Internationally, March is known as women’s history month.
The aim of this initiative is to redress previously omitted women’s participation and achievements from being known by celebrating women’s contributions to history, culture and society.
There are many exhibitions, projects, protests and events run during March that raise awareness for the significance, roles, struggles and issues of women and girls.
So to kick off ‘Women’s Month’, here are three more-than-usual initiatives that are exemplary in celebrating a range of women’s achievements.
Enjoy!
Royal Australian Historical Society
The official Royal Australian Historical Society (RAHS) ‘Women’s History Month’ website page caught my eye this year.
This page celebrates March being Women’s History by highlighting a range of Australian women and the diverse contributions they’ve made to Australia’s history.
What I like about this particular page is that it is inclusive and immediately understandable in what it is trying to achieve. Having a simple photo album-style layout showcasing significant women (with names and dates) makes it quick and easy to get a sense of the range of cultural backgrounds (Indigenous, Australian-Chinese, European immigrants, white) and their contributions (politics, literature, arts, sport, law and many others) over time – ranging from Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840) to Everly Scott (2017).
I think it is imperative to not only name the person but also to give each woman just identity. Consider how many times you’ve seen historical male figures of significance. There is ALWAYS a photo of them to reinforce their status as ‘important’ and that ‘this individual is not only someone you should know the name of, but you should know what they look like.’
Including images of women is a political move in this regard. It’s a critical move to shift past erasures of significant women from not just naming them (whereby their name is ‘listed’ and therefore at risk of being yet again ‘lost’ in the density of descriptive discourse), but so that the uniqueness of each woman is also recognised – as well as their name.
Photos are especially important given that surnames are patrilineal (assigned by fathers and husbands) so it is usually only first names that distinguish individuals from others. Linking women to their first and surnames with their photos helps to identify AND personalise these women beyond a perfunctory mention by name in passing. This is what the RAHS site does well.
There are so many incredible women listed on the RAHS – and many that most Australians have probably never heard about. For example: Muruwari Community worker and filmmaker Essie Coffey (otherwise known as the Bush Queen of Brewarrina), or Ruby Payne-Scott who was Australia’s first woman radio Astronomer, or one of Australia’s first great actors Rose Quong, who was a breakthrough given her Chinese heritage during the Australian White Policy, or WWI war correspondent Louise Mack.
If you’re down under or have not seen this site yet – go check it out! It is a great starting point resource to learn-talk-share about incredible Australian women.
Dr. Katie Phillips #WomensHistoryMonth
I’m following Dr Katie Phillips’ Twitter account for all of March.
In an act of radical generosity and support, each day, Katie uploads a different post each day that shares the voices, work and contributions of highly influential, but lesser-known Native, First Nations and Indigenous women from what is now called the USA.
This project was a real eye-opener for me. Not only did I appreciate the forethought, planning and process that Katie applied to make this happen, but it was also an incredibly educational initiative that has far-reaching scope and implications.
Twitter’s limited text allowances meant that each day, Katie provides the name, image and brief synopsis about ‘the woman of the day’ and her significant contribution. I not only learned about these incredible women (which, as an Australian, I would have not have been exposed to), but this approach is also an invitation (and reminder) to keep learning about amazing women elsewhere around the world.
I found myself following up on many of the women Katie posted, wanting to know more about their conditions and experiences.
As a teacher, researcher, creative, and someone with half a brain and a heart, I was impressed by Katie’s approach. It showed a genuine commitment to decolonizing history and better accounting for diverse women’s experiences.
F@*king incredible work!
Dr. Kat Jungnickel – Bikes and Bloomers
Of course we must have something on bike riding!
I’ve previously posted on this blog about researcher-creative Dr Kat Jungnickel’s work which perfectly fits the theme for Women’s History Month!
Kat’s specific interest area is reinvigorating Victorian women investors and their amazing cyclewear. She published a book based on her PhD research called Bikes and Bloomers. Here’s a description of the book from Kat’s portfoilo:
The bicycle in Victorian Britain is often celebrated as a vehicle of women’s liberation. But much less is known about another critical technology with which women forged new and mobile public lives – cycle wear. Despite its benefits, cycling was a material and ideological minefield for women. Conventional fashions were inappropriate, with skirts catching in wheels and tangling in pedals. Yet wearing more identifiable ‘rational’ cycle wear could elicit verbal and sometimes physical abuse from parts of society threatened by newly mobile women.
In response, pioneering women not only imagined, made and wore radical new forms of cycle wear but also patented their inventive designs. The most remarkable of these were convertible costumes that enabled wearers to secretly switch ordinary clothing into cycle wear.
This highly visual social history of women’s cycle wear explores Victorian engineering, patent studies and radical feminist invention. Underpinned by three years of in-depth archival research and inventive practice, this new book by Kat Jungnickel brings to life in rich detail the lesser-known stories of six inventors and their unique contributions to cycling’s past and how they continue to shape urban life for contemporary mobile women.
Talk about raising awareness for previously hidden women’s achievements! Go Kat!
Happy Women’s History Month all!