March Is Women’s History Month. and the National Women’s History Project has declared this year’s theme to be “Women: Builders of Communities and Dreams.” They offer a number of suggestions for how to involve your community in the celebration: schools, newspapers, places of worship, and others.
If you simply want to learn more about women in history, the History Channel has a special online exhibit celebrating women “trailblazers” and women’s “firsts.” It’s fun, and could be inspiring for older kids. It does, however, focus on “greats” history (history as a series of things “great” people did) and ignores (except for a short history of women’s sufferage) the broader issues of social and economic history that impacted women’s lives and motivated their actions. (Full disclosure: I almost became a professional historian, so I’m fussy about things like that.) I’ll try to dig up some other interesting resources over the course of the month.