Women's History Month Education Guide
Women’s history month is March 1st to 31st. I have created this women’s history month education guide to help educators, parents and more bring cultural sensitive and accurate knowledge of women’s history month.
How Women's History Month Came to Be
The first Women’s History Month occurred in 1978 in Santa Rosa, California. It was a local celebration, and it was a week, not a month. After this, Women’s History Week celebrations were nationwide the following year. In 1980, the National Women’s History Alliance (formerly National Women’s History Project) fought for recognition of this holiday. The week of March 8th was made National Women’s History Week by President Jimmy Carter. In 1987, it became Women’s History Month. The National Women’s History Alliance selects the yearly theme.
Source: Women’s History Month | National Women’s History Museum (womenshistory.org)
2022 National Women's History Theme
“Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope”
“The 2022 Women’s History theme, “Providing Healing, Promoting Hope,” is both a tribute to the ceaseless work of caregivers and frontline workers during this ongoing pandemic and also a recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history.
Instead of selecting national honorees, the NWHA encourages groups throughout the country to use the theme to recognize and honor women in their own communities, organizations, or agencies.” –National Women’s History Alliance
As a speech-language pathologist, this theme is personally motivating. There are so many women who have changed the way that we heal and can provide healing beyond medicine or science.
An Important Female Figure in Healthcare
Rebecca Lee Crumpler- She was the first female African American doctor in the United States and got her degree during the civil war. She graduated in 1864. Dr. Crumpler originally practiced in Boston, where she graduated, before moving to Virginia to care for freed slaves with no access to healthcare. At this time, there were few white doctors who would treat freed slaves. Her book is titled A Book of Medical Discourses: In Two Parts. The book is about “treating of the cause, prevention, and cure of infantile bowel complaints, from birth to the close of the teething period, or till after the fifth year. It also contains miscellaneous information concerning the life and growth of beings, the beginning of womanhood, also the cause, prevention, and cure of many of the most distressing complaints of women, and youth of both sexes.” Her work addresses the health disparities black people face due to environmental factors. Prof. Downs notes that writing and publishing A Book of Medical Discourse was part of Dr. Lee Crumpler’s way of fighting the racist notion that Black Americans were more likely to fall ill and die because they were somehow physiologically different from white Americans. Thank you, Dr. Crumpler for your work in making healthcare more equitable and available for minority groups.
Dr. Lee Crumpler died in Boston on March 9, 1895, at the age of 64, and she is buried in the city’s Fairview Cemetery.
Much is still unknown about Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler. There has not been any picture that is confirmed to be her, including the one above.
Sources:
Influential Women in Healthcare History – PlushCare
Celebrating Black Excellence: Rebecca Lee Crumpler – Centreville Sentinel
Who is Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler? (medicalnewstoday.com)
Lesson Plan
Essential Questions:
- What contributes to health inequity?
- What are some long term consequences of health inequity? Who is affected? Who is not affected?
- A May 2020 study estimates that in the U. S., Black people were 3.57 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white people. Similarly, the risk of death within the Latinx population was nearly twice that of the white population. What may contribute to this difference?
- What are biases? How can they impact our treatment of others?
Resources:
- Cover the definitions of bias and inequity.
- Bias: A person prefers a certain idea over another. Kid-friendly example: For example, if someone knows that you like chocolate ice cream and they prefer that their friends like chocolate ice cream, they will treat those people better. Older Students: A newspaper might be biased towards a particular political party due to their employees sharing the same political beliefs as that party.
- Equality: everyone has the same thing
- Equity/Fairness: everyone has what they need
- Inequity: unfair differences between groups.
- Teach about Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler.
- Have students read the following article: Racism in healthcare: Statistics and examples (medicalnewstoday.com)
- Discuss in small groups/as a class the questions above.
- Have students take a Harvard Implicit Bias Association Test for homework and discuss the following questions:
- Which test(s) did you take?
- What made you pick those tests?
- What did you learn after taking those tests that you may not have know before?
- Where do you think your biases may come from?
For more resources to add to your women’s history month education guide, visit:
Women’s History Month – For Teachers (womenshistorymonth.gov)
My Move: Supporting Women-Owned Moving Companies
This resource was given to me by an amazing reader, Grace S, who did a project on the women’s suffrage movement! Keep up the important work, Grace!: https://wyomingllcattorney.com/Blog/Womens-Suffrage-and-Voting-Rights-in-Wyoming
All throughout the month of March, I will highlight different amazing women we may never heard of.
