GRHS students taking a plunge

Prepping for a deep dive, eight middle school girls from the Glen Ridge High School History Club are currently studying the facts, dates and images of 650 women who helped shape American history.

They do this with a March 6 day trip to Washington, D.C. in mind and a knowledge-testing tournament called the National History Women’s Plunge. March is National Women’s History Month.

The GRHS girls who are going to compete are Olivia Hernandez, Charlotte Jubb, Sofia Porowski, Vivian Ashenfelter, Sophia Mazzeo, Maeve Gorzelany, Valerian Nahabedian and Nikita Gupta. All are eighth-graders. They will challenge students from Va., MD, Del. and D.C.

The club advisor, history teacher Dave Majewski, said when he learned about the tournament, he knew he had to involve a squad of girls. The competition is in its first year.

“The goal of the plunge is to introduce students to some events, and truly incredible women, who helped shape U.S. history, many of whom are glossed over or absent from history books,” he said.

In a free-flowing, round-table dialogue, Majewski and the girls spoke with this newspaper last week, at the high school, about history and women.

“It’s important for people to know about history and women,” Valerian said. “It’s usually focused on men. There’s so many instances when credit is taken by the men.”

Sofia agreed, saying often the men were assisted by their wives.

Valerian continued.

“It’s happened in so many instances in history,” she said. “It happens with races; people are put against each other.”

“It’s important to learn about it, to learn about history or it will repeat itself,” Charlotte said.

Valerian said Andrew Johnson, the seventh United States president, was “severely racist.”

“He took so many things away from Native Americans,” she said. “Trump is taking a lot from the immigrants.”

She thought with a greater recognition of women, there would be less injustice.

“I do believe men can change,” interjected Nikita. “It’s in our nature to be collaborative.”

Sofia saw an increasing equal power-sharing between the sexes with women in a wider variety of jobs and controlling more money.

“At one time, women couldn’t have their own bank accounts or own a business,” Valerian said. “There’s an amendment that still hasn’t been passed. It’s the Equal Rights Amendment, to formally recognize men and women as equal.”

Unequal pay for equal work was addressed and Valerian said a “pink tax” definitely exists.

“A woman’s items cost more creating a domino effect,” she said.

According to Olivia, while there is talk about how women changed history, the hardships they had to endure while doing so are brushed over.

Commenting on what brought them together, Sofia said the girls preparing for the plunge have been friends and known each other for a long time; that they all had an interest in history and shared the same ideas. The girls agreed that the GRHS History Club and the plunge gave them a new appreciation of the contributions women have made to American history.

Many of the girls said they admired Malala Yousafzai, someone about whom they learned from a reading assignment.

Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist and advocate for girls’ education. She survived an assasination attempt by the Taliban at 15 and became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate when she was 17.1

“We need to feel grateful,” Charlotte said, “but spread the awareness.”