The way women's history is taught...
Throughout all of my history classes even back to junior high school, I have little to no recollection of a women’s movement or specific events in women’s history because of the way they were taught if they were taught at all. Although we discussed the women’s suffrage movement in my US history class, it really didn’t stick with me. There may have been a mention of Alice Paul, but I don’t remember it. This was one of the only times in the whole class that women’s rights and women’s advocates were at center stage, and it was briefly skimmed over. There was nothing within the teaching that provided anything to leave a lasting impression. There were no stories of hunger strikes in prison. There were no stories of women protestors going to the hospital after being beaten as the police just stood by watching.
Besides the obvious problem of women’s history not being taught in schools around the country, there is a further problem with content that is there, in that it is taught in a way that doesn’t leave a lasting impression.
If you consider other important movements and events in our country’s history, they are saturated with stories that leave people today thinking “how could it have been that way?� I will provide some examples that most readers will remember vividly or at least be able to recall. First, the Revolutionary War occurring within towns where women and children were present and women were raped by members of the British army. Also, the abolitionist movement resulting in the most deadly war our country has ever seen. This came in the wake of slaves being beaten, lynched, and sold as if they were cattle. The civil rights movement extended further into the 20th century where MLK Jr. was killed and Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus.
I find it interesting that there is little to no mention of any of the violence and defiance that occurred during the women’s rights movement. I had no idea what women went through during suffrage protests. I didn’t know because there was no imagery used to convey the messages like was used in the other events in our history. The way in which it was taught made it very easy to skim over and not internalize it.
I was thrilled to see clips from Iron-Jawed Angels. I was thrilled because I will never forget them. When you look back on our country’s history, think about all of the movies that have been made that recreate events that provide vivid pictures about the way things were. Although most of the movies are turned into love stories, these pictures contain brutal, heart-wrenching or triumphant stories and images that leave a lasting impression. Iron-Jawed Angels left that lasting impression in my mind about the women’s suffrage movement.
Unfortunately, much of the history we absorb comes through movies or pop-culture media that is laden with patriarchal undertones and biases. I think the best way to demonstrate women’s history is to create images in people’s minds about the true suffering that women experienced in everyday life. This can be done through textbooks, supplemental reading within classes, or through movies and other forms of non-patriarchal biased media sources. Creating those lasting images is what makes people remember the way history was. We live in a society that needs to be entertained and needs to have attention grabbed immediately. The normal textbook way of teaching history is not an effective way to teach women’s history or any history for that matter.
I understand this is a very narrow example to answer the prompt, but it is a reason that women's history is overlooked in our country's history that many people might not think about.