The other night I took a trip to Target to shop for items that I certainly don’t need (as one does). I turned left past the dollar section, headed towards the back of the store, past the card section. I saw a cute Easter card so I stopped to admire the vibrant colors and cute bunnies on the cards. As I kept walking, however, one section of the cards made me stop in my tracks. The decorative logo labeled in shades of pink and sparkles read “Cards For Women. By Women.”

The first thing I noticed was that each and every card had pink on it, with some variation of glitter, sparkles and flowers. Then I noticed the cheesy sayings written in cursive, swirly fonts — “Kick butt and look cute” and “The Two Best Things a Woman can be… Exactly WHO and WHAT She Wants To Be.” Seeing these cards on display at Target further persuaded me to write this article and share my thoughts.

Women’s History Month is celebrated during the month of March each year. It originally started as “Women’s History Week” on March 7th of 1982, when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28, authorizing and requesting the President to proclaim Women’s History Week. Between the years of 1988 and 1994, however, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. From womenshistorymonth.gov, the official Women’s History Month site, it states, “…join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.”

But my question is: Is holding a Women’s History Month really appreciating the role of women throughout history, or is the whole movement counterintuitive?

Before I get too far into this, let me preface my argument by saying that I agree with the fact that women were oppressed throughout much of history- and many are still to this day around the world. Taking my philosophy class (one that I absolutely love, by the way) as an example: we have not learned about a single female philosopher thus far. Women could not vote until August 18th, 1920. There were many places throughout the world where women could not drive, could not work, could not even leave the house without permission. In the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, which was based on the author Khaled Hosseini’s 2003 trip to Afghanistan, the female characters could only leave the house wearing burqas and face and body coverings and being accompanied by a male from the home. 

Even today, I hear of girls being told that, because they’re women, they can’t do something, or that the reason something happened to them stemmed from the fact that they are women. Over the years, I have heard coaches call a group of their male players “a bunch of ladies” and far worse wording that I am sure you can imagine. 

But living in modern America as a woman, I do not feel that women are inferior to men. I do believe, however, that having a Women’s History Month inadvertently implies that message. 

Isn’t the goal in our society today to have men and women equal? Is the goal not to cherish and celebrate everyone as equals and spread equality between everyone? In my opinion, Women’s History Month implies the idea that women need extra attention and appreciation because we are not equal to men. Women’s history is history. If people want to make a change, they need to start by adding more women and what they did to our history books, not making pink sparkly cards that are only sold once a year.

In my philosophy class, we recently talked about how many kids’ toys follow the color schemes of pink for girls and blue for boys. We discussed how this could make young girls think that they must like pink and glitter and rainbows and unicorns. As a female myself, I can say I dislike the color pink, and I know many other people that dislike it as well. So if I were to receive a Women’s History Month card that said “Kick Butt and Look Cute,” covered in pink hues and glitter, I would not feel especially appreciated or heard. 

Alongside the Target cards, another example of companies taking advantage of the month of March is Hershey. Hershey is selling ‘HerSHEy’ bars, designed in bright colors and facts about women on them. To me, this is just saying, “women need more attention.” How long are the HerSHEy bars sold for, one may ask? Only in March, which in my eyes seems more of a way for a company to make a profit than to demonstrate actual care for Women’s History Month. The fact that they provide information on different women is great, but such information should be taught in more schools instead of promoted on candy wrappers. 

When I asked my friends at school, many had no idea that March was Women’s History Month, many of these friends being women themselves. In classrooms across the country, Women’s History Month brings no change to the way students are educated. Instead, it largely goes unsaid. 

I will say that Hershey has proven to have good intentions with their chocolates. “Hershey’s is also donating $150,000 to Girls on the Run, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting, empowering, and inspiring girls to realize their limitless potential,” an article from NorthCentralPA.com states.

Though their charity is admirable. companies like Hershey go about their support in the wrong way. Women’s History Month should not be something that needs to be talked about — it should just be history.

Nancy Goldstone wrote an article for TIME Magazine in March of 2018 arguing the same point I am trying to make. There should be no such thing as women’s history. All history is history, and should be taught and appreciated the same. “As Morgan Freeman said in a 2005 interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes,” Goldstone begins, “‘I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.” That is exactly how I feel about Women’s History Month,” Goldstone states. “Women’s history is world history.”