Women's History

Teaching Tolerance ran The ABCs - The Anti-Bias Classroom Series - from 2006 to 2008. The ABCs were online curriculum packages for educators and each installment of The ABCs offered classroom activities and professional development resources for teachers at all grade levels. From women’s history to service learning to hip hop, each thematic unit allowed for educators to “click, print and use” materials immediately.

The ABCs gave Jeff the opportunity to co-write with some of the most prominent scholars in the field of multicultural education, scholars like Bill Bigelow and Linda Christensen of Rethinking Schools Magazine, Carl Grant of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Jacqueline Jordan Irvine of Emory University, Christine Sleeter of California State University, Monterey Bay, and Paul Gorski of EdChange.org. These scholars have contributed to the classic works that multicultural educators use to teach and cite as core pieces of literature in research.

Introduction

This March, kids across the country will whip out their textbooks for a lesson on women’s history. Classroom activities will highlight the contributions of inventors and authors and doctors who happened to be female. And much will be made of equality - from the right to vote, to the right to own property, to the right to wear pants to work.

Welcome to Women’s History Month.

This approach to teaching Women's History is both common and popular -- understandably so, as it

highlights critical moments and key leaders in the history of women's fight for equality. Yet this approach also can mislead: By placing the struggle for women's equality solely in a historical context, we inadvertently teach

students that the fight is over.

Most women -- and many men -- know this isn't true.

The list of "firsts" -- the first woman to cast a ballot; the first female lawyer; the first woman in space -- is far from complete. This tells us "women's history" is far from over, too.

On Jan. 23, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) became the first woman in history to preside over a presidential State of the Union Address. Two months earlier, Pelosi was named Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the first female Speaker in the nation's history. News accounts across the country used Pelosi's ascent to power to underscore the fact that for most women, political power remains largely unattained.

Women won the right to vote almost 87 years ago. And yet, in 2006, the U.S. ranked 66th in the world in

its political empowerment of women. Today, surveys show that almost half of all Americans don't think the

country is ready for a female president.

What messages do we send to girls -- as well as boys -- when the history we preach in the classroom butts up against reality? How do we handle the cognitive dissonance girls can feel when they get the messages,

simultaneously, that they can be anything they want to be, and that their gender limits who they can be?

Generations of women have fought and sacrificed to have a place at the table, to have political representation, and to have a voice. Women have made great strides, but we aren't there yet. This addition of the ABCs highlights the political under-representation of women, historically and today, and provides steps students can take to make

Ilouise Bradford, Lecia Brooks, Tafeni English, Jennifer Holladay, Camille Jackson, Jeff Sapp, and Rhonda Thomason contributed to this edition of the ABCs.