How many pages talk about women in your history school book?
I read a book not so long ago written by a certain Titiou Lecop , a french writer. Let’s say I am not a good reader, and I don’t like to read big chunks.
But when I read it, i flew over some very little parts but most of it was read, and appreciated. The book is called “Les Grandes Oubliees”
This book. Was. Something.
This book explains why women were erased by history. Erased by so many centuries.
But many women fought on. She explains each big popular era, from prehistoric times to the coal age, to the information one. And it argues that women didn’t just appear in random places in history. They were always there. Women are not inferior.
Women were silenced by a civilized society that made a hierarchy imposing this on them. I say civilized, because the people we call barbaric, were more open minded about women. Pre-historic women. This was the term that made this book even more unique.
A word that I never heard before. Women never stood silent, sometimes they were forced to. By a patriarchal society, a society that has to dominate a group of people to elevate itself.
Also, where are the women in history books? She notes that the school history book has 33 pages on them.
The book is more than a hundred pages.
Oh well, maybe some will say, men did more important things, if women want to be in history they should earn it. And what did women do for centuries?
Cook and bring babies.
Seems logical to me.
Women existed, and many, many women in history did lots of things. They are just not as popular as men. This book proves it. Now, I am not here to write a summary about the book, I am sure there is one, or you can read it (idk if it’s translated yet).
I want to talk about education, the history part for now. I am a person that thinks that the way education is formed and applied should be changed. But this book, shows us a huge flaw in our history books. I want each one of you to open your history books, and figure out how many pages are written about women. You’d be surprised, although if I am wrong, follow the writer of that book on Instagram, they deserve it.
When I studied mythology, the teacher in the semester divided the program in 5 myths about men and 5 others about women.
Is it forced diversity? No. Forced diversity is basically making Hercules a woman, and Padme in star wars black. But here there are lots of myths that are already about women. If I told most people to tell me names of great souls most would be men.
Is it their fault? No, not in my opinion at least. They just never learned it, and maybe never thought of learning it. Hell, I never heard the term of pre-historic women before. But there were women. Some might say, well “duh of course”.
But As someone who loves history. I would like to know more about women as important as Napoleon. After reflection, I was like “whoa mainly all minorities aren’t really there”, whether it’s in sex , or race. Europe has an amazing history, hands down, but I don’t know much about Africa’s to say the same. The thing is, that after school, people who don’t like a certain topic, or are just uninterested might not bother to look back History is a topic that isn’t loved by a great number sometimes and thus the research after school wouldn’t be very likely.
Are they to blame? The only people who can blame the people who do not research for knowledge constantly are the people who do.
Which means basically very little, maybe even nobody. I highly doubt that someone can have a valuable opinion on everything. My opinion here isn’t as professional as someone who did a PhD on women’s history.
But I am talking about the subject because as I said, I read the book, and I really found it special. It taught me something new.
I think history is a huge subject, and in no way I am saying the people who work to do those history books are incompetent. But we need to look at history in the 21st century way. The one that doesn’t forget women, or any small group.
We cannot normalize not adding them. Imagine a history book with no men in it. It would be as wrong. Again, if it’s a question of merit you stand against what I am saying. Read on the many women who fought, wrote, talked, revolted, and were unjust and criminal but marked history.
Or well, could have. Women are humans, and when we look at history, if we want to call it the history of the world it should really focus on the world, and not only on Europe and the Americas, and it should not forget the individuals who marked their name in history. Whether with good or devilish deeds. Because from history we learn, from history we understand things that we should not repeat. I can talk about history for hours, but what I noticed, is that, the more you chain someone, the more the chains will become thin and weak
. And this someone will rarely choose to shake your hand after all that was done when they are liberated. This fight for integrating women more in history is a fight for men as well.
For it is a duty, not for masculinity, but a call of fairness, of justice and truth. All humans wrote history, of all sexes, religions and nationalities, and historians working to make a book for schools, remember that you are a historian of humanity, not of feminism, not of politics, not for men, but for the race that wrote on the rocks of the eternal large memoire of our collective history.
but hey , it's only me
picture credits :
https://pixabay.com/vectors/lawyer-attorney-barrister-judge-28838/
https://pixabay.com/fr/illustrations/femme-livre-content-le-sourire-5894730/
https://pixabay.com/fr/illustrations/femme-seule-mer-solitude-pensif-5987433/
