Recognizing that yesteryear's movers and shakers provide courage and inspiration for today's strivers and leaders, we celebrate Women's History Month every March.
Women from history are foundational to the story of today's contemporary women. Recognizing women's achievements in all facets of life — science, community, government, literature, art, sports, medicine — has a significant impact on the development of self-respect and new opportunities for girls and young women.
Growing out of a small-town school event in California, Women's History Month now celebrates women's contributions to history, culture, and society. The United States has observed it annually throughout the month of March since 1987. At Â鶹ÊÓƵ Geauga and Twinsburg Academic Center, we celebrate Women's History Month with a full slate of engaging virtual events that will motivate, educate, and inspire everyone.
These events are free and open to the public.
Thursday, March 11, 2021
3:00 – 4:00 pm
Celebrating 100 Years of Women's Suffrage
The New York Historical Society's Center for Women's History will present how women won the right to vote, how that right was contested for women of marginalized groups, and the many other ways women have exercised and expressed their political identities.
Thursday, March 18, 2021
12:00 – 1:00 pm
The Second Wave of Feminism: The Lavender Menace
This engaging presentation is organized by the Women's History Museum. In 1949, French feminist author Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex, a foundational book that set the tone for the next surge of 20th-century women's activism. Betty Friedan followed this effort in 1963 with the publication of her seminal work, The Feminine Mystique, a work that is often associated with helping to ignite the second feminist wave in the United States. Using these two texts as a foundation, this program explores the Lesbian Feminist Movement and provides an overview of the Radicalesbians, an organization of feminist lesbians formed in the wake of the National Organization of Women's (NOW) exclusion of lesbian participation at the Second Congress to Unite Women. The Lavender Menace protest at the 1970 NOW Conference had myriad effects on the feminist movement, which can still be felt today.
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
12:00 – 1:00 pm
When Women Lost the Vote: A Revolutionary Story
Millions of American women were granted the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which marked its centennial in 2020. But more than a century earlier, women and free people of color legally held the vote in New Jersey for more than thirty years. Although New Jersey ultimately restricted the vote to propertied white men in 1807, women's fight for equality did not end there. Rather, that earlier Revolutionary fight became a rallying cry as another generation of women took up the mantle of the suffrage movement decades later.
When Women Lost the Vote is an inspiring story that explores how the American Revolution shaped women's political opportunities and activism and encourages visitors to reconsider their understanding of the timeline of women's history in America. It is also a cautionary tale about one of America's first voting rights crises. Museum of the American Revolution has organized this presentation.