This article originally appeared on Through HerStory on March 24, 2023. Source.
By Kate Lee March 24, 2023,
Dr. Kimberly Salter, Ph.D. is an Organizational Psychologist and Marriage Family Therapist. Dr. Salter has traveled around the United States as a speaker, workshop presenter, and forum facilitator on subjects ranging from psychological well-being and empowerment to women’s herstory and women’s rights, for the past 15 years. She is the past president of the California National Organization for Women, and currently sits on the board of USNC for UN Women, Southern California Chapter.
Dr. Salter has also facilitated many conferences, locally, statewide and nationally. She was chair of the CA NOW State Conference in 1999; co-chair of “Girls 2000: Choices and Dreams” Orange County, CA; co-chair of the 2001 Association for Women in Psychology (AWP) National Conference “Embracing Diversity: A Feminist Odyssey”; co-chair V-Day Laguna Beach 2003 and 2004; and she has appeared as Eleanor Roosevelt in “Women Making a Difference.”
Dr. Salter is currently the Executive Vice President of the National Women’s History Alliance, the organization responsible for bringing the world International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. We’re very pleased to have sat down with her recently to learn more about her work! Read our conversation below.
To begin, could you start by telling us a bit about yourself, your career path, and why women’s history, or herstory, is so important to you?
I am an organizational psychologist and a Licensed Marriage Family Therapist by trade. I have always been interested in women’s issues. I actually got a head start because I went to an all girls Catholic High School. So even though it wasn’t in the books, a lot of times we got to choose what we read and what reports we wrote. So I was always looking for women. And back then it was really hard to find the stories. So it just kind of became a life quest, if you will. When I was in college, and really got to choose what to study and what to look for, I couldn’t find enough on women. I couldn’t find enough information. I couldn’t find enough mentors. So for me, it clicked, it was like, Okay, we have to make sure this becomes available, we have to make sure these stories get told.
So, when I first heard about the National Women’s History, back then it was called the Women’s History Project. It was early for them. And, you know, they were just starting, I think maybe I’ve found them the third or fourth year in existence, which is 42 years ago, 43 years ago. I was thrilled, and I had an opportunity to meet Bali and have an opportunity to work to present at one of their conferences. At the time, I was with the California National Organization for Women board, their executive board. And then I presented at a conference and got to meet all kinds of women and other careers and other organizations, both nonprofits and for profit, and it just opened up a whole new world to me.
And so once I had a little bit of free time, Molly said, “You got to come join us!” And so we actually started by putting together a parade on Women’s Equality Day in August. Back in, I want to say, around 2000 to 2003, somewhere around there. We did two years in a row, we did parades on Women’s Equality Day in Sacramento in August. And following that, I became one of the co-chairs for the California centennial, because California women won the vote in 1911.
So in 2011, which was actually nine years ahead of the national centennial, we had a centennial celebration program in California. And so the people who co-chaired that with me, I got them to join the National Women’s History Project Board with me. And so we kind of all followed that path for a while together. And I just, I found my peeps. And it spoke to my soul, I mean, feminist stuff, it speaks to my soul anyway. But the thing about the Women’s History stuff, it was non-partisan. So it’s a lot less emotional, in a way, there’s not the kind of angry activism, you’re dealing with facts. Now, people don’t know their facts, because they’ve never learned them. But, it just fed my soul.
We’re uncovering the stories, you’re telling them and we’re letting other people know, no matter what your age, or your sexuality, or your race or your ethnicity, or your interest or your education, these stories are out there, there’s people that you can find that you look like or sound like or they’re doing what you want to do, or opening doors. And so it just became like a life’s passion to make sure those stories get told.
Could you explain a little more about what the National Women’s History Alliance does? Long term goals? Short term goals?
We kind of have a saying that the National Women’s History Alliance is the Google of women’s history. Before Google was ever a thing, people called the National Women’s History Project to find out where the stories were, what was available. So early on, we provided curriculum for teachers. Every March, we are why there is Women’s History Month. We first started with Women’s History Day. Then we got Women’s History Week. And then we got Women’s History month.
Every year, we pick a theme used across the nation. We provide reading lists, and we’ve got curriculums and we used to do posters, everything usually has products along with it. We’ve got people who sign up to be on our website, presenters. So, if you were a fifth grade teacher saying you want someone to come and talk to your class about Eleanor Roosevelt or Harriet Tubman, or whoever it is, there’s people that are presenters. We help promote them, but they will go to your school, they will go to your group, they will show up and be that person in history. So you get a visual, a tactical, a kinetic learning experience, not just reading a book or hearing a story, right? They literally live it, they act it out in front of you.
So we kind of consider ourselves like a clearinghouse. All the different resources are available there, and all the different connections or the links you can get to other organizations or other resources out there across the nation. We try to keep up state to state or, as much as we if people send us stuff, we try to get it up there and get it out there. So that, we all slowly but surely get connected. First of all, we don’t duplicate work. But secondly, so that there’s a central place where you can go and find the information, find the resources.
Going back to the part when you mentioned how you had presenters go to physical classrooms and act out these female figures: could you expand a little bit more on that? How exactly did that whole process come to be, and what are the benefits?
