Herstory: Where are the Women in History?

by Eleanor Williams-Brown

Where are the women in History? If it was not clear already from school’s History courses and most people’s general knowledge of History, women rarely feature in our established historical narrative. With the majority of History being written by men, and the patriarchal societies they lived in, this is not surprising. While there may be small sections on female monarchs such as Elizabeth I and ‘Bloody Mary’, the rest of the focus of women is confined to their roles as wives or mothers in the development of ‘Great Men’. This begs the question: What must women do to not be written out of History and is it worse to be completely erased or sexualised and have your achievements diminished or forgotten - like Cleopatra? With around 51% of the population being women, it is unrealistic to think so few have played a part in History, and acknowledging their roles can perhaps dispel some misogynistic viewpoints influenced by seeing only the men who shaped society and address the problems of our past.

The Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut was almost completely erased from the historical narrative, twenty years after her death. Statues of her were torn down and her name was chiselled off memorials. There is little question of her competency as pharaoh - her mortuary temple Djeser-Djeseru remains admired and was an architectural phenomenon at the time, and she claimed to be the daughter of the god Amun, demonstrating her close religious ties. Reigning for twenty-two years, her policy of economic expansion saw merchant colonies established in distant places, even in Lebanon. Her ships traded with India and Persia, building a great economic prosperity which remained mostly peaceful. It is presumed her erasure is largely thanks to her being a woman on the throne, even if she was just regent for her step-son. While it was entirely legal for a woman to be a monarch, it disturbed foundational Egyptian beliefs of maat (truth and justice) as well as the idea that the monarch was the living embodiment of the male god Horus. Despite aiming to conform to these ideas by taking the masculine name Hatshepsu (denoted with the male -su ending) and demanding to be depicted with the traditional false beard, someone, presumably her step-son Thutmose III, still aimed to destroy Hatshepsut’s legacy. Happening twenty years after her death, it was clearly not a personal grudge, as then he would have done so far sooner, but most likely a way to ensure balance was brought to appease the gods by erasing the image of a woman having ever able to have been on the throne. This suggests that that even if a woman attempts to conform to the roles her society forces onto her, and is an intensely successful monarch, she can still be erased as if her rule never happened.

Cleopatra is one of the most recognisable Egyptian historical figures. However, she is usually remembered as someone sexualised whose affairs brought the end of the Roman Republic. But, much like Hatshepsut, her reign brought twenty years of peace and prosperity to Egypt. She spoke many languages, commanded armies at 21, and was educated in the Library of Alexandria. Yet, she is demonised for her affairs with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar, with claims that she kept the latter away from Rome when he was needed in Rome. While it could be suggested she bears fault for this, it was Caesar's choice to stay, which he did as he was enchanted with Egypt culture, leading him to want to make plans for a public library and reform the calendar to the one most are familiar with today. Cleopatra’s image in pop culture ignores her achievements of managing a vast bureaucracy and keeping the economy stable - even in a drought, she opened the granaries to the public and passed a tax amnesty, keeping the people contented and ensuring her kingdom was stable. Unsurprisingly, there were no revolts in her reign, after this point. But, her popularity and skill at stabilising the economy are ignored due to the belief, enforced and created by Roman propaganda and later depictions of her - such as in Shakespeare’s ‘Cleopatra and Mark Antony’. This could perhaps be attributed to how she was seen to be meddling in Roman affairs after Caesar's death. However, it was actually the Roman factions who approached Egypt demanding aid, with her son with Caesar, it’s highly unlikely she had any choice as to whether she could support them or not. Moreover, it is unfair to demonise her for having a sexual relationship with two Roman generals, and focus solely on this, when both had countless affairs which are not treated with the same hyperfixation. Why is Cleopatra defined by her sexuality, when her male contemporaries are not? There is almost a cognitive dissonance in this disparity. It may be better for her to be remembered than her name erased like Hatshepsut, but, is it not equivocal to erasing her from history by obscuring her real personality and achievements with misogynistic ideals preoccupied with her sexuality? Is that not tantamount to not knowing of her at all?

