Women Aren't the Footnote to History. We Are the Foundation.

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For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929)

Women Aren't the Footnote to History.

When I write, when I choose historical fiction or non-fiction to read, I often aim for women’s history. Two reasons, we learnt men’s history at school and every minute of every day is full of it. The second reason is the opposite.

Women’s history has always played second fiddle to (if it even made it into the orchestra) to men’s. Men’s history is accepted as all history disregarding and discounting the contribution made by women.

Even now, the traditional narrative that might be considered as men’s history describes political leaders, wars, economic and legal frameworks – in other words the story of men with power. Women are more likely to be assigned social history, cultural and domestic spheres of public life. At the same time, these sections of our history are not seen as important. They are a foot note, an “also” rather than the foundation for everything else.

This gendered lens makes it difficult to find women’s voices from the past. They are rarely referred to in official records and archives (historically curated/overseen by men). We must look for their correspondence, diaries, household inventories and domestic-focused publications. If we’re lucky, we might find feminist publications and if we’re super sluethy, we may find hints and clues in women’s fiction.

The problem with being restricted to private correspondence and writing is that these primary sources of information were often not seen as important enough to keep and archive. Many private writings were destroyed on the death of the writer. Many of Jane Austen’s letters to her family and friends were burned by her sister, Cassandra, prior to Cassandra’s death. Margaret Mitchell’s correspondence was burned by her husband after her death. As these women were prolific letter-writers, one can only imagine, and despair, at the amount of information, and therefore history, was lost to the flames.

History, they say, is written by the winner. The dominant culture gets to write themselves into the books. Everyone else is sidelined. The narrative tone, therefore, is often linear with storytelling that emphasises conquest over community, and nation-building over care-giving networks. It doesn’t seem to occur and is often forgotten along the way, that without strong community and the work of women to bolster it, nation-building and institutional change would flounder.

The same male-centric narrative assumes key figures throughout history are male. Yet time and again we find out that there were women at the helm or quietly sitting in positions of influence. When we hear about key women figures we also hear of their male advisors. We also hear about the male key figures advisors, but these are usually other men. The women, again, hidden away.

This storytelling also often fails to delve deeper into key figures that sit just below the leaders: activists, reformers, writers, artisans, and mothers, not to mention the countless unnamed women whose labour sustained their society. There are countless men who sustained society with their labour as well, of course, but these do not remain nameless. They are recognised through unions, guilds and other official organisations. Women’s equivalents are barely given the time of day.

This all points to the underlying assumption that power is the public face of authority and that progress is measured by state-centric milestones (or wars or economic crises). We would be in a better-informed position if power was equated with relations and culture and progress was measured by shifts in social representation such as gender norms and bodily autonomy.

Women’s history adds to the human story. It is not an “also ran”. Recognising the role of women in society (truthfully and with meaning), reveals possibly hidden drivers of change, challenges the structural bias we live within, and enriches our narrative depth with a more holistic interpretation of where we’ve been and where we’re going. Family structure, health practice, education, environment and property management, these are as important to us as who is leading us and why. Women’s voices, past, present and in the future, are worthy of preservation.

The same argument can be made on a broader scale. Women’s history is not monolithic. It intersects with race, class, sexuality, and religion. It is not just women’s history hidden away to gather dust. In the same vein, indigenous history is downplayed. Labelled as primitive and of less value to a contemporary society. There is so much we are missing out on today because of the over importance placed on written history, the records of the dominant culture and the single dimensional view of the past that results.

Are the winners really winners? Or are they doomed to repeat history’s mistakes? The ones they choose to ignore at their own folly.

In my reading and writing, I explore the women who made possible the “great things” their male counterparts achieved. The muses who were authors or artists in their own right. The women who organised, supported, put in a full days labour then went home to care for their family. The eloquent, and not so, women who wrote to each other about their lives. Those that authored prose, poetry and scientific and historical tomes, many of whom wrote under a male pseudonym.

When I discover a hitherto unknown (to me) male who achieved something great, I also look at the women in his life who made that possible. The wives, mothers and mistresses who provided the unrecognised, unpaid labour that enabled those men to reach their dreams.

I encourage us all, writers and readers, to be socially responsible and ensure they support the representation of a broader cultural conversation. Be inclusive. Search for the truth. Only then will we have the whole human story to share and understand with each other.

Women Aren't the Footnote to History video created by author using Adobe Rush

Includes clock video by Olena and silouhette image by Inna Greenberg Vesnovaty, sourced from Pixabay plus Boudicca statue, London.