It’s meant to be nice sentiment. For the past three decades, March means presidential proclamations, specials on TV, a few lessons in the classroom. Hey, did you know women have been around as long as men? No kidding! And they did stuff too!

It’s a whole month dedicated to women’s history. It involves the standard citations of notable women. Relearn the names of Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Alice Paul. Did you know Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for president? Wow. Did you women did not earn the right to vote until 1920? Wow.

Whether it is the celebration of Black History in February or Asian Pacific American History in May or Hispanic Heritage in September or American Indian Heritage in November, these months that are intended to highlight the contributions of non-white non-males instead seem to trivialize such contributions, to marginalize their historical significance, as if they are not part of the official History™ on which school children will be tested, but rather, a sub-category of history, fascinating trivia for Jeopardy or pub quizzes, but not critical to understanding the whole of human experience. Oberlin was the first college to admit women. Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Here’s your free basket of fries.

It’s a way of setting up women as other, as something separate. There is history, you see, and then there is women’s history. This year's theme is "Writing Women Back into History," but let’s be honest. Those textbooks aren’t going to be rewritten to reflect that re-insertion. If anything, textbooks are being rewritten to further remove women from history.

In the proposed changes, Susan B. Anthony would be wiped from the history books, along with Florence Nightingale and Shirley Chisholm (the first black woman elected to Congress). In their place would be Abigail Adams and Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative politician who opposed feminism and the Equal Rights Amendment.

Yeah. Because we can't have too many women featured in one textbook, and the contributions of Susan B. Anthony pale in comparison to Phyllis Schlafly, who, according to the Texas wingnuts who want to rewrite history, "has played a major role in articulating a viewpoint that is shared, most likely, by a majority of women."

True to the 30-year tradition, President Obama issued a proclamation:

Women's History Month is an opportunity for us to recognize the contributions women have made to our Nation, and to honor those who blazed trails for women's empowerment and equality. ... This month, let us carry forth the legacy of our mothers and grandmothers. As we honor the women who have shaped our Nation, we must remember that we are tasked with writing the next chapter of women's history. Only if we teach our daughters that no obstacle is too great for them, that no ceiling can block their ascent, will we inspire them to reach for their highest aspirations and achieve true equality.

Nice sentiments, of course, and President Obama has thus far been a far better president for women than his predecessor -- mostly because he has sought to undo the damage done by his predecessor by reversing the global gag rule, signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and appointing a second woman to the Supreme Court.

But despite the president's best intentions, his proclamation furthers the idea that women's contributions to history are appropriately acknowledged as women's history, discussed for 31 days out of the year, only to return, on April 1, to the history, in which women are all but absent.

Women’s History Month is a gimmick, a quick and patronizing pat on the head, a consolation prize. It’s a way of making clear that while there isn’t enough room in the official canon of History According to White Men, we should take a brief moment, once a year, to acknowledge that women played a role in history. As if these women, these moments in history, do not merit real discussion within the context of history, but rather, outside of it.

Sure, it's better than nothing. But it's not enough. The solution is not to strip these months of their symbolic recognition, of course, but to transform the symbolism of a single month into a concrete and necessary understanding of history. To acknowledge such contributions, not just with presidential proclamations, but with a total reformation of how we study history. To re-insert the "others" back into the history where they have always existed but rarely been acknowledged. To understand, above all, that every month, every day, should celebrate not his history or her history or their history, but our history. So that one day we will not need a special month to remind us to stop and say, "Oh yeah, there were women too," before returning to our regularly scheduled program.