This project aims to highlight women’s histories, that much is probably clear from the term “herstory”. However, “herstory” should also be understood as a critical term, one which suggests that history doesn’t do much for gender equality.
The HERstory Project focuses on the question, “hey, where’s ‘she’ though?” because whilst history does tell us an awful lot about men, women tend to be pushed to the side. Even those histories which are about women somehow actually end up being about men, don’t they? When we talk about Henry VIII’s wives we acknowledge them because of the man they married, rather than for being the women that they were: a successful wartime leader, religious patrons, foreign women who made England their home, an abused child, and the first woman published in English under her own name. Truth is, those six women have very little in common other than all being the wife of one man, and the only reason our collective historical consciousness actually cares about them is because of his actions.
My point is if you read histories of women they will often tell you about the important and the wealthy, the martyred and the evil, but I want to explore, very plainly, women. The exciting and the mundane. What did they do? Where did they go? What did they achieve? History needs to approach women in the same way that it does men.
Now if you just wanted the answer to “what the hell is this about?” you can stop reading here, the first article will be out soon and so will the first of the Into the SPOTLIGHT feature. However, if you want a lovely long discussion of women’s and gender history as researched and understood by me over the past four years of my academic life, as well as a more in-depth explanation of the purpose of this project, then read on…
(A short disclaimer: I am not the first historian, nor the first person to broach the subject of women’s histories and attempt to push their experiences into the spotlight of historical or public attention. At the bottom of this article, you will find a list of useful resources which you can and should check out for more information about this topic. This list isn’t exhaustive but they are the pieces and individuals who have informed and encouraged this project thus far.)
Why is a focus on women in history necessary?
Women’s place in history is often contentious, those whose names we know we often know for bad reasons and those who we don’t know are assumed to have been nothing worth remembering. But that’s not really fair. If women make up approximately 50% of the global population we cannot all have been bad or insignificant. I could list for several pages women who deserve to be remembered, celebrated and studied, but that’s the point of this project, not this article. This article intends to explain a few important points and theories to help you understand this project and the following questions. Why are these histories important to study thematically? What can we learn not just from a successful individual but from the experiences of women generally? What does the ignorance of women's histories teach us about the history of them?
It will be useful to break this large topic into smaller bite-sized chunks, this should also serve as a resource, if you need to clarify why something is significant, refer back here first.
What is women’s history?
Women’s history is the study of women, what they did, who they were and what they achieved throughout history. It is about women in history. Simple. it’s not quite the same as gender history, but there is some overlap which will feature in this project - read on for that.
Why is there women’s history but not men’s history?
Because just history tends to be men’s history, so there has never been a need for a specific focus on male experiences, women on the other hand often don't seem to exist even when and where they were fundamental to an event. This is an everyday example of the effects of a patriarchal society (and as we will touch on in this project, Western colonialism). It’s complicated but you can think of it like this, in genealogy upon marriage, the wife has typically taken the husband’s name and is thereon known as Mrs-husband’s-name. (This is not the case in all societies but similar trends of the eradication of women’s identities have occurred in most, often due to colonialism). In legal documents, women would cease to exist. History has kind of done the same thing, it has assumed that if there is a woman there is nothing she could do or be other than the wife of x, daughter of x etc. There are exceptions to this, but they are quite rare and until fairly recently, historians didn’t really know how to talk about these histories. Since the second wave of feminism historians have acknowledged these women on a more balanced scale but there’s a lot we still don’t know and there’s quite a lot of latent misogyny in earlier women's histories which has carried through into how we write and think about women, and into the histories available to us. Tell me, have you seen any historians claim that Thomas Cromwell or James VI & I were incapable or dangerous because of their fatherhood or promiscuity?
You mentioned gender history isn’t the same as women’s history, what is it then?
Gender history has been described as a sort of outgrowth of women's history, whilst the latter looks specifically at women and their experiences, gender history considers the perspective of gender and tries to understand events and occurrences according to this disparity. To simplify this, gender history might provide a comparison of how an event affected men and then how it affected women, as according to gender disparities in societies and cultures they will have had differing effects and thus reactions. This perspective needs to be understood in order to correctly gauge the impact of an event. Gender and women's history are not then the same thing, but they are connected and you will see gender history used throughout work on this project.
Okay so, is the history we know about women wrong?
