To honor, celebrate and remind everyone of the achievements of women throughout the years in our culture and society, March is recognized as “Women’s History Month.”
Ashley Eshelman, senior, talks about how a lot of times in our society, women are underestimated.
“In the past, a lot of achievements were neglected. Males often took credit for the work of women, so it is great that this month shines a light on female achievements throughout history and society that haven’t always been acknowledged.” Eshelman said.
After high school, Eshelman plans to pursue a career in the STEM field. While she is excited and ready for the challenge, she does think about how her environment may be considering historically it has been more of a male-dominated field.
“I wouldn’t say it scares me just because I know what I’m capable of and I’m not going to let other people convince me otherwise,” Eshelman said. “But it is something to consider and something to think about.”
Ashley Hobbs, Psychology teacher, said it’s important to highlight the achievements of women.
“With Caitlin Clark being the all-time leading scorer in college basketball, I love seeing so many little girls being inspired by women like her,” Hobbs said. “And, it’s great to see how much recognition girl’s basketball is starting to get as a result of that. It’s a perfect example of why highlighting women’s achievements can be beneficial.”
A notable experience for Hobbs was when she heard Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the keynote speaker for a National Social Studies conference.
“I just remember being really inspired by what she said and about how the adversity that she faced as a woman didn’t change what her goals were but helped to inspire her in continuing to reach for those goals,” Hobbs said. “Looking at the impact that a woman could have in a male-dominated field is so cool.”
Apart from being a teacher, Hobbs helps run a family business where she’s experienced gender stereotypes.
“People would walk right past me and walk to my husband and ask him if he was the owner, or if he was in charge of making decisions,” Hobbs said. “I don’t think people mean to be hurtful, but they have personal biases that are still influencing the assumptions they’re making about people like I couldn’t possibly be the owner because I’m a female.”
She finds herself in situations like these on a day-to-day basis.
“I still get asked questions like, ‘Why are you mowing the lawn?’ I love mowing the lawn. It’s loud, so no one can talk to me. I can put in my earbuds, listen to a podcast and get a good sweat in the summer. Like, why wouldn’t I be mowing the lawn?” Hobbs said. “I can recognize those as biases, but in little kids, it’s harder to see that and then we tell little girls what they should or shouldn’t be doing based on their gender. And that’s just something societal that I think we could do better about.”
Senior Principal Amy Sturges sees Women’s History Month as a way to highlight how at one point in time women didn’t have the same rights as men did and how things have changed since then.
“Some of my friends who are females who are in very higher up leadership positions have told me experiences where some of the men just refuse to acknowledge that she is higher up than they are and that kind of thing,” Sturges said.
In light of problems that women are faced with, Sturges emphasizes the lesson that her mom has always preached to her about, “Don’t ever let somebody say you can’t or you are not able to like you keep going on what you want.”
