Several learning opportunities that I have had during the past few
months have brought to my attention the almost total absence of women in the
curriculum studied by children in Texas schools. My Brownie Girl Scout
Troop recently completed the requirements for the Herstory Try-It and the
Ms. President Patch, which exposed me to a lot of wonderful materials
provided by Girl Scouts USA and The White House Project, materials on
women’s history and women in government. Additionally, I have been able to
visit the awesomely wonderful Women’s Museum of Dallas on two occasions and
have read several articles on the issues
and debates involved in its establishment. This has led me to do a little
research.
The truth is, in this day and age, shocking and unacceptable. We have
made only a couple of percentage points’ worth of progress since 1971 (the
year in which I was born) in which a study of thirteen popular U.S. History
books found that only 1% of the content was about women…a couple of points.
According to the American Association of University Women’s report How
Schools Shortchange Girls, a study on books taught in high school English
classes found that only one of the ten most frequently studied books was
written by a woman (none, by the way, were written by minorities).
My sister is taking U.S. Studies in the eighth grade and I asked her
at
Thanksgiving how many women she had studied in the class. She said none. I
suggested a petition if her teacher refused to rectify this. My sister said
that, when she spoke to him, her teacher told her that was a good point and
that their next project would be women in U.S. history. That’s all very
nice, but a project is not enough.
At every point in history, women have made up at least half of the
nation, at least half of this state and I daresay have perpetrated at least
half of the things that are worth studying. According to the curriculum
being fed to our daughters, however, Betsy Ross, Grandma Moses, Amelia
Earhart, Marie Curie and Rosa Parks are the only women ever to have
contributed anything of worth to the nation…and their accomplishments were
worth only a few words each.
It inevitably lowers the self esteem of our daughters to be taught
that
people like themselves have contributed little and are not worth
studying. It does not encourage them to make their own important
contributions if they are taught this way. Studies have shown that
curriculum content does transmit values and the value that this curriculum
is transmitting is that women are worthless.
We must take charge of the curriculum and change this now, before
another generation of daughters grows up in a learning environment so
hostile to who they are. I encourage you to visit with your child’s social
studies teacher and other teachers and find out if women are equally covered
in the curriculum. When you find that they are not, get busy. Insist
that changes be made in the curriculum and not just token changes. Follow
up on and see that the changes are made. Remember Title IX.
We must also be active on the state level to see that the academic
standards and tests are made equitable, for this is where the change must
occur. Local school curriculums are driven by state requirements so talk
to your legislators. Let them know that this is an important issue that has
been ignored for far too long.
Don’t forget to educate your children yourself in the meantime. Let
them know that history is not just about men and wars. They should know the
names of Jane Addams, Lucretia Mott, Dolores Huerta, Wilma Mankiller and
Queen Liliuokalani. They need to know that the contributions that
women make, the contributions that they, our daughters, will make, are
important. So important that their parents will fight for them.
