Selective Histories 1001
What history was I taught in school? I was taught the basics about all our wars; the who’s who of generals, battle sites and death tolls. I was taught to memorize the presidents, vice presidents and random facts about their administration. I was taught that Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and FDR were very important men. With all this emphasis on facts, dates and figures of men in our countries history, I noticed that there was an obvious lack of women representation.
The only recollection I have of women in any of my American History courses is Rosie the Riveter, Sacajawea and the president’s wives. Considering the first is a fictional figure made for war advertisements and the second was a forced tour guide of two white men, the appropriation of women in my schoolwork pales in comparison to the Manifesta time line. I learned more about women outside of my history classes. One of my AP English courses focused on American narratives. In that class i learned a lot about black women who yearned from equal rights in the political and social arenas. I learned about white females who wrote about topics that challenged their male counterparts. These were the things i wanted to learn about in history class. But with the agenda of history classes set so strictly by the district, there can be little meandering.
Looking at this time line, I wonder why I wasn’t taught a lot of these events. Did they not fit cleanly in between The New Deal and The Great Depression? Did they feel they would isolate some of the reading audience? Are we too used to a narrow viewed focus on our history? It seems that the people who make our textbooks are seriously misguided in their efforts of providing a balanced history of our country. Sure they get all the politics, leaders, wars and Constitution stuff down, but there some serious omissions here. For example, I had no idea the U.S. Census in 1980 stated that a female could also be “head of household�. I assumed that it could always go either way, but I never knew! I’m not suggesting that there be a complete revamping of the system, where every event in feminist/women’s history is outlined, but what I am suggesting is that some ARE included. There should also be inclusion of more ethnic group besides whites, GLBTQQ, and more things about when our country didn’t succeed. A one sided, “America is great and we can do no wrong� approach to history worked fine in the 1950s when we didn’t have a choice, but now we do. We know our country has strengths as well as weaknesses. One weakness is representation of the other sex that history books seem to be ignoring: females. And it’s about time for it to change.