Now, I probably should have started this yesterday since this will be in two parts, but I am sure how I feel and what I believe will stay the same in April.
Many of my students could probably tell you that I always shined up my soapbox when it came to how women are treated and perceived. One of my favorite units involved women writers especially during the American strand of our curriculum because I could pull out all the favorites: Susan B. Anthony, Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, etc. The students would, expectedly, gasp in horror when they connected the dots of "Desiree's Baby" or see the descent into insanity in "The Yellow Wallpaper." We would also rhetorically analyze pieces like "I Want a Wife" by Judy Brady and "An Anti-Suffrage Monologue" by Marie Jenney Howe. (If you are going to only read one of the links above, I highly recommend the Howe one because it is great satire.)
When I had them in a frenzy of frustration and irritation at the treatment of women from that time period, I would swoop in with current articles tackling gender wage gaps or 21st century expectations of beauty and morality placed on women but rarely used on men. This past year I used the following pieces:
- Emma Watson's HeForShe Speech to the UN
- The Always Like A Girl Campaign
- This Fast Company piece on the Gender Wage Gap
- A piece titled "I Don't Want My Daughter to Hate Pink" (This piece and another similar piece will be key in PART II of this post.)
The kids really brought great perspective to all of this especially since this is the world in which they are expected to function as citizens some day. After teaching pieces like all of the above time and time again, I slowly began to become much more emotional about the struggles of women throughout history and how we are still fighting so many of the same things today. Laugh if you must, but I get a little choked up at this parody music video about Women's Suffrage only because I think about how tough and courageous those women truly had to be. Sure, this video is a little funny but these women had such strong convictions. They changed the world.
Because of this, I now make it a point to follow people and organizations that positively promote women.
In general, here are some of my favorite things that focus on women and how powerful they can be. Almost all of these have social media accounts, so you can follow them there as well:
Amy Poehler's Smart Girls. A great site for promoting the power of girls and women.
TED-Ed Lessons on Famous Women in History. TED Talks are great in general if you've never check them out.
The History Chicks podcast. Beckett and Susan do a fantastic job covering women throughout history. Their conversational style doesn't make it feel like I am learning history. Love this.
Stuff You Missed in History Class is another podcast I follow. It recently did a couple of podcasts on the WASPs. If you don't know what the WASPs are, go learn everything you can about them. They are an amazing set of women, and I have already started planning my day trip to their museum in Sweetwater, Texas.
The television show Agent Carter. Go to Netflix and watch season one. Then wait impatiently to devour season two. Peggy Carter is a normal, non-super powered woman who just happens to also be intelligent, witty, kind, pretty, and can totally kick ass!
This image and all variations:
especially this one:
because it mashes Rosie the Riveter with my all time favorite female icon:via GIPHY
via GIPHY
via GIPHY
So there is PART I for you. Go ahead and be inspired or fired up or whatever about this stuff. I am! And I'll gladly tell you all about it in PART II.
