Discover
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RHP is a nonprofit working to get women's history into the primary and secondary classroom curriculum, as well as our cultural competence. Studies show that teachers teach women's history between 5% and 20% of the time, with 5% being the plurality. The need for women's history is urgent-- as our understanding of our history and society is missing the stories of half the population. Check out our About page and our TEDx Talk for more!
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Tune into our weekly Podcast by educators, for educators, anywhere you get your podcasts! The podcast explores what happened to the women? And puts them into history class. Hosts Kelsie Brook Eckert and Brook Neva Sullivan talk women's perspectives, classroom pedagogy, and women's topics from the past we should know. The show features scholars from around the world talking about their research.
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We have dozens of inquiry-based lesson plans that pass the Eckert Test on our site for both US and World history under the Learn tab in the menu. These lesson and unit plans allow students to do history, think critically, form their own conclusions, and navigate tough topics.
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Start your journey by reading and watching women's history! Check out our list, in chronological order, of women's history books we love at Reading, under Resources in the menu. You can also join our Book Club! And bring women's history to life in the classroom with Films that pass the Feminist-film test, known as the Bechdel test.
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Learn diverse and inclusive women's history through the crash course video series on US and World history by watching and subscribing to our YouTube channel! These videos are written by a team of historians from around the world and peer reviewed for accuracy and inclusivity. New videos come out regularly.
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We offer Professional Development opportunities for teachers and professors to learn how to incorporate women and be more inclusive. We host an annual Educator's Retreat in New Hampshire featuring speakers from around the world. Check it out under Educators in the menu!
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Praise for Remedial Herstory
"I just want to applaud your project, which I think is essential... Your idea is courageous and this work is sorely needed!" |
"You ladies seem extremely fun to be around, and your intelligence shines through. Thank you for taking the time to put this together." |
"Everything was exceptional. I learned so much. I am so grateful for all the resources!... I am going to use all the resources shared in my courses this fall!" |
"This podcast is so powerful. As an educator, parent, and citizen, we all need to listen and learn... Bravo to this team, as I continue to listen I am not only learning but questioning and challenging myself to grow and be better." |
Why women's history?
“It is flagrantly unjust to keep women out, by whatever unconscious means we do so; and we simply cannot afford to do without women’s expertise… If that means fewer men get into the legislature as it must do – social change always has its losers as well as its winners – I am happy to look those men in the eye.“ –Mary Beard, Women and Power, p.86. |
“Although standards are standards, in reality, they're all pretty vague. How you interpret these standards and what you decide to include and exclude is a powerful political choice. And I ask you to exercise that agency and not shy away from issues critical to women's humanity.” --Alex Cuenca, Board Member for NCSS at the "Where are the Women? Summit" |
“One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world.” –Malala Yousafza
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Why "Remedial" Herstory?
While in the process of turning her research on social studies education and women's studies into the founding of The Remedial Herstory Project, organization founder Kelsie Eckert was lost on a name for the new organization. So many sources were named "Herstory" in different variations, but few were actually about women's history. In her spare time, she was feverously reading women's history books, including Gloria Steinem's collection of essays, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, when she stumbled upon a line about women's studies that resonated. Digging deeper, Eckert found an interview where Steinem elaborated:
"Women's history and women's studies are absolutely crucial for all students. Maybe we should call them 'remedial studies', which is what they really are- and will remain until we have human history and human studies."
Steinem goes on:
"For instance, in 1976, Devaki and I thought we had a great idea to take Gandhi's letters and writings and make a little book or pamphlet for women's movements around the world, since his non-violent tactics were so well suited to women's movements. And we were going full steam, interviewing people and so on until we came to Kamaladevi (Chattopadhyaya). She listened to us with great patience and then she said, 'Well, my dear, we taught him every thing he knew.' The methods he used were often the methods the women's movement used in fighting sati and child marriage. The independence movement subsumed and absorbed them, so we end up looking to or wait ing for another Gandhi for what we ourselves invented. That is the great penalty of the absence of women's history: you not only have to reinvent the wheel, but you end up by being grateful to men instead of honouring what women have accomplished - and continue to accomplish. There's a quote: 'I honoured dead men for their strength, forgetting I was strong.' In that sense I am very grateful to women's studies - very, very grateful."
You can examine this full interview using the citation below. For Eckert, this quote was everything: a summation of the continuing problem in K-12 education even if it was resolved at universities, a bitter stab at her own education, and a rallying cry. How bizarre that Steinem's experience in the 1970's was so similar to that of a woman born a decade later trying to teach inclusive history, but failing.
Remedial Herstory co-founder, Brooke Sullivan, often laments that "Remedial Herstory" is too hard to pronounce, and she is probably not wrong. But the story behind the name has provided fuel to our mission.
Steinem, Gloria, Meenakshi Mukherjee, and Ira Pande. “A Conversation with Gloria Steinem.” India International Centre Quarterly 34, no. 2 (2007): 90–105. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23006309.
"Women's history and women's studies are absolutely crucial for all students. Maybe we should call them 'remedial studies', which is what they really are- and will remain until we have human history and human studies."
Steinem goes on:
"For instance, in 1976, Devaki and I thought we had a great idea to take Gandhi's letters and writings and make a little book or pamphlet for women's movements around the world, since his non-violent tactics were so well suited to women's movements. And we were going full steam, interviewing people and so on until we came to Kamaladevi (Chattopadhyaya). She listened to us with great patience and then she said, 'Well, my dear, we taught him every thing he knew.' The methods he used were often the methods the women's movement used in fighting sati and child marriage. The independence movement subsumed and absorbed them, so we end up looking to or wait ing for another Gandhi for what we ourselves invented. That is the great penalty of the absence of women's history: you not only have to reinvent the wheel, but you end up by being grateful to men instead of honouring what women have accomplished - and continue to accomplish. There's a quote: 'I honoured dead men for their strength, forgetting I was strong.' In that sense I am very grateful to women's studies - very, very grateful."
You can examine this full interview using the citation below. For Eckert, this quote was everything: a summation of the continuing problem in K-12 education even if it was resolved at universities, a bitter stab at her own education, and a rallying cry. How bizarre that Steinem's experience in the 1970's was so similar to that of a woman born a decade later trying to teach inclusive history, but failing.
Remedial Herstory co-founder, Brooke Sullivan, often laments that "Remedial Herstory" is too hard to pronounce, and she is probably not wrong. But the story behind the name has provided fuel to our mission.
Steinem, Gloria, Meenakshi Mukherjee, and Ira Pande. “A Conversation with Gloria Steinem.” India International Centre Quarterly 34, no. 2 (2007): 90–105. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23006309.
© The Remedial Herstory Project 2022
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