WHEREAS, American women of every culture, class, and ethnic background have been essential participants in the founding and building of our nation, have made historic and substantial contributions to the growth and strength of our nation, including playing a critical role in our country’s innovations in science, technology, commerce, arts and culture; and

WHEREAS, Women have been leaders in every movement for social change, including their own movement for suffrage and equal rights, the fight for emancipation, the struggle to organize labor unions, and the civil rights movement, as well as leading the call for peace and organizing to preserve the environment; and

WHEREAS, Despite the significant contributions women have made to our civic, economic and cultural life, these achievements by women have been largely overlooked and unacknowledged which has contributed to the pervasive gender inequity present throughout American society; and

WHEREAS, The observance of Women’s History Week was initiated by the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women in 1978, an occasion that was then enacted by Congress in the 1987 as National Women’s History Month in perpetuity in acknowledgment that the significant contributions made by women to every field of American life were largely undocumented and unknown and deserve to be recognized; and

WHEREAS, Women’s History Month is now commemorated throughout the nation by schools, historians, and community groups and provides an opportunity for schools and communities to focus attention on the historical role and accomplishments of the women of California and the United States and for students, in particular, to benefit from an awareness of these contributions; and

WHEREAS, The declaration of Women’s History Month will be not only a call to acknowledge the outstanding American women whose names we know, but also a call to pay homage to the many women who have anonymously shaped our collective past; and

WHEREAS, The achievements of the women who have gone before us will enable contemporary women and men to create tomorrow’s history by working toward an end to physical and sexual violence against women, discrimination and harassment in employment and education, and the relegation to poverty status of many women, and by advocating for the full participation of women in every arena whether politics, government, business, science, technology, or academia, as well as equal access to all of the opportunities this great nation has to offer; now, therefore, be it