Women's History
Black Women’s History Week
The Emily Taylor Center celebrates Black Women’s History Week. Observed during the last week of February, which is Black History Month, and first week of March, which is Women’s History Month, Black Women’s History Week was created by Feminista Jones to honor the intersectionality of Blackness and womanhood that Black women embody.
News Coverage
3/1/24, The University Daily Kansan, Black Women’s History Week celebration aims to empower
2/21/24, The University Daily Kansan, Emily Taylor Center to celebrate its first Black Women’s History Week
Women’s History Month
Women’s History Month, which started as Women’s History Week, grew out of a 1979 institute on the new field of women’s history organized by Dr. Gerda Lerner. “Women's history,” wrote Lerner, “is indispensable and essential to the emancipation of women.” Lerner felt strongly that “we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision” from the exploration of women’s history. She argued that the study of women’s history provides a powerful “tool for organizing,” allowing us to learn from the ideas, strategies, tactics, successes, and mistakes of our predecessors. The Emily Taylor Center celebrates Women’s History Month in the spirit of Lerner’s original conceptualization.
The February Sisters Lecture in honor of Women’s History Month
The Emily Taylor Center partners with the Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies to present the annual February Sisters Lecture in March to both observe Women's History Month and celebrate KU's own women’s history makers.
About the February Sisters
On February 4, 1972, a group of 30 women and 4 children calling themselves the February Sisters, occupied the East Asian Studies building at the University of Kansas for thirteen hours. This peaceful protest, accompanied by six non-negotiable demands, challenged “the continuing sex-based inequities perpetrated by this university” and pressured the administration to establish new “resources to meet the pressing needs of women.” As a result of their demands, the February Sisters brought about important institutional change at KU, including the establishment of Hilltop Day Care Center, the development of a Women’s Studies program and major, the accessibility of birth control pills and gynecological exams through Student Health Services, the appointment of more women administrators, and the implementation of a federally mandated affirmative action program.
Remembering KU’s February Sisters
50 Years of the February Sisters
Watch Past Women’s History Events on YouTube
In honor of Women's History Month 2021, Dr. Kristen R. Ghodsee — Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism — speaks on the socialist roots of International Women's Day.
In this lecture, Miguel Roel offers an introduction to feminist materialism and the history of patriarchy.
Louise Herne, a Bear Clan Matron of the Mohawk Nation and Haudenosaunee Knowledge Guardian, and Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, author of the intersectional anthology The Women’s Suffrage Movement, discuss the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) impact on early U.S. feminists.
Mohawk filmmaker Katsitsionni Fox, Haudenosaunee Knowledge Guardian Louise Herne, and intersectional feminist historian Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner discuss the documentary Without A Whisper – Konnon:kwe, the untold story of Indigenous women's influence on U.S. suffragists.