An Invitation to Information!
Every March during Women’s History Month, we honor and celebrate women who made significant contributions to specialized fields and industries with attention to those whose work and dedication improved our lives. In our inboxes, visits to Google, through library programming, and other ways, we receive myriad bits of information about any number of individuals who identified as women. But what if we take up this quest and find out more about interesting women ourselves?
We always have more to learn from women in the past. So, this year, I encourage you to join me in an informative (and maybe even fun) daily exercise.
General rules and guidelines:
- Choose a new woman to learn about every day.
- Make sure she is no longer living.
- Feel free to make it even more playful by starting with the letter A and working your way through the alphabet (starting over or exploring letters found in other languages after Z), designating areas of study or subjects for each day or week (women in government and royalty for week one perhaps followed by poets for week two, scientists for week three, and so on), or follow your instincts and see where inspiration takes you. Books like Rad American Women A-Z by Kate Schatz may offer an approach.
What inspired this little exercise? I remember vividly an assignment in grade school where we were to write a report about an inventor. Much to my chagrin, almost all inventors seemed to be men! Ugh. This was the 1990s by the way. I became desperate, searching for women in any nook and cranny and even started imagining that men with what I interpreted as loosely feminine names were women (Eli Whitney or Nikola Tesla for example). Things have changed since then (and there were women inventors; here are some examples), but we still have a long way to go in recognizing and celebrating the contributions of women.
Also, if you’re feeling less than inspired, you’ll find an example list for each of March’s thirty-one days below. I used the alphabet and trusted that the first name that came to me for each was the “right” one. There are no wrong answers in this exercise.
And why stop there? Keep on exploring into April if you feel like it. 😊 Have fun, everyone!
Contributed by Sarah Broderick, Community Library Specialist
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