Women's History Month Timeline

As it appeared in the Vanderbilt Torch (Apr. 2006)

Were you aware that March is Women’s History month? I wasn’t either. How fortunate, then, that the Playboy crisis arrived during this time plenty so that critical questions could be answered properly. Would women be able to form conscious thoughts and make logical decisions about posing in a somewhat vulgar publication without the loving guidance of the Women’s Center and Hustler Editorial Board?

The answer, of course, is no. Women need someone to think for them, as the Women’s Center has charmingly reminded us. With that in mind, take a look at the first truly conservative timeline of women’s history:

The beginning- Eve. Needless to say, things don’t start out well.

51 BC- Cleopatra VII sleeps her way to the top, reminding us all that, while you may succeed on skill and intellect alone, it’s timely sexual favors that shatter the glass ceiling.

4 BC- The Virgin Mary gives birth to Jesus Christ, demonstrating that childbirth is the top priority for all women, everywhere, forever. It is the first and last time that unplanned teenage pregnancy will happen. And if it does happen, which it shouldn’t, abortion is not an option.

1429- Joan of Arc hears voices, cross-dresses, and leads the French to victory. Appropriately, she is burned at the stake.

1543- King Henry VIII marries his sixth wife. He’s just an idealistic man searching for love! But Liz Taylor, now there’s a slut.

1613- Pocahontas declines painting with all the colours of the wind and, like any good woman, marries the wealthy man, John Rolfe.

1692- The Salem Witchcraft trials effectively purge New England of witchcraft. Less than three centuries later, witchcraft—or “liberalism”—would once again plague the region.

1764- Abigail Smith marries John Adams. She’s pretty sharp and has an admirable influence. Also, much like the women’s rights advocates that will follow her, she is ugly. No, ugly. Seriously, she’s lucky Eleanor Roosevelt came along snatch the ugly crown away from her.

1856- The sewing machine is invented, allowing women to be more productive. More clothes, mule!

1861- The Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi begins her iron-fisted rule of awesome.

1869- Susan B. Anthony forms the National Women’s Suffrage Association. What a ho.

1901- The vacuum cleaner is invented. A woman’s worth can now be measured by the ability of modern American technology to suck. Heels and pearls soon to follow.

1916- Margaret Sanger opens the first birth control clinic. That’s right, blame Maggie for the teenagers having sex. Or…thank her? Just kidding, teenagers don’t fornicate!

1917- The Russian Revolution gives women the right to vote for the party. In Soviet Russia, party votes you. Damn communists.

1920- The 19th Amendment gives women the right to vote. And as middle school history taught us, the 1920s were just filled with easygoing, quick-witted, fast-thinking women who danced a lot of Charlestons. Coincidence? No.

1920- The Catholic Church declares Joan of Arc a martyr and a saint. She is now somewhat tolerable.

1933- Nancy Drew comes into being, setting high standards for us all. She dresses becomingly at all times, she’s deliciously snarky about her enemies’ prospects for marriage, and, above all, maintains her fabulousness.

1941- The United States enters WWII. Many wonderful women enter into the workforce to do their patriotic duty. Rosie, however, has ulterior motives and starts putting the rivets into traditional family roles.

1956- Grace Kelly becomes a princess, exponentially raising the standards of every girl’s dreams.

1963- The Feminine Mystique is published. Is this all? No, actually: butterflies drown, rainbows break, angels weep, the pope dies, JFK is shot. Causation, my friends.

1972- Waylon and Willie record “Good Hearted Woman,” honoring all the women who don’t understand their men, but do the best they can, and when the party’s all over, who’ll welcome their men back home again.

1973- [REDACTED]

1979- Margaret “Baroness Thatch Attack” Thatcher becomes Prime Minister, kicks ass.

1981- Sandra Day O’Connor is appointed Supreme Court Justice. She throws down while still being classy. Condoleezza Rice takes notes.

1982- Princess Grace drives off a cliff. Thank God we have Princess Diana to idolize.

1983- Sally Ride is the first woman in space (those dirty communists don’t count).

1997- The WNBA is formed and immediately commences its slow, inevitable death.

1997- Princess Diana dies in an auto accident and it’s all very tragic. The UN resolves to keep all beautiful princesses out of automobiles. They will instead be carried around Cleopatra-style by servants chanting their names.

2001- Saint Laura Bush becomes First Lady, and brings class back. See also: kindness, style, warmth, grace, and most human emotion not typically associated with Hillary Clinton.

2005- Condoleezza Rice is confirmed as Secretary of State. Condi, wearing $500 shoes, quickly reaffirms that she rocks foreign policy so hard that it gently weeps itself to sleep.

2006- The Great Triumvirate of Slutitude (Hilton, Lohan, and Spears) elects to cease and desist with the wearing of panties, finally giving the free spirit women’s movement a deliciously ironic, karmic blow…er, punishment.

2007- Nancy Pelosi becomes the Madam Speaker of the House of Representative (yes, that’s right: the madam of the house). In March, Hillary Clinton is seen riding side-saddle through Iowa with the three other Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Well, I’m glad we’ve settled that.

Just kidding. Conservatives don’t get enough credit in this age where aggressive feminists and women’s centers claim inequality and ignorance in the face of any opposition. Women like Rice, O’Connor, Thatcher, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and Karen Hughes have often seen their influence ignored or downplayed because of ideological differences with women’s group. Women have succeeded, and failed, on both sides of the aisle.

The critical element of progress is freedom. The freedom to joke or satirize women’s history; to make our own decisions and distinctions about career and family; to not confirm a complete idiot like Harriet Miers just because she’s a woman; or to choose for ourselves whether we want to appear in Playboy. Just because a woman doesn’t agree with a women’s center, doesn’t make her any less empowered or enlightened.