Women’s History Month is here. To celebrate all month long, we’ll be highlighting some of the different orgs and people making waves for women’s representation. 

First up, Lisa Sasaki, interim director of the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum — which, yup, is something we still don’t have. In 2023. Thankfully, one is on the horizon. Legislators have finally OK’d the creation of a free and public women’s history museum in the nation’s capital. We chatted with Sasaki about the museum’s mission, and all the work that’s going into making it happen. 

Q: What does the development of the museum mean for women — past, present, and future?

On a national level, women have been contributing to the American story since before its founding, but oftentimes they have been left out of that story. And I think we see that in the number of women represented in US monuments, for example, which is less than 10% — and that is including allegorical and mythological figures like mermaids.

We hope that with this recognition comes women and girls and boys and men realizing that women can be and do anything — that if they can see it, they can be it.

Q: How has it taken so long to get a women’s history museum on this scale?

History has been written primarily by men, and that’s something that has changed in recent decades. This museum, for example, is an effort that has been decades in the making. There have been groups of women who have been working together to make sure that this museum happens. The other part of it, which is something we’re discovering as we start to do research both within the Smithsonian’s collections and in archives around the country ... is oftentimes women think that their stories aren’t interesting enough, or aren’t worthy of being preserved. So, oftentimes, they’re not putting their papers into repositories or not saving objects that could be representative of their stories — and, as a result of that, they’re lost or made invisible.

Q: What happens next, and what are the remaining challenges to overcome?

One is we need to build the museum itself, and building any museum is always going to be a creative challenge … The other part is it can be very difficult to uncover all of these women’s stories within the historic record and within collections. One example of why that might be is women can be known by up to three names. And when you search, it could be under her maiden name, it could be under her married name, it could be under her husband’s name.

But one of the things that we’re very excited about with this museum is that we are building during the digital age. As a result, even though we are not able to open a physical museum immediately, we are able, through our digital work, to get to everybody at any time.