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We Are Salem - March 4, 2021

We Are Salem - March 4, 2021

We Are Salem newsletter header

What Does it Mean to “Celebrate” Women’s History Month?

While the meanings are many, several matters come to the forefront for me as I think about this question. Here are a few of my own reflections:

Celebrating Women’s History Month means recognizing women participate in history. While this statement may seem uncontroversial, it is, on occasion and in some contexts, a revolutionary notion. In some contexts, women—both as individuals and the term itself—have been understood as outside of history or culture, as universal or possessing essential characteristics that transcend time. Celebrating Women’s History Month challenges this. It reminds us that we celebrate women’s histories rather than a unitary history.

Moreover, asking what it means to celebrate can help us move beyond “celebratory history” per se to a more engaged, critical reflection on those histories. Doing so calls us to recognize the flaws as well as the successes of historical figures. To remember that recognizing women’s role in history asks us to move not just from a “great men” approach to history to a “great women” approach, but beyond that, it asks us to rethink what is worthy of celebration or counts as greatness, and to move toward a more inclusive approach to understanding our past, present, and future.

And, such an approach pushes us to what Kimberle Crenshaw taught us to call an intersectional approach. While we have come to use her term to refer to ways particular axes of diversity meet in lives and thus to re-emphasize the immense variety of women’s histories, Crenshaw reminds us to look to the structures that shape lives as also part of women’s history.

So, as I write this I think of Crenshaw and Gerda Lerner, and many more. I think of two quotations on which I often ruminate:

Anonymous was a Woman. (a modification of Virginia Woolf’s point)

and

One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. (Simone de Beauvoir)

Across a lifetime, the meaning of these quotations, for me, has changed. So, too, has the meaning of Women’s History Month.

Yes, as we celebrate, we ask questions. We always will. We continue to learn, to build, to move forward grounded in critical inquiry and hope.

Susan Henking
Interim President

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Women’s History Month 2021

Each year we devote a month to celebrating the accomplishments of women. It is not because women’s history should not be celebrated every day of the year or because it can be contained entirely in a month. It is a dedication to focus on the overlooked role that women have had in our country’s history. The original effort to designate a time to celebrate women’s history began with only a week in 1982, which was then expanded to a month in 1987.

For nearly 250 years, Salem Academy and College has educated women and girls, developing women leaders. This work is deeply connected with the original text from the proclamation in 1982 that stated women “helped found and build our Nation.” From 1995 until now, the annual proclamation designating March as Women’s History Month is signed by each president. This proclamation has never been signed by a female president, and this is a striking reminder of how women’s inequality persists.

The pandemic has uncovered the stark inequalities that still exist between men and women. Women have been forced to take on additional roles educating their children while working from home, and women account for an overwhelming majority of the jobs lost in the pandemic. These job losses are tied directly to women’s lack of access to certain fields that are more stable and their lack of access to childcare due to the continued pay gap between men and women.

Educational institutions across the United States play a crucial role in providing women with the opportunities to enter the careers that have been long dominated by men. Yet, these opportunities are only one part of the solution. Another part of the solution is to uncover and redistribute the hidden work of women in the household. As we celebrate the many accomplishments of women, we can reflect on the role that women have in building our country both in the public and private spheres.

This year it was the tutoring in fractions or algebra that became an additional part-time job for many women. The role of technical adviser to host children’s learning devices and overlapping Zoom meetings. This year, more than ever, we can celebrate and recognize the role that women have in “helping to build and found our Nation” in the most trying times. The inequalities, as many women we celebrate this month have proven, will not correct themselves. They will not disappear overnight or over the next 250 years unless direct action is taken to eliminate these disparities.

Elizabeth Wemlinger
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy
Co-director of Center for Women’s Political Engagement and Public Service 
Image Credit: Ada (found object sculpture) © 2021 Mark Casey Milestone
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Women in Mathematics

The role of women in mathematics has a long and storied past, especially in the original quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (well, it was astrology back then; let’s call it astronomy instead). 

Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 370–415) loved “practical science,” primarily embracing the role of teacher. She drafted new versions of classic mathematics and astronomy texts, adding her own commentaries, with the intent to make these more accessible and understandable for her students. Often, when rewriting classics, she improved upon them, such as when she added new astronomical tables to Ptolemy’s text using a novel base-60 calculation technique, with a tool similar to an abacus, to predict when certain events, such as planetary conjunctions, would occur.

Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace (1815–1852) broke barriers into the patriarchal world of science and mathematics, with encouragement from her mother (the estranged wife of the poet Lord Byron). In her teens, she was introduced to Charles Babbage and was instrumental in translating others’ work and adding her own original commentary. She created one of the first algorithms designed for a computing machine. Ada believed that the limits of a computing machine went beyond number-crunching. She imagined the possibility of using such machines to create complex patterns to translate into music—she could be credited as a pioneer of electronic dance music (EDM)!

While Ada was adamant that machines would not do more than what their human controllers told the machines to do, her pioneering work has inspired many scientists, programmers, artists, and game developers.

Hypatia would be pleased that Salem Academy and College provides a climate where women research, teach, and learn the liberal arts unfettered. Ada, too, would be proud, especially if she knew of the Academy’s Robotics Team and the accomplishments of Salem graduates.

Paula Grafton Young
Professor of Mathematics
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Events Celebrating Women’s History Month

The Center for Women’s Political Engagement and Public Service is excited to join the community celebrating the many accomplishments of women. The Center will be hosting several virtual events throughout the month, and we have put together a list of virtual events hosted by other organizations for every day during the month. From virtual art exhibits to uncovering new details about the life of Eleanor Roosevelt each of these events will be a fun and informative way to observe Women’s History Month. We hope you join us celebrating women’s history every day this month. The links to events are on our website and Facebook page.

Resources and Highlights for Women’s History Month

The Gramley Library website has a section set up with resources for Women’s History Month.

Robin Howell
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Get to Know the Salem Board of Trustees 250th Subcommittee

Over the next several weeks, we are continuing to profile one member of the Salem Academy and College Board of Trustees 250th Subcommittee in We Are Salem.

This week we are pleased to profile Robin R. Howell A’79. After graduating from Salem Academy, Robin earned her B.A. from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1983, majoring in American History. She is a North Carolina State Bar certified paralegal and currently works for Wachovia Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. Prior to Wachovia, she worked for Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC. Robin has served Salem in various roles as an alumna, including serving as President of the Salem Academy Alumnae Board and chairman of the Gramley dinner, an annual event sponsored by the Charlotte Salem Alumnae club. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

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