , 1943, southend Boston.