March signifies the start of spring, but also the start of Women’s History Month.
It is a month that Mary Krueger, director of the Women’s Center, has been planning for quite a while.
“It has been celebrated since the 19th century in BG,” Krueger said. “We have been working and planning for a couple months on the theme and events this year.”
The theme for 2013 is called, “The Exceptional Woman: Hail Her or Fail Her?”. All of the events and speakers will be based around this main idea of the “exceptional woman.”
“There are two sides to being an exceptional woman,” Krueger said. “One is she feels on top of the world and can do anything. The other is having the weight of the world on her shoulders.”
A group of faculty and graduate students from the Women’s Center and the Woman’s Studies Program got together to come up with the events and themes for Women’s History Month. Among the group was Lesa Lockford, director and graduate coordinator of the women, gender and sexuality studies program.
“Women’s History Month is a great opportunity to pause and reflect,” Lockford said. “57 percent of the student body are women so we get to see the challenges that have faced women to where they are today.”
Lockford believes that women still have tough roads ahead.
“Women have made significant progress, we even have a woman for a president [at the University],” Lockford said. “But, statistics still show that women still earn significantly less than men in this country. There are still issues today facing women.”
Women’s History Month shows there are more sides to history than what are told in the history books, Krueger said.
“The United States history has always been defined by white men.” Krueger said. “This is an annual gentle reminder that women are a big part of history as well.”
Amy Mauro, sophomore, agrees with Krueger.
“Most of the history we learn is through a white male point of view,” Mauro said. “It is nice to see the women’s side of history and how they have progressed.”
Jessica Arnovitz, a University freshman, is in a women studies class with Mauro. She agrees that celebrating Women’s History Month is important.
“There are some things that need to be remembered, and we take them for granted,” Arnozitz said. “History has a tendency to repeat itself, so by learning about women’s history, we can prevent the bad things in there from happening again.”
Out of all the events that are planned for the month, both Krueger and Lockford are most excited about the two Keynote presenters, poet Natasha Miller and Dr. Jessie Ramey.
“The slam poet is incredible,” Krueger said. “And the speaker at the end of the month has interesting work about the history of women and orphanages.”
Lockford said many students tend to like the slam poet, and she hopes that the events and speakers will touch some of the students.
“Change is like water on a rock,” Lockford said. “It doesn’t show immediately, but after time it will show. I don’t expect a radical movement to come from these events, but hopefully just one person will see the world in a new light.”
