‘The Monstrous Regiment of Women’
Wikipedia defines women’s history as follows, ‘Women’s history is the study of the role that women have played in history, together with the methods needed to study women. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman’s rights throughout recorded history, the examination of individual women of historical significance, and the effect that historical events have had on women.
Inherent in the study of women’s history is the belief that more traditional recordings of history have minimized or ignored the contributions of women and the effect that historical events had on women as a whole; in this respect, woman’s history is often a form of historical revisionism, seeking to challenge or expand the traditional historical consensus.’
Women history graduates
Hm. Maybe I haven’t drunk enough coffee this morning, and there’s a lot to unpick in those sentences, but I read it as if a favour is being granted; “Let’s allow the girls to have a whole section of history to themselves. They’ll be able to go off and write serious stuff that other girls will love and it will keep them out of our mainstream hair.”
When I was younger and questioning the under-representation of women and the male dominance of history, heroines such as Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I and Florence Nightingale were quoted at me as strong, exceptional, female models.
Exceptional.
Exactly.
The unremarked lives of other women, duchesses to beggars, who made up fifty per cent of the population, were treated as peripheral and confined to traditional women’s auxiliary roles as wives, mothers, sisters, servants.
Both historical accounting and public awareness of history are moving on; it would be harsh to say otherwise. In the media we have the splendid Mary Beard, Bettany Hughes, Lucy Worsley and Alice Roberts among others leading us into grand sweeps and minute details of places and lives of both women and men. But even with women talking about life and death in Rome, Socrates in Athens or Kensington Palace and British crime, are we much further on?
You may remember the virtual attacks on Professor Mary Beard for not confirming to female norms in respect of appearance and behaviour?
Her clever and often witty insights into past lives and her wealth of knowledge were ignored in torrents of spite about her hair, clothes and teeth and the fact she had spoken out at all. Vicious and rather sad. But Professor beard has – luckily for us – gone on from strength to strength in her mission of informing us and challenging us all about ordinary women’s lives in the past.
Almost unbelievably, Caroline Criado-Perez (far right) was told to ‘shut up’ and threatened with rape when she campaigned for at least one female historical figure to be portrayed on UK bank notes as Elizabeth Fry was to be dropped from the £5 note. Happily, Jane Austen appeared on the £10 note from 2017 but even in the 21st century, it’s depressing to see that in some quarters traditional male attitudes to female speakers and active participants in life are still welded to ancient roots. (And yes, that is Mark Carney, the current Canadian prime minister when he was governor of the Bank of England.)
In brief, there are two strands here: the historical account itself and dissemination of that account. Perhaps this is where ‘good’ historical fiction comes in, ‘good’ meaning meticulously researched and well written: no fictional spouses; no anachronistic food or clothes; no characters saying ‘great’ or ‘no way’ in response to a suggestion in the seventeenth century; muskets and spathae in their correct wars.
Works of fiction are by their nature made up, or fictionalised versions of known stories. Historical fiction in the hands of a competent writer can fill out the known account and suggest logical developments even when there are very few substantiated facts. Sarah Johnson from the Historical Novel Society produced some thoughtful guidelines to what historical fiction is, and can do. Although written in 2002, they still provide a helpful definition.
A rich collection of books, both fiction and non-fiction, about women’s roles in the past can be found on the HNS site under the search category ‘women’. A number are about remarkable women, because their lives are more or less documented, but others include or even focus on ordinary women and trends around their lives.
Historical novels are an increasingly popular genre with readers, and more women’s stories set in the past are being portrayed by, for instance, Philippa Gregory, Diana Gabaldon, Amy Tan and Tracy Chevalier. Making women as present as men in historical events and stories should be the norm.
While it isn’t possible for every female historical protagonist to be a kick-ass heroine like Buffy the Vampire Slayer – women and men both live within the context of their time – writers are bringing forward more positive and active representations of women as courageous, decision-making and resilient. And stories of known events, but from a female point of view, are filling the real and virtual bookshelves.
Historical fiction also reflects values and concerns prevalent at the time of their publication. Perhaps that’s another reason why interest in women’s historical fiction is now growing.
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
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