Women have also been erased because of men refusing to acknowledge their achievements. Most now know Rosalind Franklin, who discovered DNA’s double helix structure, one of the most important inventions of the century. James Watson and Francis Crick are usually attributed with the discovery, helping to erase Franklin’s contributions, with Watson describing her as, “a plain dressing, belligerent scientist” in his book ‘The Double Helix’. Though this contrasts the extensive research her biographers undertook by interviewing those closest to her, allowing both her achievements to be underplayed and a negative image perpetuated. One of Franklin’s greatest, and yet non-scientific achievements, born in 1951 she was persevering in a world where she was discouraged from being a scientist, despite later achieving a scholarship to Cambridge. Upon starting to research DNA at King’s College, London, she was isolated from her colleagues, and one, Maurice Wilkins, a labmate, disliked her after believing Franklin was hired as his assistant when they first met. Wilkins took Franklin’s Photo 51 - the famous x-ray image of DNA which had taken her over 100 hours to obtain. Stealing this without her knowledge, he showed it to Watson and Crick who took her data and instead of doing the maths required, which took Franklin around a year, they used it to build potential structures before realising DNA consisted of two helicoidal strands. Franklin reached this conclusion at the same time and both published their manuscripts in a journal. Again, Franklin was placed at a disadvantage, with her article being placed after Watson and Crick’s to suggest her work only confirmed theories that they had discovered independently. Not only did they win the Nobel Prize for working on DNA, so did Wilkins, the sexist man who had stolen her work. Whilst Nobel Prizes are not given posthumously, this is still a violation of her memory. What is also ignored, is that her work on the structure of viruses also led to a Nobel Prize for a colleague in 1982. If this was not enough, it was also her work which improved gas masks in World War Two. Acknowledging not only the role she played, and how society enforced it, it pays tribute to her achievements and many other scientists who still need to be recognised.

Rosalind Franklin is one of the more well-known erased women, Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer, is also recognisable but this may be more thanks to her notorious father, Lord Byron, which automatically drew society’s attention to her. Yet Henrietta Lacks’ name is recognised nearly nowhere. While not a scientist herself, it was her cells which formed the first immortal human cell line - endless identical cells which are still today. These cells formed the basis for many major scientific vaccine. They allowed Jonas Salk to test his vaccine against the Polio virus; been used to study HIV, mumps, ebola, and measles; they are the reason we know human cells have 46 chromosomes. HeLa cells, as they are called, are the reason cervical cancer is known to be caused by HIV and were the first to be cloned. While these achievements were not Lacks’, it is important she is known as a symbol for the race relations in the US, and the negative impact on women. Living in Baltimore with her five children, her tumorous cells were harvested, but she died several months later due to the aggressive cervical cancer. She never knew about this, with neither her or her family ever giving consent. This was practice at the time, with her hospital, John Hopkins hospital, actually being progressive in how it would treat African-Americans. Her cells were taken in 1951, yet her family were not told until the ‘70s. It was only in 2013 that the Lacks’ family were fully told properly about the effect of Henrietta’s cells, and came to an agreement. While not erased from history, but refusing to acknowledge the woman whose cells were taken, it is tantamount to erasing her and the role played...

Female world leaders are frequently forgotten, to name just a few, Kösem Sultan was in charge of most political decisions of the Ottoman empire, becoming Regent of the Empire twice. She was merciless to her political enemies and yet helped the impoverished. Turham, her daughter-in-law, also did the same. Marozia helped to hold Europe together in the Middle Ages, Constantine VIII’s daughter Zoe ruled the Byzantine Empire. Wei, second wife of Emperor Zhongzong, ruled the Tang Dynasty in China. Nur Jahan was the effective ruler of the Mughal empire. The second largest empire of all time, the Mongolian, was also ruled by two different women: Toregene Khatun and Sorghaghtani Beki. Woman have always been rulers, and by acknowledging this a woman in power does not seem strange, instead, the fact that there have been 45 US President’s, but none a woman, does.

Learning the histories of several important woman is not the same as correcting the erasure seen over centuries. Nevertheless, acknowledging the way women are actively erased, demonised by their sexuality, and their achievements taken advantage of by men is important to help people realise what has occured. Righting the wrongs of erasing woman and their achievements from history, encourages people to step outside limited roles offered to them, as, by demonstrating how women being in power and achieving is nothing new, people would hopefully be more acclimated to it. As Anita Sarkeesian wrote in Time: "We want the idea of female leaders, heroes and innovators to feel like something that’s always been woven into the fabric of reality - part of our past, part of our present and part of our future - because it always has", achieving this allows us to truly learn our past, and acknowledge those who improved our present.