Women’s Center plans diverse history month celebration

Congress has designated March as Women’s History Month, yet many still ask why we should celebrate women’s history.

BSU Women’s Center Coordinator Melissa Wintrow said she believes Women’s History needs to be celebrated in order to emphasize women’s roles in history.

“It [Women's history month] is not about getting back or getting mad-it’s about integrating women into the mainstream text. That is not an untruth, it’s just the way it is,” she said.

In 1992 a national study found history texts only devote 2 to 3 percent of their total content to women.

“The point is to get the whole story of history, in which women play a vital role,” Wintrow said.

According to Wintrow, many people get a wrong impression of the Women’s Center, immediately conjuring visions of a political agent.

“The Women’s Center is not anti-male, it is just focused on putting women at the center, because women haven’t been put at the center in the past,” she said.

In the past, the Women’s Center has focused on promoting women, and traditionally, more events and activities are planned in March for Women’s History Month.

This year, it has worked to bring together professional, cultural, and academic fields to truly celebrate in full.

Leading cultural and artistic venues have joined together to create the Cultural Network.

The network includes museums, libraries, the Idaho commission on the Arts, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Log Cabin Literary Center, and the Women’s Center.

This Cultural Network is bringing many events to Boise this month.

The Women Making History insert that appeared in the Arbiter and the Idaho Statesman last Thursday was created in order to recognize ordinary woman heroes that don’t get recognized in everyday life.

Wintrow said women who are excelling as college students, as BSU faculty or employees, as well as women around Boise and Idaho, are unsung heroes.

Last September, the Women’s Center accepted nominees for this project.

At first, they were only going to accept 35 nominations, but after receiving 43 nominations, Wintrow was able to stretch the budget and get enough volunteers to be able to publish profiles and articles about all 43 nominations.

“The Writing Project was really a group effort, a partnership with academics. The English Department and Professor Charlie Davis really helped a great deal,” Wintrow said.

College students were able to get internship credit by interviewing and writing articles about the nominated women.

For each 50-hour internship credit, each student had to interview and write about four women.

“The Idaho Statesmen really supported us with this project as well. They waived the distribution cost for including over 75,000 copies of the Women’s History insert in all the newspapers glorifying Idaho women’s achievements,” Wintrow said.

The insert involved 4-5 months of work at the Women’s Center, and includes a calendar of events for the month of March.

On March 1, all 43 of these outstanding women were honored at a special reception in the Jordan Ballroom in the SUB.

Rosalie Sorrels, a famous Idaho folk singer performed a musical tribute to the nominated women.

Several women representing the college students, the faculty and staff, and other Idaho addressed the nearly 200 in attendance.

All of the nominees also had a chance to get up and share some words of encouragement to the crowd.

“Last year the energy in the room was incredible, and there were only about 100 people attending,” Wintrow said.

Amy Wegner

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