Why Women’s History Month is Still Important

“We need to stop telling girls they can be anything they want when they grow up. I think it's a mistake. Not because they can't, but because it would have never occurred to them, they couldn’t.”

- Sarah Silverman

This quote sums it up clearly. By talking about Women’s History month, aren’t we continuing to bring attention to those few who don’t think women are equal to men? Doesn’t this force us to continue to dwell on the past pain and inequality that we’ve worked so hard to remediate?

I was recently asked to present at a team all-hands to give a brief explanation of why Women’s History Month is so important. As a co-leader of the Women @ Microsoft ERG, it seemed to me like this should be an easy thing to explain. But as I sat down to write, I really struggled. Putting pen to paper, what words convey the message that even though we have made so many advances in our society, and even though the majority of whom I spend time with are decent and enlightened, there is still an imbalance that should not be ignored?

We’ve made improvements for sure. Today’s women make an undeniable imprint on the world – The United States is getting closer to having a woman president. Women are CEOs of fortune 500 companies. Women are leaders of important and influential nations, like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand. Teenage girls are speaking their minds eloquently and passionately, influencing the world around them. Many of my close female friends are rising to leadership positions in their careers, unhindered by gender politics and actively supported by the men around them. Yet we still need to talk about these women as if they are unicorns- the rare few that managed to break through that proverbial glass ceiling. In the words of Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver, why is this still a thing?

To me, the answer boils down to history. In our history books, women are the exception and not the rule. Not because there weren’t smart, amazing women in our past, but because the gender politics of previous centuries prevented these women’s stories from being told. The generations before weren’t highly exposed to these stories. We are still unwinding the imbalance this caused on our society. 

 We unwind this by taking special care to remember the great innovators, scientists and minds of the past who happened to be women. We take the time to celebrate Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, the African-American women of NASA who helped to put John Glenn into space, because they weren’t fully celebrated at the time. 

We unwind this by building today’s women into tomorrow’s history books alongside men as their equals. 100 years ago, the women and men who fought tirelessly for decades for the 19th amendment won the right to vote for women. Susan B. Anthony led the start of this fight in 1869 and died 20 years before her goal was realized. Now, we see women fighting hard to equalize political representation at the local, state and national level. We recognize that these women do not have the 200+ years of political traditions behind them. 

I think the spirit of Women’s History month can be summed up in this quote:

"Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others." 

-Amelia Earhart

We don’t celebrate Women’s History month to compete against men. We celebrate to continue to challenge each other while remembering how far we’ve come on this journey already.

We don’t celebrate Women’s History month to place blame for the inequalities of the past, or to ignore the women and men who have done nothing but support each other, but to remind everyone of the achievements women and men have created together by reducing the gender divide. Our objective is to one day speak about the people who make great contributions- not men, not women, but people. We’re not there yet, and that’s why we celebrate Women’s History Month.