I was actually going to write about the Jersey Devil this week, but after noticing a poster on my campus about “National Women’s History Month” it got me thinking. Where’s the National Men’s History Month?! Let me preface the rest by pointing out that I am not sexist, but I do feel these History months have gone completely out of hand. Most of us know about Hispanic History, Black History, and Women’s History months. Luckily I found a complete list here: http://diversity.uchc.edu/observances/index.html. Here’s basically what all the months are:
February
-Black History Month
March
-Women’s History Month
May
-Asian/Pacific Heritage Month
-Older Americans Month (Why don’t we hear anything about this one? Why are there no Disney channel specials for this?)
June
-Gay and Lesbian Pride Month (‘Cause nothing says history like gay pride)
-Caribbean American Heritage Month
September 15 - October 15
-Hispanic Heritage Month
October
-National Disability Employment Awareness Month
November
-National American Indian Heritage Month
And that’s pretty much it. Now let me go ahead and get this out of the way, I think having months dedicated to the history of certain people is a good thing. Awareness is a good thing. But being prejudiced about which ones to pay more attention to is a bad thing. We pushed the Native Americans farther and farther west, and then finally smooshed them into reservations. What do we give them in return? The month of November and next to ZERO coverage! Had anyone ever heard of National American Indian Heritage Month? I know I hadn’t.
Now let me get back to my earlier question, why is there just a Women’s History Month and not a Men’s? First let’s look at why we have these history months. If I am not mistaken, we have months dedicated to certain peoples to raise awareness and give insight about people who are minority. Here in America, Blacks are a minority, Gays are a minority, Native Americans are a minority, Asians are a minority, Hispanics are a minority, Disabled people are a minority, but women are a Majority! In 2000, women outnumbered men by more than 5 million!
Now here’s where you start saying that we need a history month for women because they are left out of history books. Here’s the facts: THEY ARE NOT LEFT OUT OF HISTORY BOOKS ANY MORE. I know more about Abigail Adams than I do George Washington! History books now give coverage of Women’s roles in history. From the Daughters of Liberty, to Deborah Sampson who posed as a man to enter the Revolution, women have played a large role in establishing this country and we know longer pretend like they didn’t! Now I’m not saying that there aren’t women in history who should be given more credit than they currently get: Rosalind Franklin, Marie Curie, and Mary Todd Lincoln to name a few. But there are just as many men whose roles in history have been reduced to single sentences lost in the jumble of a textbook’s literature: George Mason, Daniel Shays, John Jay (didn’t help the country, but still important), General Horatio Gates, the list goes on. So can somebody please tell me why we only have a Women’s History Month? Women are not a minority, they are no longer left out of history books, and they are no less recognized for what role they played in history than the men are.
I can understand why there’s no White History month. Most of American is White. But why is there no, say, Poor People’s History Month? Why not one of those?! But no, seriously, I think we need to add in a Men’s History Month and give more recognition to the months that have been slipping under the radar. The entire point of these is to educate people and to help them understand people who are “different” right? So are we not being prejudiced by giving some groups more coverage than others? What do you guys think?
P.S. I'm posting early because I don't trust the scheduling system
P.S. I'm posting early because I don't trust the scheduling system
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