Celebrating Unsung Heroes: Women's History Month Spotlight
Today is International Women’s Day –a day when we celebrate the social, cultural, political, and scientific accomplishments of women everywhere, throughout all of history. Such broad, sweeping parameters basically encompass the (roughly) 58.5 billion women ever born on Earth. Given that staggering number, it’s strange that many of us will log on to Twitter today and see the same 15-20 quotes from the same 15-20 women posted. This is certainly not to undermine the importance of Marie Curie or Emmaline Pankhurst, but what about the women who didn’t make history’s front page?
Laurel Hatcher Ulrich coined the (now a bit hackneyed) phrase, “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” but I don’t think that’s completely true. I often think of an article I read a few years ago, which argued that “History, as we know it, is still a story that’s largely told by men. An analysis of America’s most popular recent history books found that the vast majority ―75.8 percent―were written by men. And most of those men wrote about other men: 71.7 percent of biographies were about male subjects.” It is, then, not just well-behaved women who don’t make history, but women, full stop. I’ll be honest with you; I don’t love that, so today’s blog will be shining a light on three women who changed the world but didn’t get enough real estate on history’s pages.
Maude Ballou – Secretary to Dr. Martin Luther King. Born and raised in Alabama, she earned her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 1947. She worked in a factory during the war and was a program director for Montgomery’s first black radio station. Later, she married, moved to Montgomery, Alabama, and joined the fight for civil rights. Ballou was responsible for Dr. King’s correspondence, organizing his travel, and became a close friend and confidante. At one point, she was #21 on a list of likely targets for violence. She accomplished and faced so much while also raising four children. Her life’s work and importance can’t be conveyed in a short paragraph or in one published Washington Post article, but Ballou rarely gave interviews. There’s no biography you can check out of your local library about her, or Hulu limited series based on her life (though, I’d definitely watch it if they did make one), but her life changed the world. If you know more about her now than you did before reading this, that’s a step in the right direction.
Deborah Sampson – Revolutionary War solider. When her father abandoned their family, Sampson was forced into indentured servitude at age 10. At age 18, she began to support herself as a teacher and a weaver, eventually deciding to enlist in the continental army at age 21. Since women were not allowed to serve in the Revolutionary army, Sampson hid the fact that she was a woman for 2 years, posing as “Robert Shurtlieff”. In one particularly tough-as-nails move, when she was shot in the leg, “she extracted the pistol ball herself.” She received an honorable discharge in 1783, got married, and went on to raise three children. “Although Sampson’s life after the army was mostly typical of a farmer’s wife, in 1802 she began a year-long lecture tour about her experiences—the first woman in America to do so—sometimes dressing in full military regalia.” She was the only woman to earn a full military pension for her service in the Revolutionary war. Again, we don’t know enough about her life; guesses into her hopes, dreams, and motivations vary widely. If you know someone in Hollywood productions, please bring this compelling story to their attention. (You can read her entire biography from the National Women’s History Museum. Also, there is a semi-factual “Drunk History” episode about her).
Felisa Rincón de Gautier (Doña Fela) – Appointed as San Juan’s mayor in 1946, Doña Fela, as she was affectionately called by the public, was reelected four times. She was one of the first women in Puerto Rico to register to vote, and “went door-to-door informing women of their rights and encouraging them to register. The poverty she witnessed while canvassing in the slums of San Juan affected her deeply. Her desire to improve these conditions became the driving force behind her political agenda.” During her mayoral tenancy, San Juan’s population more than doubled, but she remained steadfastly committed to connecting with and serving the public. Doña Fela led San Juan into building new housing and schools, updating its hospitals, caring for the poor and elderly, and preserving its history. “Likely her most notable achievement was the establishment in 1949 of “Maternal Schools,” preschool/childcare centers that were the model for the federal Head Start program in the United States. They were designed to allow mothers to pursue employment outside the home, as increasing women’s participation in the economy was very important to Doña Fela.” Doña Fela’s accomplishments are remarkable, and her mission was laudable. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of her before now. You can (and really should) read the rest of her biography here.
There are millions more stories like these, demonstrating how determined women have changed the world. It’s sad that most of us are only familiar with a small number of them. I hope we can use Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day as opportunities to learn and share more of these stories and highlight the important contribution made by women, globally.
I once engaged in a heated argument with a relative who said that women’s history is human history and shouldn’t require a special month/day. He was, of course, absolutely right. It shouldn’t require a special month or dedicated research for me to find stories of amazing women—Maude Ballou shouldn’t have had to fight for equal rights, Deborah Sampson shouldn’t have had to hide her gender, and Doña Fela shouldn’t have had to figure out how to provide desperately needed services to thousands of people—but we don’t live in a perfect world. The world we do live in is changing, thankfully. But before we say, “well-behaved women seldom make history,” on social media as a cheeky nod to the few women rule-breakers that history deigns to recognize, perhaps we should ask ourselves: why does history require “misbehavior” before it will recognize women’s achievements?
