As I sat and waited in the middle of the main exhibit of the National Constitution Center, I wondered if anyone would show up for this event.  After all, there were TWO whole benches designated for the space where “Decoding the Video” would be held.  Finally, another couple and three-person family joined me, reviving my hope that maybe someone else cares about women’s history (who is not writing a paper for their class in women’s history)!  The event started and I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting the content was, which I will classify as the “positive” of attending this event.  Although generally enjoyable, there were “negative” aspects of this presentation, such as the location and disinterest of the speaker.  This review will address both positives and negatives, but will hopefully encourage the masses that there’s always something new to learn at their local historical events.

To start, the subject of the presentation was a modern and refreshing take on historical content.  The video was a remix of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” music video, made to teach viewers about the Women’s Suffrage Movement.  More specifically, the period of the movement lead by Alice Paul.  This video was mostly about the fight for the vote, but contained many “Easter eggs” which told a much more detailed history.  These “Easter eggs” were then explained alongside a PowerPoint by the presenter.  With little more than a textbook paragraph on women gaining the right to vote in high school as my background knowledge, this was welcomed information.  While I must admit, I took a class at Temple where I learned in depth about the Suffrage Movement, but that is obviously not the case for everyone attending this event.  Even with this additional knowledge, the presenter brought up facts I had never learned about, such as the actual events of the final ratification.  There was a scene in the video where a vote was obviously going on, with men wearing either a yellow or a red rose on their suits, but the specifics were not included, prompting the presenter to explain.  Tennessee was the last state to ratify the 19th Amendment, with supporting legislators wearing yellow roses and opposing wearing red.  The last legislator to vote was wearing a red rose, with his being the deciding vote, he switched his position and voted to ratify the Amendment.  The presenter elaborated on this story by telling us the legislator’s mother had called him the night before and said to vote for the 19th.   I found this as a fascinating moment in history as well as a triumph over the long-held bias that motherhood can make a woman anti-feminist.

Another interesting topic brought up was the nature of Abigail Adam’s impact on politics.  One of the lyrics in the video was, “Remember the Ladies” and would have gone overlooked as significant if it was not clarified by the presenter.  Abigail had apparently told John as he left to draft laws at the Continental Congress in 1775 to, “Remember the Ladies” when writing legislation.  He obviously did not listen to his wife, but this monumental instance of advocacy for female agency is important to the representation of high status females’ view of their own worth and capabilities.  Intrigued by this moment in history, I decided to do independent research just to verify that she meant it the way the presenter said she did.  From this I found an extension of the quote where she basically says she did not want him to create the same world of their ancestors, where the husbands have all the power.^[1]  All of these ideas, events, and vital moments of women’s history were alluded to or packed into this short, educational video.  These are reasons why I really liked the event, especially because if I watched the video on my own, I definitely would not have caught all of the little secret objects that symbolized massive factors of the movement.

However, I also found issues with the event that left me with a weird, incomplete feeling.  For one thing, the location was slightly obnoxious.  Set in a mini, closed-off space in the middle of the main exhibit, it was difficult to hear and pay attention to the presentation.  People were constantly walking in and out, or passing by, squinting at the screen, then shaking their heads and walking away.  Openness and accessibility are without a doubt, beneficial to any event, but can also cause interruptions.  There was also the behavior of the presenter that did not sit right with me.  While he was very knowledgeable and considerably engaged with the audience, he gave off the impression that he had somewhere better to be.  This could have been because of the audience size or possibly it was just not his day, but it made me personally feel like an imposition.  In fact, when I asked where the presentation was being held, most of the employees did not even know it was going on.  One helpful guy who pointed me to the area with the benches even said, “Yeah I think it’s still happening” in reference to the event.

All of these “negative” factors together brought back the question we started the semester with, “Do We Still Need Women’s History?”  After all, walking around the main exhibit led me to discover a lot of interesting information on women’s contributions to the Constitution and their role in government itself.  These were not even specifically deemed part of Women’s History Month either, but part of the regular exhibit, available to all visitors.  Should women’s history be changed to, “gender history” as Alice Kessler Harris advocates?^[2] Does the information I found in this main exhibit answer this question?  Maybe we have come to the point where women’s history is just history now, or should extended to gender history.  To counter this possibility, I reflected back on the attitudes of both the presenter and the visitors scoffing when they found out the subject matter of the presentation.  People still find women’s history as non-essential, not even worth sitting down for a twenty minute event, even if Lady Gaga is involved.  This is why I would still argue that women’s history needs to exist and be taught at every level of education.  Learning about Alice Paul being force fed in jail is just as, if not more, exciting than the repetitive teaching of how the Bill of Rights was established.

To close, I would recommend this event for the exact reasons stated above, we need women’s history!  There were obviously drawbacks and the fact that it was in the Constitution Center already predisposed me into knowing this event was not at the top of their list of importance.  That being said, I thought the content was actually very imaginative and proved there are still ways to draw the youth into historical events.  As long as people keep attending and hosting these events, and groups keep making videos like the one analyzed, women’s history will hopefully stop being overshadowed.

^[1] Mara L. Dodge, “Abigail Adams,” Historical Journal of Massachussetts, Vol. 43, No. 2, (July., 2015), 138.

^[2] Alice Kessler-Harris, “Do We Still Need Women’s History,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Vol. 54, No. 15, (December 7, 2007), B6-B7.