Women’s History Month

March 10, 2023 | DEI Department

A graphic that says "Celebrate Women's History Month"

Women’s History Month has been celebrated annually since Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 in 1987. In a society rooted in patriarchy, women have had to overcome many barriers to excel in a variety of roles inside and outside of the home. Using numerous strategies from the civil rights movement, Women’s History Month brings awareness of the contributions and achievements of women in the United States who are often overlooked.

Every year, the National Women’s History Alliance announces a theme for Women’s History Month. This year’s theme, “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” pays homage to women from the past and present who have been active in all types of media and storytelling. Learn more here.

Advocates of the Community

Angela Davis

Angela Davis is a prominent political activist, scholar, and writer. She is well known for books like Women, Race and Class and has worked as a professor and activist who advocates for gender equity, prison reform, and Black liberation. Davis’s advocacy and writings been instrumental in spotlighting the intersectionality of socially oppressed identities in the United States. Notably, “Davis’ Black feminism, detailed in her foundational 1981 book Women, Race and Class, revealed the interconnectedness of systems of oppression and made Black working class women’s resistance visible and central to feminist theory and action and Black liberation.” Davis had close ties to many resistance movements against oppression, including the Black Panthers. She continues to be active as a revolutionary thought leader, lecturing at universities and discussing issues on race, the justice system, and women’s rights.

“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”

―Angela Davis


Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, media producer, and political activist highly known for her activism in the 1960s and ‘70s. She was heavily involved with the Women’s Liberation Movement, fighting for equal opportunities and rights for women. She has focused on many topics, such as property, voting, reproductive, and equal rights for women, as well as women in the workplace. Steinem cofounded Ms., the first feminist magazine, which has supported multiple feminist and civil rights groups in their journey for equality. In our male-dominated society, Steinem fearlessly spoke through the media and her journalism about the challenges women faced. For many years—and still today—she brings the value of women of all races to the public eye. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Steinem the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her activism.

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”

―Gloria Steinem

Ways to Celebrate Women’s History Month

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