Faculty share about women’s contributions for Women’s History Month

Riverside, Calif. (March 13, 2025) – For centuries, the contributions of women have shaped history, and Women’s History Month honors that. We asked some faculty at California Baptist University to share about the importance of studying and recognizing women’s contributions.

Those interviewed were: Dr. Erika Travis, professor of English and chair of the Modern Languages and Literature Department; Dr. Noemi Alexander, associate professor of public administration and director of online education for history and government; and Dr. Jennifer Newton, professor of English.

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Why is it essential to study and recognize women's contributions in history?
Travis: Whenever we're looking to get the full story, we want to look at multiple viewpoints and experiences. That means looking for stories from women as well as men. Throughout much of history, education, economics and experiences have been distinctly gendered — so we want to learn about more than just the big, public events of an era. We want to learn about daily life and domestic practices as part of the complete picture.

Alexander: It is important to study and recognize women’s contributions in history because women have been making history and contributing to the progress of science, culture, society, education and nation-making from day one. It is important for our students to learn and understand the unique ways in which women lead, create and inspire. The majority of the students at CBU are female. They are making history right now. The future will learn from the things they invent, write about and create.

Newton: Reading works from the distant past helps us to transcend our contemporary mindset and recognize that people from other times experienced the same hopes, fears, human emotions and experiences that we do, but they did not necessarily think as we do. C. S. Lewis in his essay “On the Reading of Old Books,” advises us to avoid “the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet.” Instead, says Lewis, reading widely throughout time “puts the controversies of the moment” into perspective. Today’s Christians should see examples from the past of faithful women who are often overlooked in historical overviews and church history books.

One text we should read is the “Ecclesiastical History of the English People,” written in 731 by Bede, a monk. In the text, which remained popular for centuries, he highlights many exemplary women leaders instrumental in the flourishing of the early medieval English church. Reading about these forgotten women will inspire us in our faith and help us gain perspective on our current debates.

In what ways have women shaped historical movements?
Alexander: Women have been and continue to be on the front line of service. In the past and in the present, we have seen women volunteering and serving at church, in schools and in our communities. Women were on the frontlines of the civil rights movement. Women were leaders in the abolition movement. Women ensured that we all had the right to vote. When women lead, when women are educated, when women have a seat at the table, all of society benefits. Women have a long history of advocacy, and when a woman gets a position of influence, she uses it to bring others with her.

How has the addition of women's voices in history evolved in recent years?
Alexander: Women’s voices are communal. We love the community, and we are problem solvers of not just our problems but the problems of the communities we come from. The acknowledgment of women’s contributions in history has expanded the narrative of history into a more accurate and inclusive account of what was happening at various epochs in history. Women’s history is world history, it’s U.S. history, it is the history of humankind. We have always played a significant role in the progress of humanity.

How do you encourage students to engage with and learn about women’s history?
Alexander: For me and the way I teach history and political science, it is naturally integrated into the voices students hear, the scholarship they read and the people they are introduced to. Every day is women’s history month in my courses.

Travis:  Since I'm an English professor, I'd start by encouraging them to read. Biographies, life writing, even historical fiction — when well done — can help us understand the people and paradigms of the past.

Anything else you would like to add?
Newton: One woman of faith we should know more about is the 7th-century Abbess Hilda (d. 680), who founded and ruled over a double monastery of monks and nuns at Whitby, England.

Our source for Hilda’s story is Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History of the English People.” At the monastery, Bede explains, Abbess Hilda “taught the observance of righteousness, mercy, purity, and other virtues.” All “those under her direction were required to make a thorough study of the Scriptures and occupy themselves in good works.” In fact, five monks she mentors are so well discipled that they become bishops. So admired was Hilda that “kings and princes used to come and ask her advice in their difficulties and take it.”

Bede compares Hilda to the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, writing that “it pleased [God] to try her holy soul by a long sickness, in order that, as with the Apostle, her strength might be ‘made perfect in weakness.’” Overall, Hilda’s life, says Bede, “afforded a shining example . . . to all who wished to live a good life.”