Women’s history a history for everybody
Published 7:01 am Sunday, March 12, 2017
“Women’s history, quite frankly, is everybody’s history,” said Lisa Maatz to 1,300 Austin High School students at the 12th annual Women’s History Assembly, held on Friday in Austin High School’s Knowlton Auditorium.
Former Austin Mayor Bonnie Rietz introduced Maatz, the vice president of government relations and advocacy for the American Association of University Women, to the student body.
Austin High School Women’s History Month scholarship winners Isaac Christopherson, Emily Sayles and Hannah Alberts with speaker Lisa Maatz. Photo provided
Founded in 1881 to advocate for the education of women, the AAUW continues to preserve and promote women’s history. This is the second time Maatz, who was featured in the book “Secrets of Powerful Women,” has addressed AHS. During her presentation, she discussed the role of women’s history in modern-day America.
“For the first time in awhile we’re seeing a generational movement of people banding together to bring these issues to the government,” said Maatz, citing examples of activism such as the Women’s March on Washington earlier this year. “Women are rising up from both sides of the aisle and talking about issues in ways they never have done before.”
Maatz emphasized the importance of voting, sharing the stories of early suffragettes who went to prison and went on hunger strikes so women in America could vote.
She got the students involved in an exercise demonstrating how failing to register and vote shifted the balance of power into the hands of only a few people. Maatz encouraged the students to share their ideas and support each other.
“We’re all in this together,” she said as the assembly came to a close, “and in the end we’ll be stronger for it.”
When asked what still needed to be done for full equality, Maatz said, “I think equal pay is a huge issue. That’s not just an issue of fairness and equity, it’s a problem for the economy, it’s a problem for innovation, and it’s a problem for being competitive in a 21st century economy.”
Rietz recognized the winners of the Women’s History Project scholarship contest during the assembly. The theme for this year’s project was “The Changing Role of Women in the Twentieth Century.”
Austin High School students Hannah Alberts, Emily Sayles and Isaac Christopherson all tied for first.
