Why Do We Need A Man’s Permission To Celebrate Women’s History?
Women’s month doesn’t mean what you think it means.
I should be ashamed of myself. Truly. Ashamed. I run a publication called History of Women but on March 8 I was silent. International Women’s Day and I was dead silent. Not a single word out of me.
It’s not that I didn’t write.
It’s that I didn’t publish. And I don’t even know if I’m sorry or not, or even if I should be sorry. But I need to unburden.
Can I tell you something?
But wait. One other thing first.
Back in 1869, people were buzzing about a story in The New York Times. Here’s what made people mad. The USA government had five hundred women working in the Treasury. Know what the pay was?
$1800/year for men. $900/year for women.
Time Magazine poured oil on the fire. Called those women “widows and orphans of the war.” And they were.
All those women working in the Treasury were women whose husbands and fathers died in the war. So the government gave them jobs. At half what men earned. Two women for the price of one man. Woohoo.
Nevermind they didn’t have men to support them. Nevermind their men died for their country…
