Recognizing the Contributions of Women

Coming up in March will be National Women's History Month, and on March 8, International Women's Day. During this time, we pay special tribute to the contributions of women around the world, both past and present, and we commemorate the struggle for women's rights. In preparation to celebrate National Women's History Month and International Women's Day in 2018, one of the resources you might consider using in your classrooms as you look ahead to March is CultureGrams. CultureGrams offers a wealth of information to help illuminate the contributions and daily lives of ordinary women across the globe. Frankly, there is no reason why you have to wait until March to access this content.  You can use it now. Of course, you can find good information about women in the CultureGrams country reports themselves, though coverage may vary somewhat from country to country and from category to category. But some of the categories where you might typically find information specifically about women include History, General Attitudes, Personal Appearance, Family, Dating and Marriage, Life Cycle, Recreation, The Arts, Holidays, Government, and Education. Another place to look is in our Photo Gallery. While you could go through our photos country by country or region by region to look for photos of women, a more efficient way might be to do a search of the gallery using the word "women." If you wanted to further narrow your search, you could include additional words such as "work," eating," "games," "art," "government," etc. Not all searches will be fruitful and not all results relevant, but many will be. And using those results, you could create a fascinating slideshow or presentation. You may also find relevant content about women in the slideshow and video areas, though those are not currently searchable. We also include the perspectives and experiences of women in our collection of Interviews. We've included dozens of interviews of women and young girls. You can find out about what a woman's typical day is like in particular countries, what her role is in her family, how confident she is to make an adequate living, what she worries about, and what aspirations she has for the future. The interviews can reveal a lot about the contributions of women on a day-to-day basis. CultureGrams also includes brief biographies of women in Famous People. With these bios, you can learn about the accomplishments of some of these women to their countries and cultures. CultureGrams might not be what would have come first to mind when thinking about celebrating National Women's History Month or International Women's Day, but it's a resource that has a lot to offer.