Where Are The Women? Free Summit Highlights Women Icons

UNLADYLIKE2020 presents Where Are The Women?, a summit for educators and parents about teaching a more inclusive narrative of U.S. history.

Where Are The Women?, hosted by UNLADYLIKE2020, will invite parents and educators to teach children the stories of women often glazed over by history books. (Image credit: UNLADYLIKE2020)
Where Are The Women?, hosted by UNLADYLIKE2020, will invite parents and educators to teach children the stories of women often glazed over by history books. (Image credit: UNLADYLIKE2020)

Did you know that out of 737 historical figures taught in K-12 curriculum standards in every state, only 178, or 24%, are women, including several fictional characters such as Rosie the Riveter? 98 of the women appear in only 1 state standard; only 15 are taught in more than 10 states. (Analysis by the National Women’s History Museum)

Conducting our research for Unladylike2020, we discovered the stories of hundreds (really thousands) of women who defied the odds to break barriers in every field long before women had the right to vote. So many courageous women helped shape policy and make U.S. history we wondered why their accomplishments are not taught in schools. As a result, we are convening a 2-hour Where Are the Women? Summit to invite teachers, the general public and parents, who are increasingly active in their children’s education through virtual and hybrid learning, to be part of a conversation about women’s role in history, and to have access to resources to reverse the underrepresentation of women in the history and social studies taught K-12. 

Our Where Are the Women? Summit is free and open to the public, and will be streaming live on the American Masters YouTube channel on Saturday February 13, 2021, from 1pm-3pm EST, 12pm-2pm CST, 11am-1pm MST, and 10am-12pm PST.

Join an amazing line-up of thought leaders, historians and education specialists as we roll up our sleeves to dig deep into why so few women are included in the curriculum – and how educators can expand U.S. history to be more inclusive and accessible. Teachers that participate will receive a 2-hour professional development credit, and all participants will get a free women’s history resource guide as a takeaway.

Please RSVP here and help us spread the word! 

Program & Speakers

The Summit will feature poetry and a land acknowledgment by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Harjo is author of nine books of poetry, including the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise, several plays and children’s books, and two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior: A Call for Love and Justice.

Keynote address by Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History and the SNF Agora Institute at The Johns Hopkins University, and author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. 

Research presentation by Lori Ann Terjesen, Director of Education at the National Women’s History Museum, outlining the results of the Where Are the Women? report which finds that women’s experiences and stories are not well integrated into U.S. state history standards.

Panel discussion moderated by Treva B. Lindsey, Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University. She is the author of the 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title, Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C. 

Panel Discussion

The Summit will include a dynamic panel discussion and live chat audience Q&A to examine factors that have limited women’s presence in textbooks, educational standards, and curriculum. Our panelists include:

  • Alexander Cuenca, Assistant Professor of Curriculum & Instruction at Indiana University, and a board member of the National Council for the Social Studies.
  • Daniel Czitrom, Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College, and co-author of Out of Many: A History of the American People, a bestselling U.S. History textbook.
  • Molly Murphy MacGregor, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the National Women’s History Alliance which led the coalition that successfully lobbied Congress in the 1980s to designate March as National Women’s History Month.
  • Gholdy Muhammad, Associate Professor of Language, Literacy & Culture at Georgia State University, author of Cultivating Genius: An Equity Model for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy, and founder of a summer literacy institute called Black Girls WRITE!.
  • Katelin Zhou, a student at Stanford University and Co-Founder of Diversify Our Narrative, an organization of over five thousand students fighting for education reform in over 800 school districts across the U.S. 

Curriculum Demonstration

Educators will demonstrate, and answer audience questions about, the creation and implementation of Unladylike2020 lesson plans on PBS LearningMedia. The curriculum demonstration will be presented by: 

  • Kristina Kirtley, Senior Producer for Content and Youth Engagement in Kids’ Media and Education at WNET, New York’s flagship public media company.
  • Sarah Dahl, English Language Arts Teacher at Park High School in Livingston, MT, and 2020 PBS Digital Innovator All-Star.
  • Robert “BJ” Garcia, Math Teacher at Crownover Middle School in Corinth, TX, and 2020 PBS Digital Innovator All-Star. 

Video Testimonials

The virtual conference will also feature video testimonials from diverse women thought leaders, including: 

  • Marley Dias, founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks, an international movement to collect and donate children’s books that feature Black girls as the lead character, and author of Marley Dias Gets It Done: And So Can You!.
  • Kelsie Eckert, Social Studies Teacher at Moultonborough Academy in Moultonborough, NH, and President & Founder of The Remedial Herstory Project.
  • Isa Noyola, Co-President of the Women’s March Board, and Deputy Director of Mijente, the fastest growing English language social-network for the Latinx community.
  • Debra Sanchez, Senior Vice President, Education and Children’s Content at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
  • Stefanie Wager, President of the National Council for the Social Studies, and Education Partner Manager for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Project, a coalition of educators and historians focused on boosting student engagement and achievement through transformational social studies programs. 
  • Teresa C. Younger, President & CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a thought leader at the intersection of gender and race. 

If you’re passionate about education and making U.S. history more accessible, inclusive, and creative, you don’t want to miss this special event!

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Author: Gender Equality Funding News

Philanthropy Women aggregates the most important gender equality funding news.

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