It wasn’t until college that I was introduced to Ada Lovelace, who is considered by many to be the first computer programmer, or Ida B. Wells, an investigative journalist and researcher who was one of the founders of the NAACP. It was Google, not high school, that taught me about Marie Van Brittan Brown, creator of what we know now as the home security system; Sarah Boone, who in 1892 patented a design meant to improve the ironing board; or Alice Parker, who in 1919 patented a heating furnace design. I became aware of Marie Curie, the French physicist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity, by talking to coworkers and classmates, and not through any kind of formal education.
While I appreciate that high school taught me about Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, and Susan B. Anthony (although the latter not so much—her racist past is glossed over), I still think that the high school history curriculum focuses far too much on White men, subtly glorifying George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, even though they owned slaves and worked only for the benefit of White people. In talking to other young women from around the world, I found that they posed similar complaints. I am unsure whether the reason behind the erasure of women is misogyny or simply ignorance, but the effects are the same: women are still seen as intellectually inferior beings who rely on men for success. I have far too frequently witnessed men online justify sexism and the belief in male superiority by claiming that women have contributed nothing throughout history.
I think that one factor driving the continuous erasure of women is the notion—subconscious or otherwise—that if women are not pleasing men, their accomplishments are void. This phenomenon can be seen in Hedy Lamarr, a Hollywood actress in the 1940s, who was also an inventor who advanced communication technology of her time. Unfortunately, she is largely known for her beauty and talent on screen, with her scientific achievements relegated to the sidelines. On a smaller scale, Victoria’s Secret model Karlie Kloss is fluent in multiple coding languages and has even set her own coding summer camp for teenage girls, yet men doubt and deride her skills. Since these women have already fulfilled the achievement of pleasing men aesthetically, their other accomplishments are not taken seriously. I am certain that men minimize the vastness of their expertise, too, because we have been taught that women are not inventors, scientists, mathematicians, researchers, but are rather activists at best and incubators at worst. When that is what men have learned since childhood, it is hard not to internalize these ideas and see women for who they are and always have been: clever and hardworking innovators. So, I think the best way to celebrate women’s history is to do exactly that: celebrate women’s contributions. Teach children that women have always played an important role in history, despite obstacles thwarting their efforts, which makes their success all the more impressive.