What we’ve learned over time certainly is that everybody learns differently. So some people learn by reading a book, they could sit in their room alone, and just access a library, they could literally get a PhD doing that. Other people need to talk and exchange ideas, they need to have someone there feeding back to them. So they need that kind of back and forth, they need that interaction, in order to really learn. Some people literally need to act it out, some people learn by doing. And so they need to have the tools, they need to be there and experience. There’s nothing that shares passion like acting it out. Some people are like, I want to give that speech, I want people to understand how important it was or why it had the impact it had. Eleanor is actually one of my favorites that I do. And the few times that I’ve actually had the opportunity to do it, it’s amazing the response you get from people.
For me, I try to find stories people don’t know, that aren’t in the mainstream or the books you’ll read about her. And so you get more of a feeling for who the person was, who the individual was, what motivated them to do the work they did to start something new or to open a door. I think that we need more authors and different authors, because when I learned history in Southern California, I learned certain facts in my history books. When I became an adult and could study and read anything I wanted, I read some history books from the south, and I gotta tell you, they tell a different history. Same exact experience, different telling of the story. My head goes, well, how can a fact not be the fact? What do you mean, there’s more than one truth? And so it really opened a whole nother world to me.
It’s always going to be important to know the background of who’s telling the story, because of course, they’re telling it through their eyes, through their experience. One person may think they won the war, and the opposite side may think they won the war. And it’s not even necessarily that either one of them is wrong. It’s that they each had a different experience. And they’re only telling the story they know.
I never thought about it that way. Even now, during history class, our teacher does warn us from time to time, telling us that there may be other versions of the same event out there.
That’s good to hear that they’re saying that.
I personally also have definitely noticed that there are obviously going to be multiple versions of the same story, and I know especially when it comes to educating children, it can be controversial on how you teach them a topic that differs from state to state or varies from the personal beliefs of even the teacher.
Exactly. Over the years [NWHA] has grown and changed too. There’s a diverse group that started, so it’s not an all white group that started. We’ve been aware of differences from the beginning. But again, not much was available. So as we’ve gone on, and as we’ve grown, and as we changed and evolved over the 40 plus years, we’ve also realized we don’t have enough of these kinds of stories out there, or we haven’t told this story yet, or these people have not had an opportunity. So we’re continuously growing. And again, outreaching and trying to make sure that we’re not excluding anybody whose story should be out there.
Yeah, definitely. Moving back to a point that you mentioned a couple of minutes ago, I noticed that this year’s Women’s History Month theme was “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories.” How did NWHA come up with this year’s theme?
That’s a good question. Sometimes it’s literally based on what’s going on in the nation. Or sometimes we look back and go: Oh, we’ve never done science, let’s do science, or we haven’t done technology, let’s do that. Or we haven’t done women in sports, or whatever it is over the years. So we try and kind of look back and see, okay, what have we covered? What haven’t we covered? Let’s try and reach out to that.
As things grow and evolve, and more topics become available, we’re alerted to more things. Last year, we did women in health care. It was “Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.” If you’re thinking stereotypically, it would be like nurses and care workers. We did it because of what we had just come through with the COVID, quarantine, and the amount of women on the front lines who lost their lives. So for us, it was important for that story to be told, and that we honor that. But we got a letter from someone in the Midwest who was irate that we were going backwards in time and relegating women to just be caretakers. She’s an educator in university, and in her mind, she had a reaction to that theme. And she ran with it, instead of doing any research, instead of actually calling and asking to talk and ask us why we came up with it. But anyway, somebody finally did talk to her. She wasn’t receptive, but that’s okay. We’re aware of these things.
So it comes back to: What is next year’s theme gonna be? So we sit and talk, like: Okay, what’s it gonna be, how do we please everybody? It isn’t easy, but for this year’s theme, it covers such a broad range, because it’s anybody who tells stories. So that’s certainly different across cultures. Some cultures are better at storytelling than others. Some, literally, that’s the only way you learn their history is by finding their elders and hearing the stories. And it can also include anything as modern as social media, or the old fashioned newspapers, or films, or podcasts. I mean, anybody who’s telling the story. So we thought it covers a broad breadth of people. And, you know, women are good storytellers.
On the topic of stories, my website, Through HerStory, focuses on the stories of comfort women, women who were in conflict during and after World War II. I also noticed that you’re a psychologist, which I thought was really interesting. Can you talk as a psychologist about why it’s so important for women who have experienced these kinds of injustices to be able to tell their own stories?
I’m actually an organizational psychologist. I saw the need, literally for mental health and corporations. And I did like my Bachelor projects about how women don’t get promoted, because they were at home, doing all that work, and doing their job. I found that they weren’t getting promoted because they weren’t seen as being able to do it all. I saw that discrepancy. So I started telling those stories of women who actually made it to the top ranks in corporations in Orange County. And once they made it there, after a year, they quit. Because they realized, even if they were given the title, they weren’t given the money. And even if possibly, they were given some of the money, they were never given the power.
