Three Ways to Celebrate Women’s History Month in DC

March is designated as Women’s History Month, which highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. While there are numerous ways to recognize the vital role of women in American history, we found three month-long events in DC that we especially love for how they inspire, educate, and entertain everyone about women’s history.

An Art Exhibit that Gets Girlhood

Mary Ellen Mark, Beautiful Emine Posing, Trabzon, Turkey, 1965 (printed later); © Mary Ellen Mark/The Mary Ellen Mark Foundation

Mary Ellen Mark’s Girlhood exhibit opens at the National Museum for Women in the Arts on March 3, 2021. This exhibit, which features about 30 images spanning Mark’s 50-year career, depicts girls and young women living in a variety of circumstances over the globe.

While Girlhood is on view through July 11, 2021, Women’s History Month is the perfect time to take in these images and get a sense of the world each pictured girl has before her.

A Month of Happenings at a Local Hotel

Hotel Zena, literally designed to celebrate female trailblazers and innovators, is the ideal place to celebrate women’s history and its major milestones. The hotel is hosting a series of virtual and socially distant in-person events all month.

Hotel Zena & Figleaf Restaurant. Image courtesy: Hotel Zena

These include a virtual reading and Q&A with “Bad Feminist” author Roxane Gay; a tour of Washington women who have contributed to the struggle for gay rights; a fireside chat with Hotel Zena’s designer and artists; a screening of (IN)VISIBLE PORTRAITS; and even the official (and much-awaited!) opening of Hedy’s rooftop.

See the K Street Magazine community calendar for more events like these.

Take in a Festival from Female Filmmakers

Still from Cecilia Vicuña, Semiya (Seed Song), 2015. Colchagua, Chile. Video still by Christian Chierego. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London.

Three weeks of inspiring and thought-provoking work by a trio of female filmmakers on the theme “Her History Lessons” comes to screening participants of the annual SAAM Women Filmmakers Festival, which annually showcases a curated selection of powerful film, video, and interactive media works by women-identified creators.

Films each week not only reflect on the past and its effect on women today, but screenings are accompanied by live virtual discussions with the filmmakers and Smithsonian curators.