Herland Sister Resources

by MOC

August is Women’s Herstory Month. It’s a long month, 31 days, unlike Black History Month, which is February, the shortest month of the year, a fact wryly noted by African Americans and their allies; who are somewhat bemused at being presented with such an easy joke, such a great straight line: Yep, American blacks get 28 days; short-changed as usual.

Ironic as that might be, in August we’re looking elsewhere, and we’re celebrating that women, all colors and sexual orientations, get 31 big days. So is it women’s history month? Or wimmin’s herstory month? Or womyn’s history month? Whatever, in August we are celebrating womyn/wimmin/women. Officially it is Women’s History Month.

On Saturday, August 27, we will celebrate Womyn’s Herstory Month with a Video Night celebration at Herland at 7 pm. We will show three or more videos: the short film Votes for Women (telling of the campaign which basically made women citizens — no, not first class citizens, we’re still working on that one), the even shorter 7-minute movie One Fine Day, an exhilarating film guaranteed to give you goose bumps and pride in your foremothers and yourself, and Chisolm ‘72: Unbought and Unbossed. Brooklyn-based Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm made history when she vied for the presidency in 1972. In fact, Congresswoman Chisholm has represented a series of firsts: She was the first African-American woman elected to Congress and the first black person and woman to run a serious, high-profile campaign in the U.S. presidential primary. Her inspiring journey is the subject of this documentary.

A century ago women in the United States did not have the vote. Women were automatically denied custody of their children in divorce actions. Spousal rape was a commonality, not a crime. “Barefoot and pregnant” was not a backwater catchphrase but a condition mandated by poverty and ignorance. Single women (yes, that would include lesbians in great numbers) had three options: drudgery in factories, drudgery in their married relatives homes, and prostitution. Our s/heroes worked to change these things.

We don’t have a woman president yet, but we are all pretty sure that we will someday. A short fifty years ago it never occurred to anyone that there was anything wrong in saying that “all little American boys can grow up to be President.” People would brag about it in front of their little girls, never thinking how it might make them feel; but now everyone knows that we can all grow up to be president, it’ll just be a lot harder for a little girl. She’ll have to do everything a little boy does, twice as well. No problem, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, backwards and in high heels. And our s/heroes worked to change these attitudes.

Fifty years ago women could not dream of attending West Point or any other of the Service academies. The woman who would become the first to sit on the Supreme Court graduated second in her class at Stanford Law School and was offered nothing but secretarial positions at the prestigious law firms which hired her classmates as attorneys. A sure compliment fifty years ago was to tell a woman that she thought like a man, threw like a man, played cards like a man, ran, did math, drank beer, belched, played music, anything esteemed by the male culture, like a man.

The work begun by the women’s rights movement in the 1800’s and continued by the suffragists in the early 1900’s was reinforced and continued by the feminists of the 1970’s and 80’s. These were the women who fought for our freedom, citizenship, dignity and opportunity. These are my s/heroes, and we will meet many of them in the videos we’ll be showing on August 27. Hope to see you there.