So now these stories need to be told. So when we stop and think, why aren’t there more women CEOs? It’s not always because they can’t get there. Sometimes it’s because they’ve chosen a different path, because that path is not going to give them the life they want. It’s making sure that everybody has the opportunity to follow whatever their desires or life goals are. You get to make those decisions. Nobody gets to tell you how to do that, or why to do it.
It seems like the importance of women being able to tell their own stories is largely the freedom of choosing what they want instead of being limited to a certain job or a certain role that society has kind of confined women to be, especially in the past.
Exactly. And if those stories aren’t out there, or if you don’t see someone doing what you think you want to do, then you might limit yourself. You might say, maybe that’s not realistic. Maybe I can’t because nobody else seems to be doing it. Maybe I can’t do it either.
Yeah, that’s actually a great point because I feel like that is more the reason why it’s so important to amplify women’s stories because you get to inspire other women and set an example of what is possible.
Absolutely.
Something I did want to talk about more was the current situation; there’s been a lot of conflicts and wars. And one major topic is women in conflict, and amplifying the voices of women in conflict. I noticed that you work with UN women. So what, in your opinion, are some of the most effective ways that we can help voice the stories of women today, but particularly those in conflict zones?
I’m one of these people that believes in one person telling another person. So let’s say you got an opportunity to do junior year abroad, and so you went abroad, and you met someone who’d had a really different type of life experience that you’ve never heard of, then you would take that on to tell her story. Because you could bring it out of her reach, whether it was a small village, and you could bring it back to what we consider the mainstream. I don’t think you have to be a journalist, I don’t think you have to be a filmmaker, I don’t think you have to be a writer necessarily. I just think we just have to be good listeners. And then we have to be willing to pass that information on. Sometimes I’ll speak at colleges, during Women’s History Month, or grade schools, and someone will come up to me and say, “I can’t believe someone else had that experience.” So you just never know what story is going to touch you.
Yeah, I agree. It’s the connections that we make, and listening to stories that is a big part of how we can work towards sharing as many stories of as many women as possible. Moving forward to the current situation: what progress towards gender equality, and the amplification of the stories of women in history, have you witnessed in your lifetime?
Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is not the progress we’ve made, but the step we just took backwards. That’s scary for me, because I’m old enough to remember pre-Roe, and now I’m, unfortunately, still alive for post-Roe. But I love history. And so I’ve always made it a point to research or to study or to learn what has happened. If we don’t know our history, we’re bound to repeat it. I’m an eternal optimist. I think we’re gonna learn from our mistakes and stop repeating them. And I’m not sure what the answers are. I just know that the answer is not war, because that certainly hasn’t gotten us anywhere. I think the answer is not anger. It’s not yelling in someone’s face. It’s not a tug of war. It’s not trying to bully or browbeat someone into my belief system. It’s really listening to as many stories as possible and trying to understand the similarities. Because believe it or not, we have a lot of similarities, no matter which side we’re taking in any argument. And mostly, especially humans, we come from fear. So if we can understand where the person is coming from, and have more compassion for them, then they’re no longer the enemy. They’re someone we can feel empathy for. There’s usually a reason people do what they do.
One thing that stuck out to me from what you just said is the reason why stories are so important is to not repeat history. I feel like that’s a good point to emphasize, how, by listening and having compassion and empathy towards others, we can avoid polarization and help resolve more conflicts. Onto my last question. What progress is there still to make on empowering women and encouraging equality? And how can we all as a society but also individually help make this progress?
I think it does start with the individual. I’m glad you said that, “individually.” Because the more we understand ourselves, and our own inadequacies, or our own fears, or our own insecurities, then the easier it’s going to be to take a step forward, or to reach across to someone else and help them up, or to realize: if I share with you what I have, it doesn’t mean I have less, it means together, we have more. It’s a theory of abundance, there’s plenty for everybody, there is no reason we should have the poverty we have, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have adequate health care for everybody. Not one reason in the world. We have plenty of resources. But we don’t share well.
So, starting with me, I have to make sure that I’m more compassionate, I’m more giving, I’m more willing to help someone, whether I agree with them or not. If they’re cold, help them get warm. If they’re hungry, give them a piece of food, I don’t care who they voted for, they vote for what you know what religion they are, if they’re hungry, they’re hungry. So it starts at the basics, how can we make sure we both have enough to eat? Then we can talk about what’s the next step? How do we be safe? How do we have shelter? Because we get caught up in the haves and the have nots. I think that if each individual takes some ownership for how they think, how they behave, what words they say, that’s gonna be the first step.
Then we can begin to form more harmonious groups, and problem solving and conflict resolution events. And we’ll start moving forward as opposed to this tearing down, beating up, kicking to the side. I really do think it starts with the language we use. I was reading this article, and it talked about the first step in attaining and promoting peace is peaceful thinking. I always thought as long as I didn’t say things out loud, I couldn’t get in trouble. But I have to believe changes are possible. I have to believe. Change starts with one person believing that and then acting on that belief.
Definitely, the individual level is where change starts. This will wrap up the interview. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. We appreciate your efforts and involvement in empowering the voices of women.
Learn more about the work of the National Women’s History Alliance below:
