Honoring the unwritten

It can sometimes be hard to see where women’s history fits on Columbia’s campus. However, in various ways, it is inscribed all over. Look closely at the 42 male names on Butler. Scan the all-male roster of presidents of the University. Check out the testosterone-infused core. You will observe glaring gaps—those spaces where the names of world-altering women should be. The absences speak volumes to the active historical (and, unfortunately, sometimes quite contemporary) exclusion of women from the public sphere.

Women have made grand contributions in spite of these barriers. Diotima of Mantinea gave the decisive argument in Plato’s Symposium. Hatshepsut ruled the Egyptian empire. Mere shards of Sappho’s poetry have moved people for centuries. Barnard’s own Zora Neale Hurston brought an immense intellect to her work in anthropology as well as her creative writing—she even famously intimidated Langston Hughes. There is hope and joy in reclaiming these women’s stories. What’s more, there is justice in it.

Sometimes it is tempting to herald female public figures as representative of all that women have accomplished and all they have yet to do. We may exclaim, “Look! We can do all that men can do. We will do more.” And we would be right. Women have outnumbered men in the workforce. Look at Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Rigoberta Menchu, or Indira Gandhi and tell me that gender is a barrier to effective leadership. Look at Marie Curie, Virginia Apgar, or even Trotula of Salerno and tell me women never contributed to the sciences. These women are our forerunners, our heroines, and we should be proud of their accomplishments. However, we must remember that women’s history did not begin with them—nor will it end with them.

In many powerful ways, women changed and change the world outside of the dominant historical narrative. This work is the women’s history that is more difficult to celebrate. This history comes from countless lives lived with limited options. These were lives lived on terms largely beyond women’s control in a world in which women were rarely recognized socially, or even legally, as human beings. For many, this is a painful history best left behind. Globally, this reality is all too present and better unspoken for some. Yet, I suggest that we celebrate even this.

At this university, very few of our women students foresee a life for themselves resembling that of their grandmothers. We aspire to lofty positions—I plan to acquire a law degree and effect profound change in public policy. I find that on the planning committee for Women’s History Month, as in my communities University-wide, the women I am honored to know stand with confidence, brilliance, and integrity as they shape their futures. Under such circumstances, why should we focus on the constrictive roles of women in the past? Is it not demeaning to dwell there?

I believe it is demeaning to move past these women without honoring them—and without acknowledging the resemblance of many of our contemporaries’ lives to theirs. While I have pointed out a few women who garnered public acclaim, the history of most women is a history of anonymity. It is a history of laborers, philosophers, counselors, and leaders. It is a history of lesbians, queer women, mothers, sisters, daughters, and those who navigated their lives outside of families. It is a history of black women, Jewish women, indigenous women, Latina women, white women, and Asian women. It is a history of the intersections of these identities. I believe that we do a grave disservice to women, and to humanity, by devaluing their work just because nobody thought to write it down. Their struggles and successes are just as worthy of celebration as those of women who have garnered public acclaim—and they are far more representative of the immense history of our gender.

As long as women continue to experience oppression, it can be difficult to embrace the oppressed. However, the Women’s History Month planning committee hopes to use this month do just that. We will give a platform not only to renowned cardiologist Dr. Nieca Goldberg but also to formerly incarcerated women from the Women in Prison Project—most of whom have experienced domestic and structural violence. We will discuss women’s experiences of abortion—common to 1.3 million women each year in the U.S. alone. We will speak with third-wave feminist Jennifer Baumgardner and discuss the first wave’s meeting at Seneca Falls.

Women’s history is the history of more than half of the world—arguably the whole world. This is both our challenge and our joy as we begin our celebrations of Women’s History Month in 2010. We hope that the University community will join us in honoring those women who have shaped the world from both the public and the private spheres. In doing so, we hope even to honor the unwritten histories of women everywhere.

The author is a Barnard College senior majoring in English literature. She is the head of the Women’s History Month planning committee.