For the Month of March, Green Party Women will be celebrating a woman a day in recognition of Women’s History Month. To kick start the Month off, we want to share a brief history of Women’s History Month itself.
Women’s History Month has its origins in America and began in 1987. It built upon other national observances that centred women, celebrating women’s contributions to history, culture and society. This includes the first ever Women’s Day organised by the American Socialist Party in 1909. As socialism around the world grew so did the recognition of the Women’s Day and it became an international observance within in a couple of years.
In the 1970’s, American second-wave feminist activists set about creating Women’s History Week to challenge the way history books largely left out the stories or contributions of women to history. During 1980, the then US president Jimmy Carter, announced the first national Women’s History Week following lobbying by The Women’s’ History Institute and other activists.
The Women’s National History Project then began lobbying successfully for a longer observation and Women’s History Month was then established under the Reagan administration.
Since then, it has been celebrated during the entire month of March in various places around the globe, including here in the United Kingdom, and it also encompasses International Women’s Day on March 8.