“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to forment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”– Abigail Adams, U.S. First Lady, 1776March is one of the best months of the whole year. Whether the month comes in true to form like a lion or more like a lamb, spring is in the air. For us Coloradoans, it’s the 70 degrees one day versus a blizzard the next that makes the month so interesting.It’s also Women’s History Month. Women’s History Week began in 1978 in Sonoma County, Calif., and was recognized in a joint congressional resolution in 1981. It wasn’t until 1987 that Congress expanded the weeklong celebration to a month-long one.Women obtained the right to vote in 1920, not really that long ago. Putting it in perspective, my mother was born four years after my grandmother was given the right to vote. My mother is still alive. The right to vote didn’t automatically change the world or bring new awareness to the lives of women. It was thought that the majority of women voted the same as their husbands or fathers.The decade of the1960s was a bit like the March of women’s history. Up until then, few studied or wrote about women’s history. Once women began attending colleges and universities, they found little of themselves in history books or course offerings; there was no formal doctoral training in the subject.The study of history itself was all about political history and key political events, which typically precluded women. The 1970s brought about a change in the way we view history – historians began to take into account the social aspects of American life to include health, ethnicity, lifestyle and poverty.Maybe Carol Hanisch’s 1969 essay “The Personal is Political” was an “aha” moment in the women’s movement. In a nutshell, this phrase refers to the fact that personal problems are political. And to break that down even further, whatever happens in the political arena affects our everyday lives. Politics impacts the food we consume, the education of our children, poverty, crime, health care and everything else; right down to the air we breathe.A female friend recently told me that it doesn’t matter whom she votes for, that it doesn’t make a difference. And she wasn’t referring to Washington partisanship and gridlock either. I beg to differ. Every time we go to the polls, we can make a difference.Maybe rather than “We’ve come a long way, baby,” it should be “It’s taking a long time, but let’s keep at it!”A special thank you to our female reporters who work so hard every day to make The New Falcon Herald a great publication; while at the same time doing the things they do to make our country a better place – raising families, volunteering and being involved in our community in small ways that make big differences.Enjoy this crazy month of March, and we’ll see you in April!– Deb, Michelle and the NFH team
