Rewriting History

Women wanted equality. I understand the same pay for the same job and equal opportunity to perform that job. But … what is that other stuff? Equal treatment in history books? Equal presence in literary works? Equal mention in science? What is up with that?

The problem with demanding an equal number of women as men mentioned in textbooks is twofold. First it completely distorts history, science, and literary works. Many very important white males aren’t making it into textbooks because they are 1.) white and 2.) male and that is seen as a double sin. They might make it if they were varicolored and definitely if they were female, but we have too many white males.

We have too many white males because white males did a whole bunch of important stuff. Most of the big discoveries were made and recorded by white males. There is a reason for this. Women were not allowed to be educated which sorely limits one’s ability to produce new ideas. People of various colors were in the same uneducated boat.

By placing innocuous inventions by women and minorities into textbooks, we skew history and – and this is important – make it seem like women and minorities weren’t ever oppressed. This is bunk. It also means that some very important inventions and thought processes are eliminated in history because they were made by white males number 5 and greater and we can only have the first five white males and then five women and five minorities. Just because the most important discoveries are not taught should not be worrisome. There is nothing to see here – move along.

Literature is not evenly distributed between male and female writers. There is no female Shakespeare. Or even a female Boswell. Women were not allowed to write, such that George Sands had to hide behind a pseudonym. Where is a female Shaw? Can we get half credit for Oscar Wilde? Probably not. Cicero didn’t have a wife who wrote, too. Nor did Seneca. Socrates credits having a harridan for a wife with his philosophy, she being too horrible to stay in the same house with, so he went out and thought deep thoughts.

It isn’t that women in history are absent. Helen of Troy made men fight, but she didn’t think of the Trojan horse. Jezebel has a sort of cachet, too.

The ancient Greeks and Romans had both gods and goddesses. Pagans seem to have been willing to incorporate women into their pantheon and grant them the honor due to people who give birth to the next round of men.

Then something happened. One might credit Christianity with reducing women to a secondary role. Early Christians were supposed to have held women in the same regard as men and even allowed them to be priests. However, somewhere along the way, at some point in Western history, women were relegated to the back seat of the wagon. It took us a very long time to get back in the driver’s seat.

Right now, the way history is written in modern textbooks, it seems that women were just as busy making discoveries as those pernicious white males. But that wasn’t true. To forget the important discoveries and literature of second tier men in order to publish fourth, fifth, etc. tier discoveries and literature just because women or minorities were the authors is a total disservice. It denies how far we have come in such a short time. And it also ignores some very important discoveries. Shame on the process that made this possible.