Politics With Peyton: Here’s How to Celebrate Women’s History Month (The Right Way)

Each month seems to welcome a themed celebration, though not all causes – like Pride Month – warrant recognition. However, I have been fervently celebrating Women’s History Month this March — as should you. 

Most of these months can lean towards businesses using their platform as “allies” with women – a form of virtue signaling. When used correctly, celebration months can be used to inform and highlight important aspects of history that may be overlooked or misconstrued in high school history class. 

The American education needs a lot of reform, and one of the biggest problems plaguing the classroom is indoctrination. Indoctrination comes in two simple forms: ignoring history and rewriting history. One leaves a student uninformed, while the other leaves the student misinformed. 

Women’s history month is a time we can dedicate to challenging what we were taught, while also seeking out what we were not taught. It is not a time simply dedicated to third wave feminists looking to hate on the history of America. Instead, it is a time where first wave feminists, like myself, can examine the historical roadblocks that prohibited women from prospering in the world’s freest nation. 

A month dedicated to learning about Jane Austin, who revolutionized British culture; Elizabeth Stanton, who stood up for women’s suffrage; Malala Yousafzai, who fought for women’s education rights under the Taliban; and Harriet Tubman, who rescued an astonishing 70 slaves through the Underground Railroad. 

We should use Women’s History Month to recognize the achievements of women who propelled society forward. Men led the charge in our history books – they held the power.

Women’s right to vote has only been acknowledged for 102 years. You cannot expect thousands of years of oppression to be fixed in this short time frame. This is why we learn from past mistakes to avoid repeating them. 

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. America has made incredible progress over the past hundred years. Women now have every right men have.

Ignoring history weaves a foreboding web of contradictions, an entanglement that brings forth outrageous policies like abortion rights and third wave feminism. We should use Women’s History Month to recognize the achievements of women, but we should also use discernment on which figures deserve celebration. 

Margaret Sanger, according to many third wave feminists, was an American activist who fought for sex education and birth control freedom. But she was not a true champion for women’s rights. 

What history will not teach you is that Sanger was a eugenicist and a racist who created Planned Parenthood to exterminate the black population. Emily Douglas wrote in “Margaret Sanger; Pioneer of the Future” that in 1926, Sanger was a guest speaker at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Silverlake, New Jersey. She helped implement the “Negro Project,” which was created to sterilize black people and reduce the number of black children born in the south. 

Sanger wrote in a letter to Clarence Gamble on Oct. 19, 1939, “[We propose to] hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social service backgrounds and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. And we do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” 

This is why we have months like Women’s History Month. It is a time to celebrate our achievements, expose our mistakes and remember lessons learned to educate those around us.

Mackenzie is an opinion editor. Follow her on Twitter