Not necessarily, but it might be slightly twisted. Historians (this one included) have a tendency to create villains or heroes of their subjects, let’s consider Anne Boleyn as an example. Historians either love or hate Anne and they write her accordingly. Some place emphasis on the belief that she never wanted the position she got and was the victim of a sociopathic king, yet, she still managed to do good as the king’s wife. Or they focus on the caricature of the scheming bitch, the bad she did in meddling in politics, disrupting the king’s marriage, effectively killing Katherine of Aragon and supposedly wearing yellow to the funeral (on the same day as Anne likely was suffering an 8-month miscarriage). She’s either a villain or heroic victim, feminist or pariah. But Anne Boleyn, like all women, is more complex than that, when in the position that she was faced with (the subject of distrust and disdain) it is likely that she did try to be a good queen, to influence the king to supporting the factions which supported her (she had managed to do so before they were married after all) and she was probably a good mother. But she was also not educated in politics, thus, long-standing beliefs that she meddled in court politics intentionally but dangerously are probably at least partially true. It is impossible to fit any person into a single archetype, historical figures included. If you created a character with as little nuance as some historians have suggested for Anne Boleyn your creative writing tutor would probably tell you that she was too unrealistic.
If we think about Anne for a little bit longer, what we know about her is actually extremely slim, so maybe she was as George Bernard has suggested, a mindless feature of Tudor Court Politics, nothing compared to Thomas Cromwell’s majesty, or perhaps she was as Hayley Nolan argues, a victim of the sociopathic Henry VIII. Maybe she was even a feminist ahead of her time, a lot of historical women could be considered this if their efforts to stay alive and achieve some educational variety are considered. But the bottom line is, Anne Boleyn is a key example of how women are both vilified and heroised by historical study. In a way that their male counterparts are not, Cromwell, for example, is the feature of several nuanced histories debating the good and bad of his political efforts, attempting to understand his morality and his actions. Women are rarely given the same complexity, even Elizabeth I is treated like a sort of confused subhuman heroine in both scholarly and popular culture.
The point of this rant is to demonstrate that history, especially women’s history rarely gives women the sort of celebration, criticism and attention for their actions in the same way that men are, there is a lack of complexity. Women’s and gender historians have made huge efforts over the past couple of decades in an attempt to address this failure, to redress the balance. We’re still working for that. The HERstory Project intends to contribute by providing a space for resources and discussion about women’s, gender, and sexuality histories, spotlighting individuals whose contributions, lives and experiences have been overlooked.
I’m confused, you’re called The HERstory Project but you’re going to look at all types of history?
Yes, the focus will be women and gender history, but history is a multidisciplinary area of study. Women have been involved in culture, religion, art, science, politics and war, so we will look at a huge variety of histories and spotlight women who deserve your attention (that’s everyone we can get to). We will also look at anyone who has been overlooked because they were transgressive in their gender or sexuality identities and discuss how queer histories can be understood when individuals might not have had the freedom nor vocabulary to have communicated their identities as we do now - is it fair to call Anne Lister a lesbian when we don’t know if she would have used this identity herself? There are several individuals who are quite elusive and it will be interesting to consider these people too. These individuals just happen to be mostly women…
So, are there any women you won’t talk about?
I doubt it, we will try not to give you the same discussions of the women who saturate historical study and historical fiction (excusing the use of Anne Boleyn above) but sometimes these women are worth discussing - why are they so popular and is the information we have accurate?
How can we get involved?
A significant point of this project is to create a space for women's, queer and under-represented histories, we need researchers, writers and editors, no qualifications required, to get involved. If you love history, and want to help us build a meaningful community for these histories, please get in touch!
You can fill out the Join Us form at the bottom of the website, or email us at herstoryproj@gmail.com
That’s all from me for now, thank you for reading. You can follow The HERstory Project on Insta and Twitter, search for @herstoryproj on both.
See you soon!
