Did you know that the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
is home to more than just the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is there; so is Edison’s light bulb patent,
the Louisiana Purchase contract, and the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the
right to vote.
The archives hold hundreds of thousands (or more) of
documents, photographs, and intriguingly, video footage. Some of this is on
display in the Museum that occupies one wing of the building; you can watch and
listen to Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver one of his famous speeches, or hear
audio recordings of the radio broadcasts of FDR’s Fireside Chats. Fascinating
stuff, to be sure.
What surprised me, though, was a small but amazingly thorough exhibit on women’s rights. Squeezed between Civil Rights and
Immigration, the Women’s Rights exhibit featured documents and photos from
across the long years of activism, from the suffrage movement all the way
through the last organized push to get the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) passed
in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Rounding a corner in the dim lighting, I heard it before I
saw it: a screen, showing video clips of women with 1970s hairstyles,
coordinating a massive collective effort to reach a consensus on resolutions
focused on critical “women’s issues” like reproductive rights, child care, education,
and support for the ERA. This, I was amazed to learn, was video of the 1977
National Women’s Conference, funded by the U.S. government and designed to give
women a voice in national policymaking.
I had never heard of it.
I think this was the most shocking part of my encounter. I
couldn’t believe that such an important event, one that was covered by major
media on national television, including a documentary about the conference that
aired nationally on the last night of the Conference, had managed to slip through
the cracks of my gender studies courses and extensive reading in feminist
theory. Sure, I was in diapers when the Conference was held, but still. It
inspired enough controversy at the time to rally tens of thousands of
protestors determined not to let the Conference conclude unchallenged. An event
of that magnitude would be everywhere in today’s social media culture. Wouldn’t
it?
Maybe. But would it make the history textbooks, the survey
courses, the film adaptations?
The possibility seems remote, since I never encountered it.
Not once. And that makes me sad. The 1977 National Women’s Conference was one
of the most diverse face-to-face gatherings of women this country has (still)
ever seen; they came from across the country and around the world, organizing
themselves into political Caucasus and raising their voices and objections
within the formal framework of sessions, complete with Susan B. Anthony’s
gavel, brought in special for the occasion from its dusty basement home at the
Smithsonian Institution.  |
| Three First Ladies, National Women's Conference, 1977 |
These women, in their pastel suits, teased-out bobs,
or hippie beads, represented political and cultural positions from across the
spectrum, radical to conservative and back again. Their bad hair and enormous
eyeglasses belied the fact that, in practice, each one was a total badass,
standing up to the status quo of her time and demanding change. From First
Ladies to homemakers, they came and they spoke, and they argued and they voted,
and it was awe-inspiring, start to finish.
And then they went home. And they were forgotten, a
vanishing act that should be the envy of any aspiring magician. This is the
part that bothers me most. We are not taught our full history. Women are not
taught their own history. Americans are unaware of a past filled with inspiring role models, celebrities, success stories, amazing achievements, scientific
discoveries, and life-altering innovations – simply because the person doing
all these things happens to be a woman or person of color.
If we learned, very young, that women and men both have
worked hard to organize for political and social change and paved the way for
us to do so, too, how would that change current levels of political
participation? If we all see women leading conventions, proposing recommendations,
taken seriously by her government and its elected leaders, how would that shift
the future for the next generation? What difference might it make to see women
heading companies, recognized for their achievements, honored for their
military or public service, voting on policy and sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in
equal numbers with men on boards, panels, courts, and all manner of governing
bodies?
All the difference in the world, I think.
