Welcome to March, the best month of the year! Why is March the best month of the year you ask? Well, my birthday is this month!
Ok, that’s pretty cool but March is also National Women’s History Month. I thought what better way to celebrate this month-long recognition than a daily post about women in history? It’ll be like Blogtober but let’s call it #BlogWomensHistory.
I’m not one to focus too much on gender roles because I think it’s gotten a bit overblown since 2016. I wrote various posts about women in tech. I think people should be judged for their character and skills, not what gender they are. Unfortunately, that seems to be the pattern on social media. I see posts on LinkedIn annoucning “first woman” to get some sort of high level role or recognition but the post doesn’t reveal their name.
Today, this post came across my LinkedIn page. A job internship application at Oracle specifically lists the person applying to be “African American, Latino, Native American, and/or Women” to apply.
I’m pretty sure that is illegal and it definitely seems wrong to me. Although, I’m sad to see that people online think it’s a good thing to discriminate for a job based on race and gender. I wouldn’t want to be accepted for a job because I’m a woman. I would want to be accepted for the job because I was the best candidate in skill and brains.
However, I do think it’s important to recognize women in history because unfortunately, we haven’t always been equal. Thankfully, we live in a time in America where I believe women do have equal civil rights and liberties.
What is Women’s History Month?
Women’s History Month was established in 1987. This month is about recognizing women in history and their stories.
The History of Women in the Army
Some of you may know that I’m a military spouse. It’s not something I ever imagined being growing up, but since being in that role I’ve grown respect and purpose to support fellow military spouses. One of the ways I do that is by volunteering with the Society of Military Spouses in STEM, an organization that “supports active and retired military spouses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields reach their full potential.”
Today I came across a cool website that lists the history of women in the United States Army. Did you know American has their very own Mulan?
Check out Deborah Sampson. During the American Revolutionary War she disguised herself as a man and enlisted under the name Robert Shirtliffe (love the sense of humor). She was injured in battle and discovered to be a woman. Upon her recovery she was discharged from the Army. In later years Congress recognized her service “by granting her husband a widow’s pension after her death.”
Read about other women in the Army’s history.
My Own Personal History in the Making
This past weekend I had a very cool opportunity to meet the Second Lady, Karen Pence. It was uplifting to here her talk about employment opportunities and challenges for military spouses. I’m glad to hear we have a voice in government.
The Challenge
Let’s take this month to challenge ourselves to tell stories women we admire and share our accomplishments in history. I challenge you to post once a day, for the 31 days in March about women in history. Tag me or use BlogWomensHistory so I can follow!
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Lily Snyder 
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