Writing Women Back Into History
Giving women their due
There is an exciting, much-needed movement to write all the women whose contributions were ignored or marginalized back into the record. The gender “gap” is more of an abyss.
In a 2019 New York Times piece, historian and author Bethany Hughes related that,
Only 0.5% of 3500 years of recorded history is devoted to women.
According to the Ms. Magazine article A Womanless History: The Importance of Including Women in the Historical Narrative,
"nearly 76% of history books are written by men, and less than 10% of those men write about women.
Our society has devalued the important contributions of countless women to the point of considering them beneath mention. That is a grievous injustice that impacts girls and women today. We need our lineage of courageous women, and they deserve the same recognition, respect, and place in history as men.
This is a roundup of intriguing people and groups that are giving women some of their due in history.
1. A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. This is an older book and one of my favorites. The author traces the life of Martha Ballard, a Maine midwife from 1785 to 1812, through her records of facilitating births. She also follows how Ballard was paid, in money or with goods, and then who she paid for what services and goods. This trail uncovered an entire women-led economy little recorded in public records. Ballard played an essential, highly skilled role in her community. Her diaries also relate the town news of the day. Ulrich traces many of those details to piece together a picture of life in that time and place, from the families of her clients of all classes to controversies and court cases.
2. When God Was a Woman. In this fascinating, thought-provoking book, Merlin Stone relates how much more power, status, and respect women had when people worshiped Goddesses as well as Gods. Women lost ground in society with the rise of the Christian male God.
Also read If Oceans Were Ink, by Carla Power. This amazing Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-nominated book is about a secular American woman who becomes friends with a madrasa-trained Sheikh and asks him to teach her about the Quran. At one point she relates that Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi intended to write a slim volume about early female Muslim teachers and ended up with over forty volumes about them.
3. A Rome of One’s Own by Emma Southon. I just obtained a copy and haven’t read this one yet, but am excited about it. When we think of ancient Rome, we tend to think about emperors and senators, or the Roman legions. So little is written about the lives of the women. This book highlights the contributions of twelve women in the Roman Empire.
If ancient Rome interests you, don’t miss Lindsey Davis’s fun fictional series about reluctant informer Marcus Didius Falco. They are hilarious and are set in an ancient Rome fully populated with savvy, influential women.
The more recent volumes feature Marcus’s adopted daughter, informer Flavia Albia. She is another richly drawn protagonist, and of course, we see even more of a woman’s life and perspective.
4. There is a wonderful chapter in Nonstop Metropolis, A New York Atlas by the incomparable Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. A chapter titled City of Women contains a map that makes me incredibly happy. It’s New York City’s subway with every stop named after an amazing woman who shaped the city’s history.
We are surrounded by buildings, streets, and bridges named almost exclusively after men. Imagine how empowering it would feel for women and girls to walk around cities where everything was named after women. Another volume contains a map of London’s tube stops renamed for women.
5. I’ve saved my new favorites for last. Physicist Dr. Jess Wade has created more than 2,000 Wikipedia entries for notable women’s contributions to science and engineering. You can read more about her amazing feat in The Guardian.
We need to know about these trailblazers and mentors to make it easier to blaze even more of our own. Just as knowing our family lineages gives us more courage and perseverance, we need to know and men and boys need to know all the amazing women from whom we descend.
Lucy Moore, a British archeologist and curator, created a woman's Wikipedia entry for every country in the world. As of the article below, she’d created biographies of 532 women.
“Less than 20% of the biographies on English language Wikipedia are about women.
In 2014, only 16% were about women. That was when several editors decided to address the enormous disparity. You can read more about Lucy Moore’s exciting discoveries in this article in The Guardian.
Women in Red is a group devoted to lessening the gender gap in Wikipedia entries. Wikipedia is the largest public historical record and a tremendous resource. We need to write the countless contributions of women into that record. The name Women in Red refers to red links on Wikipedia, which indicate notable people who lack entries.
Women in Red welcomes all genders, and entries about “Women” include anyone self-identified as a woman. Many men participate in this vital project.
We can help alleviate Wikipedia’s gender gap
This is right up my alley and maybe yours. Please spread the word to friends, colleagues, and family members you think will be interested in being part of this important undertaking. It would be a great school or group project as well.
Edit new information into an existing entry. Add women left out of the story of another person’s accomplishments or additional information about them. You don’t have to register as a Wikipedia editor to make these contributions, but interested parties will be notified of changes and the information verified.
Add public domain images to Wiki Common. This could be a great source of images for those of us writing on Substack. Verify that they are free to use.
Become a Wiki editor. This piece on Ted.com relates how to edit or create a Wikipedia entry or add to Wiki Commons.
Are you bilingual or multilingual? So much of Wikipedia is in the English language. Translating entries about women into your language(s) is another important way to contribute.
This is great! Thanks for all the recommendations, Rita. And by coincidence I’ve just had notification of London’s Tate Britain exhibition opening in May - NOW YOU SEE US women artists in Britain 1520-1920
Thanks for this post Rita. I’m shocked at the scale of this gender gap although i ‘knew’ we were taught history not herstory. So great to discover how that’s being changed, ways to contribute and loved hearing your book recommendations. Im gonna check them out.