Why We're Excited To Celebrate Women's History Month At Elite Daily

Growing up, I had no idea there was a month designated Women’s History Month. If my high school assigned projects or pushed efforts promoting it, I either wasn’t paying attention or the initiative wasn’t strong enough to resonate with a bunch of apathetic 14- to 18-year-olds.

At 26 years old, it doesn’t shock me that I had no idea presidents, since 1995, have proclaimed March a month-long celebration of women’s accomplishments and heroic feats, as well as a time to constructively digest the continued discrimination and tangible societal limitations of gender inequality.

Also at 26 years old, as a senior editor at Elite Daily, I'm in a position not only to provide information but also to generate discussion. My co-workers and I hope to provide a more exciting way to engage with a subject that, if approached devoid of specificities and emotion, can seem dense and impersonal (and like just another chapter in that history textbook you never read).

The role of women throughout history has affected every one of our, both male and female, lives far beyond the scope of our immediate awareness.

In December 1977, March 8 became the United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace, and in 1981 Congress deemed March 7-14, 1982 Women’s History Week. Each year after that, Congress would reinstate a week to celebrate women throughout history and, since 1995, presidents have proclaimed March in its entirety the period of recognition.

Women’s History Month is something that we should be excited to celebrate every year. At Elite Daily, we regularly tout female accomplishments and highlight inspirational women, like in our I Want Your Job series, and point out roles you definitely had no idea women played in history (like basically being responsible for beer).

As much fun as it is to discuss these women and recent feats in empowerment, the reality remains that the US wage gap is very real (full-time women workers earn 78 cents to men’s dollar), one in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence, girls in just four out of 10 countries advance educationally at the same rates as boys, and our rights over our own bodies, from how we dress to what healthcare we have available (47,000 women die from unsafe abortions every year), are routinely questioned and jeopardized.

This isn't to say gender-based discrimination is more important than ANY other type of discrimination because we should be working toward the betterment of all lives globally. This is just to say, in March, we're giving women the focus they deserve in a convenient, centralized platform under our topic page: Women’s History Month.

Because #HerStory is all of our story.