Abby
Bibliography/Useful resources:
On the value and definitions of women’s and gender as themes for study:
Butler, Judith, 'Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomelogy and Feminist Theory', Theatre Journal, Vol.40, No.4 (1988), pp.519-531, < https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893 , [30/12/2022]
Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, (New York: Routledge, 1990)
Meyerowitz, Joanne, 'A History of "Gender"', The American Historical Review, Vol.113, No.5, (2008), pp.1346-1356, < https://www.jstor.org/stable/30223445 >, [30/12/2022]
Scott, Joan W., ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’, The American Historical Review, Vol.91, No.5, (1986), pp.1053-1075, < https://www.jstor.org/stable/1864376>, [26/12/2022]
Scott, Joan W., Gender and the Politics of History, (New York: Colombia University Press, 1999)
On Women's history generally:
Amussen, Susan Dwyer, An Ordered Society, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988)
Davies, Natalie Zemon, ‘Women in Politics‘ in A History of Women in the West, eds. Davis, Natalie Zemon, and Farge, Arlette (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1993), pp.167-185
Davis, Natalie Zemon, ‘Women on top’, in Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight essays, ed. Davis, Natalie Zemon, (Stanford: Stanford university press, 1975), pp. 124-51
Davis, Natalie Zemon, and Farge, Arlette, ‘Women as Historical actors’ in A History of women in the West, eds. Davis, Natalie Zemon, and Farge, Arlette, (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1993), pp.1-7
Eales, Jacqueline, Women in Early Modern England, 1500-1700, (London: UCL, 1998)
Fletcher, Anthony, Gender and Subordination in England, 1500-1800, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995)
Fraser, Antonia, The Weaker Vessel, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984)
Greer, Germaine, Medoff, Jeslyn, Sansone, Melinda and Hastings, Susan (Eds.) Kissing the Rod, (London: Virago Press, 1988)
Hufton, Olwen, The Prospect before her, (London: Harper Collins, 1997)
Jay, Nancy, ‘Sacrifice as Remedy for having been born a woman’, in Castelli, E.A. (eds) Women, Gender, Religion: A Reader, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), pp.174-195,
Laurence, Anne, Women in England, 1500-1780, (Great Britain: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1994)
Melman, Billie, 'Gender, History and Memory: The Invention of Women's Past in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries', History and Memory, Vol.5, No.1, (1993), < : https://www.jstor.org/stable/25618641>, [30/12/2022]
Nguyen, Athena, ‘Patriarchy, Power, and Female Masculinity’, Journal of Homosexuality, Vol.55, no.4, pp. 665-683, <https://doi.org/10.1080/00918360802498625 > [22/11/2020]
Paechter, Carrie, ‘Masculine femininities/feminine masculinities: power, identities and gender’, Gender and Education, Volume 18, No. 3, (May 2006), pp. 253-263, <https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250600667785 > [23/11/2020]
Sommerville, Margaret R, Sex and Subjection, (London: Arnold, Hodder Headline, 1995)
Wiesner, Merry E., Women and gender in early modern Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Wiesner-Hanks, Merry, ‘Women’s Authority in the state and household in Early Modern Europe’, in Women who Ruled, ed. by Annette Dixon (London: Merrell Publishers LTD, in association with The University of Michigan Museum of Art, 2002), pp. 27-39
On Anne Boleyn, Tudor Politics and the other wives of Henry VIII:
Beer, Barrett L., ‘Jane [née Jane Seymour], (1508-1537)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2008) < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/14647 >, [27/12/2022]
Bernard, G.W., Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010)
Davies, C.S.L., ‘Katherine [Catalina, Catherine, Katherine of Aragon], (1485-1536), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2011), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4891, [27/12/2022]
Ives, E. W., ‘Anne Boleyn, (c.1500-1536), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004), < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/557 >, [27/12/2022]
Ives, Eric, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: The Most Happy, (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 1986)
James, Susan E., ‘Katherine [Kateryn, Catherine] [née Katherine Parr]’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2012), < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4893>, [27/12/2022]
Leithead, Howard, ‘Cromwell, Thomas, earl of Essex, (b. In or before 1485, d.1540), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2009), <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/6769 [27/12/2022]
Nolan, Hayley, Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies, (London: Little A, 2019)
Weir, Alison, The Six Wives of Henry VIII: Find out the Truth about Henry VIII’s wives, (London: Vintage Publishing, 2007)
Warnicke, Retha M., ‘Anne [Anne of Cleves] (1515-1557)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004), < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/558>, [27/12/2022]
Wernicke, Retha M., ‘Katherine [Catherine] [née Katherine Howard], (1518x1524-1542)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2008), <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4892>, [27/12/2022]
On James VI & I:
Wormald, Jenny, ‘James VI and I (1566-1625)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004/2014), < https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/14592 >, [27/12/2022]