My Problem With Women's History Month

This is the last week of "Women's History Month" which comes on the tail-end of "Black History Month," and precedes the oddly less-celebrated "Arab History Month."

I thought, in the spirit of the season, to write an article on Women's History Month (WHM). But, I confess, I have my reservations about the holi-month.

I had wanted to find a woman from history that almost no one knows anything about anymore.

A woman far more exceptional than the usual "heroes" trotted out by our culture to be displayed on our Netflix and Amazon dashboards.

Candidly, I found it difficult to write that article. Not for lack of examples, but because it doesn't really do justice to the queasy feeling I have.

So instead, here is a short article about my problem with WHM, or BHM, or any other history month for that matter.

I also threw in a few examples of extraordinary women from history you likely didn't hear about this past month.

The Problem

In brief, the philosophy behind it disturbs me.

As far as I can tell, the celebration that is due to the women of history has less to do with their actual lives, and more to do with celebrating the fact that they are women.

I have no problem celebrating women. Just as I have no problem celebrating men (despite the conspicuous lack of a Men's History Month).

When I celebrate women, however, I celebrate their lives and their virtues.

That is, I admire the development of traits that make them both uniquely human, as well as the traits that make them uniquely women. But not the fact that they are women

It seems to me the philosophy guiding WHM and other segregated months does not share that perspective.

Instead we are asked (told?) to celebrate certain women for the mere fact that they did something and they were women when they did it.

"She was the first woman to eat an apple on a Sunday in Ohio" or "She was the first Woman allowed to use a restroom in the Capitol Building."

Are these to be the champions for our little girls today?

I don't necessarily have a problem with these examples, but they don't strike me as particularly worth celebrating in most cases.

Why shouldn't we look at remarkable women regardless of whether they were the first to do something that a man had already done?

For instance, no one describes Joan of Arc as the "first woman to command armies in France." Nor do we call her "the first teenage girl to command the King of France."

No, we just talk about who she was and what she did.

She was a holy woman, who got stuff done while the men stood there with their heads up in dark smelly places.

Why don't we recognize her more in WHM?

It also isn't obvious to me why a man cannot be a champion for women, like the Lord Jesus Christ, for example. Or that a woman cannot be a champion for men, like the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Or that we need a month dedicated to certain "minorities" as if these individuals are so weak and sensitive that they cannot be heard without the help of White people.

Nonetheless, the presumptive narrative is that women today should be inspired by this "first woman to..." or that "woman who isn't white and that makes her interesting..."

All this notwithstanding the obvious progressive tint to it all. Margaret Thatcher and Sandra Day O'Connor are names scarcely mentioned by celebrants of WHM.

To top it off, in order to recognize that women have something unique to celebrate by virtue of their being women, mustn't there be some objective notion of womanhood?

Clearly, that idea has been vociferously challenged in recent times.

Even beyond recent "developments" in gender theory, the moderate still must admit celebrating women as such requires an appeal to a standard of objective womeness.

Admitting there is anything meant by the word "woman" means there are things not meant by the word "woman." It means some women better fulfill that meaning than others. It means there is a standard.

This "standard" would have to be transcendent enough that all women who were properly women could participate in its nature.

It would have to be unchanging and timeless, so that what is praiseworthy in a woman makes sense from one moment to the next.

It's anyone's guess what could possibly stand in for such a standard. I would suggest my own working theory —

A wholly-benevolent conscious mind, changless and timeless, with unlimited knowledge and power, who is the necessarily existent and ontologically independent creative source of all men and women, and who is the ontological foundation for an objective sense of identity, purpose, and value for all living creatures.

Just an initial sketch. Feel free to run with it.

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In conclusion, I think the values and ideas behind WHM are generally misplaced.

Since we are likely stuck with it (for better or worse), perhaps we can choose to celebrate some truly remarkable women who have nothing to do with climate change, being ethnic, politics, or sexism.

To that end, here are a few of my suggestions. Briefly described.

Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was 15 when she fought in her first battle. She was the daughter of a poor farmer. She had never held a sword before in her life.

Over the next year, she would lead a beleaguered French army through a litany of victories over the dominant English military.

In a matter of months she had reversed a losing military situation that French commanders had been stuck in for years.

How did a poor French girl who had never held a sword become the greatest French commander until Napoleon?

She claimed her success came by following the voice of God. Not in a metaphorical sense either.

Beginning at 13, she began hearing voices (yes, voices) from God. Multiple voices claiming to give her messages from heaven.

Before you write her off as a classic schizo, remember that schizophrenics tend not to be great military commanders.

What's more, she made a number of detailed predictions about battle outcomes months in advance that turned out to be correct.

Even more impressive, she correctly predicted the location of a lost French relic (a sword).

She told the King it was hidden in a chapel in a remote part of France she had never been to in her life. The Kingsmen found it exactly where she had described.

She wore that sword into battle.

She was betrayed by French commanders who were disloyal to the French King. She was taken prisoner by the English, tried and eventually executed.

At 15, she was able to argue advanced theology against Archbishops of the Catholic Church to the point where they found it difficult to justify her execution.

Still, they found it in their hearts to burn a teenager alive.

She died a martyr for France and God. She lived an absolute badass.

St. Catherine of Siena

Catherine was the youngest of 25 children living in 14th century Italy. At the age of seventeen, she took a vow of chastity and began living in the desert as an anchorite.

In other words, she walked into the desert by herself and learned to survive on prayer alone. She carved a home out of a rock.

Some years later, she began to travel Italy, helping the poor and writing letters.

Her letters are famous today. They were addressed to various people who had never met her, but with whose spiritual and physical struggles she seemed intimately aware.

She spoke to thousands of men and women on living a good life. Leaders of governments began to seek her advice, and she eventually prevented civil war in Italy.

She became the personal advisor to the Pope, despite the fact that he must have been a racist misogynist, seeing as he was a Catholic man living in the 14th century.

She worked most of her life to reform the Church, and the Vatican often followed her advice.

She died at the Vatican, a hero to all Italians, and a saint to Catholics.

Julian of Norwich

We know little of Julian of Norwich, but what we do know is extraordinary.

She was an English mystic living at the same time as St. Catherine.

When Julian was young, she was dying of an unknown illness. One day, she suddenly had a vision of Christ on the Cross.

In her vision she saw a number of vivid passions, and she spoke with Christ for a long time.

Her fever broke the next day, and she too became an anchorite. She constructed for herself a single roomed stone hut and sealed off the door.

(David Goggins has nothing on her...)

She spent her whole life in prayer and in anchorage. When she was in her fifties she wrote a book — Revelations of Divine Love.

The book was the culmination of more than 20 years of contemplation about her vision. It is one of the most famous mystical writings of the Catholic Church written by any man or woman.

Revelations, written by a woman with no formal education, is considered a literary masterpiece by religious and secular scholars alike.

It is about the compassion Christ has for the world. That is, it is about the compassion we should have for one another.

Thanks for reading!

Further Reading

Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

Our Idea of God by Thomas Morris