Rewriting the Unwritten: Reclaiming Women’s History

Every March, we honor women’s remarkable achievements in a history that has often overlooked and undervalued their existence. But every single March, the same stories are told, the same names are remembered, and the same narratives are spotlighted. The question is, how many times have we heard about these stories? Rosa Parks? Of course. Marie Curie? Naturally. Beyoncé? She’d know. Why have we never thought to ask– “What about the others?” While figures like Rosa Parks, Marie Curie, and Beyoncé deserve recognition, it is equally crucial to honor and restore the countless untold stories of women whose contributions have been overshadowed, erased, and overlooked in a history that has long dimmed their brilliance.

To honor women is to first celebrate feminism, the movement that has tirelessly fought for equal rights and social justice for women. Unfortunately, feminism is often reduced to its first major appearance in history: the suffragettes fighting incessantly for the right to vote. The suffragettes fought tirelessly to crush the demeaning image of the “hysterical” woman, proving that women deserved to be heard. Yet, the prevalent sentiments of discrimination, prejudice, and doubt towards women did not subside, thus paving the way for the second wave of feminism.

The second wave of feminism did not arrive with the grace of well-mannered debate. It had arrived in protest, in frustration with the collective range of generations of women who fumed in the realization that their true independence had been dangled like an illusion. World War II had lured women into the workforce, into a taste of self-sufficiency, only for them to be shoved back into domesticity when men returned. However, women’s newfound independence was a sweet fruit they longed to reap. The women who once worked in factories, wrote reports, fixed engines—who built a life outside of household activities—could no longer settle into the confines of outdated, traditional expectations. They wanted a garden boisterous of the fruit of self-autonomy and self-sufficiency that they once tasted, and the often forced, traditional housewife role seeped poison onto this fundamental right to a woman’s selfhood.

That was what the second wave of feminism sought to challenge—gender roles, workplace inequality, and domestic violence. They fought for equal pay, for control over their own bodies, and for the right to exist beyond their relationships to men. From streets, courtrooms, workplaces, and their canvas– women took anywhere that would have them, and even places that wouldn’t.

“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.”

Alas, progress is never met without resistance. Feminists had been striving to etch these words into the Constitution since 1923, but the momentum truly surged with the second wave. In 1972, the ERA finally passed Congress, yet it failed to be ratified by its deadline in 1982. Only 35 states had ratified it when a minimum of 38 was required. Phyllis Schlafly led this opposition, preaching the guise that the ERA would disrupt traditional gender roles, warning that it would unravel the supposed privileges of womanhood, stripping them of protection and forcing them into a world where equality was somehow more dangerous than having no sense of selfhood or individuality. Fear is a powerful tool, and history has often favored those who wield it. The  ERA was framed to the public now as a step forward for gender equality and liberation, but as a threat to the social order.

But the fight for the ERA didn’t end in 1982. Despite the setback, feminist voices persisted, pushing for change both in the courtroom and on the streets. After decades of legal battles and relentless advocacy, the ERA was finally affirmed by President Joe Biden on January 17, 2025, as the 28th Amendment. The amendment that was denied, undermined, and ridiculed by Schlafly and more was finally enshrined in history, not as a threat, but as an overdue promise to women finally fulfilled.

The second wave of feminism wasn’t confined to legislative battles. The passion for equality and the urge for change bled into art, into culture, into the very narratives that shape how we see the world. The Guerilla Girls, a group of fierce feminist fighters during the second wave of feminism, once wrote that art history without women is not history at all—it is a history of power. That sentiment expands beyond art, threading into nearly every historical narrative you’ve heard and beyond the second wave of feminism.

History, as we know it, has not become a record of the past, but a reflection of those who held the pen. And too often, that pen has written women into the margins. To unravel the histories of women, to amplify their voices, to etch their legacies into our collective consciousness for future generations—that is the true spirit of Women’s History Month. Women’s History Month was never about repeating what we already know. It is about reclaiming what we were never taught.