Why Gerda Lerner and Women's History Month Make a Difference.
Going to college felt like a breath of fresh air.
Finally free from stale high school cliques and routine drama, I was so ready to begin again. Like riding the crest of a wave with my future before me, I felt both nervous and giddy. So many Joan’s ago, I’ve lost count but I remember that fresh feeling of being alive.
Had there been a women’s studies program at my liberal arts college, I’m confident I would have taken it. What’s my role? Who am I in this bigger world? I was pummeled with mental questions. And even though I was a romantic, I knew my goal was not finding my Romeo.
He’d have to wait.
I had to figure out my place in the world first.
Learning about those who have come before—excavating women hidden in plain sight, learning how they contributed and what they overcame—all through a women’s studies program, would have given me a sense of legacy. Could have helped me compare and contrast the odd media version of women (either thrilled with the latest dish soap or the perfect Brady Family mom) so at odds with the nascent version of me trying to take shape.
I felt like I was crazy.
I searched for role models.
Unknown to me, similar ideas were percolating in a small entrepreneurial college in the East. It would prove to be the birthplace for women’s studies answering just the sorts of questions that hounded me.
Credit for this innovation belongs to a woman I just learned about last fall: Gerda Lerner*.
Creator of Women’s and Gender Studies
Gerda Lerner is the single most influential individual involved in the development of women and gender studies since the 1960’s. When she was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in 1968, she worked with historian/professor Joan Kelly to establish the first-ever MA program in women’s studies.
They believed teaching women’s history was not enough. They strategized: How can we think bigger? How can we create a greater footprint? Building a program would give women’s studies higher visibility and legitimacy.
The early brave women who taught the courses were maligned and attacked. The course study was accused of being an arm of the feminist women’s movement. They were charged with being political in order to create social change. Well, yes, it was political because as the movement said at the time, “the personal is political.” The political reality of women’s lives was that they were shut out of many facets of society.
In these courses, women discovered that as they talked about their own experiences, prospects and socialization, they found that knowledge isn’t black or white. Rather, it’s dependent on one’s perspective and lived understanding.
Prior to these programs, the study of history was the study of white middle-class heterosexual males. To the status quo this was the only point-of-view that mattered. This framing of society was designed for their benefit and to protect their interests, so the idea that there could be a woman’s POV was super threatening.
For example, in a fund-raising letter conservative Christian minister Pat Robertson was quoted: "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”
Really? All from asking questions, challenging not only what’s being taught, but what’s left out of history.
Gerda and her courageous colleagues persisted anyway. Today there’s more awareness of historical women’s contributions than ever. March’s celebration of Women’s History Month is one such annual focus. Since we’re fifty percent of the population, there’s still a treasure trove of women’s stories to be told, including my research-infused novel on Jo van Gogh.
Creativity Is Fundamentally Disruptive
Here’s the thing: When new ideas are taking shape, this is creativity, and creativity is fundamentally disruptive. It challenges the way things have been done before, which means it scares the dickens out of people who have a stake in keeping things the same…oftentimes, those in academics, Corporate America, traditional religion.
The idea of change, evolution, is reacted to with existential angst and attacked. Yet, you ultimately don’t get ahead by pushing another down. Again and again, the human spirit will protest.
Push back.
Creativity is the pressure of a new form struggling to take shape. Disturbing, unsettling, intrusive—yes. That’s why the courage of those who have come before us to make change is so inspiring. If not for them, where would our society be now?
Gerda said, “Women have always made history as much as men have…only they did not know what they had made and had no tools to interpret their own experience.”
They did not know what they had made.
When you hear of another woman breaking through a glass ceiling, doesn’t it make your own ambition feel more doable? The examples of our female forebears matter because their life experience paves the way to what’s possible.
They had no tools to interpret their own experience.
That’s what women’s historical accounts provide. You’re not crazy. Other women have felt the same, had the same questions. Being previously left out of the official historical record no longer means women’s achievements did not happen. Others have persisted before us in big and small ways.
Every March I’m blown away by the multitude of stories about historical women’s accomplishments. This year is no exception. Blogs and podcasts and newsletters and books have been exploding with stories.
If this is crazy, sign me up.
Warmly,
P.S. Before I go, here a few women’s history favorites I’ve been enjoying this month: History in the Margins newsletter by historian Dr. Pamela Toler, and the podcast What's Her Name by Dr. Katie Nelson (history professor at University of Warwick) and Olivia Meikle (professor of women’s and gender studies at Naropa University).
*I learned about Gerda in preparation for a talk I gave last fall with fellow authors. We called it, “How to Truthfully Portray the Past without Harm.” I wrote about the talk in a previous post. One of my co-presenters Marie W. Watts writes a terrific blog here.
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