THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release March 2, 2010
WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH, 2010
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BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Countless women have steered the course of our history, and their stories are ones of steadfast determination. From reaching for the ballot box to breaking barriers on athletic fields and battlefields, American women have stood resolute in the face of adversity and overcome obstacles to realize their full measure of success. Women’s History Month is an opportunity for us to recognize the contributions women have made to our Nation, and to honor those who blazed trails for women’s empowerment and equality.
Women from all walks of life have improved their communities and our Nation. Sylvia Mendez and her family stood up for her right to an education and catalyzed the desegregation of our schools. Starting as a caseworker in city government, Dr. Dorothy Height has dedicated her life to building a more just society. One of our young heroes, Caroline Moore, contributed to advances in astronomy by discovering a supernova at age 14.
When women like these reach their potential, our country as a whole prospers. That is the duty of our Government — not to guarantee success, but to ensure all Americans can achieve it. My Administration is working to fulfill this promise with initiatives like the White House Council on Women and Girls, which promotes the importance of taking women and girls into account in Federal policies and programs. This council is committed to ensuring our Government does all it can to give our daughters the chance to achieve their dreams.
As we move forward, we must correct persisting inequalities. Women comprise over 50 percent of our population but hold fewer than 17 percent of our congressional seats. More than half our college students are female, yet when they graduate, their male classmates still receive higher pay on average for the same work. Women also hold disproportionately fewer science and engineering jobs. That is why my Administration launched our Educate to Innovate campaign, which will inspire young people from all backgrounds to drive America to the forefront of science, technology, engineering, and math. By increasing women’s participation in these fields, we will foster a new generation of innovators to follow in the footsteps of the three American women selected as 2009 Nobel Laureates.
Our Nation’s commitment to women’s rights must not end at our own borders, and my Administration is making global women’s empowerment a core pillar of our foreign policy. My Administration created the first Office for Global Women’s Issues and appointed an Ambassador at Large to head it. We are working with the United Nations and other international institutions to support women’s equality and to curtail violence against women and girls, especially in situations of war and conflict. We are partnering internationally to improve women’s welfare through targeted investments in agriculture, nutrition, and health, as well as programs that empower women to contribute to economic and social progress in their communities. And we are following through on the commitments I made in Cairo to promote access to education, improve literacy, and expand employment opportunities for women and girls.
This month, let us carry forth the legacy of our mothers and grandmothers. As we honor the women who have shaped our Nation, we must remember that we are tasked with writing the next chapter of women’s history. Only if we teach our daughters that no obstacle is too great for them, that no ceiling can block their ascent, will we inspire them to reach for their highest aspirations and achieve true equality.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 2010 as Women’s History Month. I call upon all our citizens to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities that honor the history, accomplishments, and contributions of American women.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.
BARACK OBAMA
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Women’s History Month Links:
International Women’s Day 2010
National Women’s History Month – Library of Congress
National Women’s History Project
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The Hot Mommas Project is an award-winning venture housed at the George Washington University School of Business that makes women’s stories teachable to provide scalable, global access to mentors and role models. The project has been featured in Prentice Hall textbooks, the Washington Post, and NPR.
Claim your place in history. Get involved with the Hot Mommas Project TODAY. Nominate a dynamic woman 18 or older (yourself included) here or find us on Twitter to get started.
In celebration of International Women’s Month, I am going to read and share Inspirational books written by Inspiring female authors.
My first and most favorite recommendation is “Fear to Freedom,” written by Rosemary Trible. An amazing woman who was raped in a horrifying experience a year before her husband Paul was elected to congress.
Her book is based on her experience, strength, and strong conviction. It inspires women! It’s about big dreams, the death of dreams, and becoming bold enough to dream again and make a difference in the world for good. It’s about growing out of cultural boxes, and moving into racial reconciliation.
Alot of people don’t realise that the majority of people hungry around the world are women… and yet these women produce 60-80% of the food! The answer to hunger, I really believe lies with women. You can also send a message of solidarity to women across the world for International Women’s Day at http://www.wfp.org/women
FYI here is a little about how, over the decades, International Women’s Day has changed it’s view of “who” is oppressing women:
International Women’s Day was created in 1910 to promote socialist political objectives and was always referred to by the Communist name ‘International Working Women’s Day’. It was restricted primarily to the Soviet bloc. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the word ‘working’ was largely dropped along with it’s socialist meaning. Beginning in the 1970’s IWD became a vehicle for feminist concerns. Whereas IWWD was previously used to highlight women’s oppression by a class of bourgeois upper class men and women, 1970s feminists changed the basis of the day by stating that men as a class of “chauvinists” completely controlled women who were each and all men’s victims. Women were no longer viewed as part of the bourgeois upper class. One can say that in the 1970s IWD became a brand new IWD with males -all males- for the first time being promoted as the single enemy. But even with this new ideological basis IWD limped along as a fairly insignificant world event until 1980s when “Patriarchy Theory” was elaborated as the brand new theory and also new basis for the need to observe IWD. It was in the 1980s that women began to celebrate IWD in vast numbers (mostly out of a new concern that men were out to oppress them) and on this basis the event has continued to grow primarily in terms of a gender war, the principle being that men alone as a privileged class hurt women alone as the oppressed class. International Men’s Day has a completely different reason for coming into being. Although IMD objectives occasionally intersect with those of IWD, such as advocating equality between the sexes, it is predominately about celebrating positive male role models, a very worthy aim in a social context which tends to highlight ONLY males behaving badly. Said concisely, International Women’s Day started as a day for women to promote socialist objectives, especially for proletarian women to fight against oppression by the upper bourgeois class comprised of men and women both. In the 1970’s it became a new movement claiming that men alone oppressed women, and that IWD will be used as a vehicle to promote, primarily, an assumed gender war. Said differently IWD shifted from being a class war, to a gender war. International Men’s Day is not based on the assumption of a gender war. IMD is primarily about promoting and celebrating positive male role models in a contemporary world context which is obsessed with teaching all young boys and girls that males behave badly, and only badly.
Here is the International Men’s Day website: http://www.international-mens-day.com/
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