Lots of our holidays celebrate men. Martin Luther King Jr. President’s Day. Saint Patrick’s Day. Jesus, several times, particularly Christmas and Easter. Memorial Day and Veterans’ Day, until recently mostly about men, now including a growing minority of women. Founding fathers on the fourth of July. Christopher Columbus, still has fans not so much as before we were invited to view him from a Native American perspective. Yes, women get Mothers’ Day and men get Fathers’ Day, but where are the specific women whose lives we celebrate? We can’t even get one on the twenty dollar bill to invade the space made sacred to men in political leadership. We sort of honor women generically by granting them the entire month of March as women’s history month. But there is no woman in particular and no day that in particular is dedicated to a designated woman as a leader, an achiever, a hero.
So I would like to suggest that one day in March (Maybe the Ides of March, the 15th?) we designate as An Alphabet of Women Day and recite the names of some heroic, path-breaking American Women. Here is my list, mostly American but with some entries from elsewhere. No explanations provided. You can find them in Wikipedia. Or you can celebrate one a day until you run out of alphabet on March 26th, or fill in the last five days from the dates with more than one candidate. You can also create your own list. Suggestions welcome!
Abigail Adams
Boudicca. Betty Friedan (tie)
Caroline Chapman Catt
Dorothea Dix, Doris Kearns Goodwin (tie)
Eleanor Roosevelt, Eliza Pinckney, Emily Dickenson (tie)
Frances Perkins
Gloria Steinem, Greta Thunberg (tie)
Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller (tie)
Ida B. Wells
Jane Adams, Jane Fonda (tie)
Katherine Graham
Louisa May Alcott
Margaret Fuller, Margaret Thatcher (tie)
Nancy Pelosi, Nancy Reagan (tie)
Oprah Winfrey
Patricia Schroeder, Pat Nixon (tie)
Queen Elizabeth I and II
Rosa Parks, Rachel Carson (tie)
Susan B. Anthony, Sacajawea (tie)
Theresa (Mother), Tallulah Bankhead (tie)
Ursula LeGuin
Victoria Woodhull
WACS and WAVES
X—for the unknown woman
Young women, the leaders of tomorrow
Zelda Fitzgerald
