Women’s History Month

March 29, 2018 by Catherine Onyemelukwe

Women’s History Month

Savannah Sparrow which alters its tune to adjust to environment

“Our” month is nearing its end. Did you, women readers, feel honored this month?

I have enjoyed New York Times special pieces during Women’s History Month. But it is not one of those that I want to share. Instead, it is an article that captivated me. It’s not even about women, but about birds.

I decided I could use it today because it was written by a woman reporter, writing about a woman scientist, and because it’s intriguing.

Woman Writer, Woman Scientist, and Bird Song

Birds alter their songs to overcome noise in their environment. “Scholars of bird song have long noticed that avian city dwellers sound different from their peers in the country,” the article says.

Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times Reporter

“But Dr. Warrington wanted to understand how wild birds adapt to the pumps and drills that oil and gas development has brought to wide swaths of North America.”

What she and her team found is that the sparrows they studied change certain parts of their song to adjust to the noise from the equipment.

I found this most amazing. There is a recording included in the article. I couldn’t hear the difference in the birds’ songs, but there is a visualization included that I could understand.

Five Women Scientists

Five women who changed our world but were ignored are the subject of a book reviewed in the Beacon Press. According to the article, these are “women whose contributions to science have changed the way the world spins on its axis.” Appropriate for Women’s History Month!

The author Angela Saini reminds us that women who did not become famous were equally important as, maybe more than, those who did! Her book is Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong—and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story,

She describes Lise Meitner as “the unsung hero of nuclear fission, having played an essential role in its discovery—a fact we would all be better aware of if she hadn’t failed to win the Nobel Prize that was rightfully hers.”

I especially loved the final section of the Beacon Press piece: “As recently as forty years ago, the Nanadukan Agta women in the Filipino island of Luzon were the complete antithesis of what comes to mind when we talk about hunter-gatherer communities. Not only were most of the women enthusiastic hunters by choice, they often carried their babies and children with them on hunting trips and split tasks like childcare, cooking, and building with men.”

Do you have a favorite story from Women’s History Month?

Moses’ Tablet

Rembrandt’s Moses Breaking the Tablet

My friend and colleague in Sister Grannies, Barbara Bosill, sent an email this morning. She said someone had posted a message on Facebook:

“Technically, Moses was the first person with a tablet downloading data from the cloud.”

I laughed out loud! The reference reminded me of the approaching holidays. Are you celebrating Passover on Saturday? Easter on Sunday?

I also thought of recent past holidays. I was sure I had read about a New Year celebration that took place in the last week or so. I couldn’t remember what it was. So I asked Google to give me, “recent New Year celebration.” The results were all about New Year’s Day 2018 in our Gregorian calendar. I was surprised. I wouldn’t have expected Google to be so insular!

I asked Alexa and she told me something about Chinese New Year.

Traditional Nowruz meal in Tehran.

Then I remembered! I’d read about the Persian New Year, called Nowruz. This is an ancient holiday, according to an article in Refinery29. It “can be traced to Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic religion founded in Iran about 3,500 years ago,” the article says.

A speaker from the Persian Cultural Center in New York says, “today, Nowruz is celebrated across cultures, religions, and national borders in countries including Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and, of course, Iran.” It is a time of rebirth and renewal, coming with the first day of Spring.

The UN website has a lively picture of a Nowruz celebration in Turkey. The description says, “It promotes values of peace and solidarity between generations and within families as well as reconciliation and neighbourliness.”

We should all celebrate this holiday!

Author: Catherine Onyemelukwe

Author, blogger, speaker. Born in New York, grew up in mid west United States, lived in Nigeria for 24 years, back in U.S. since 1986. Advocate for racial justice.