The process of selecting twenty-five (just twenty-five!) stories to present to you in History vs Women was complicated, thrilling, frustrating, exciting, worrisome, and inspiring. There are so many women we wanted to include, but the demands of time, resources, and space meant that in the end, brutal choices had to be made. When we think about the amazing rebels, amazons, villains, scholars, and artists that we didn’t get to include, we immediately want to start work on volume two.
We tried to remain conscious throughout of our North American, English-language bias as we researched and wrote this book. Although we had the opportunity to learn about hundreds of captivating women, we acknowledge that we were limited to telling the stories of women for whom we could find sources in English (either original or in translation). This represented a real challenge, and we acknowledge that it resulted in a final text that is overwhelmingly weighted toward Western figures. There are rich veins of popular and academic sources from other cultures outside of our own, about truly fascinating historical figures. But unfortunately, our personal limitations meant that we could not investigate or access them in the time we had allotted. As a consequence, there are considerably fewer stories here than we would like about women from sub-Saharan Africa and the global south. Nevertheless, we worked hard to bring you stories of women from as many different backgrounds as we could, and to tell their stories well.
The lack of representation of nonwhite, non-Western women in the media is by no means limited to our project. The reality for many of us is that it is easier to learn about white, Western people than it is to learn about the lives and historical contributions of people of color, queer and trans folks, and people with disabilities. That must change.
We can all do better. Writers, activists, and scholars of feminist history must strive to make our work more inclusive and representative of women around the world, from every nation and ethnic background. They all deserve to have their stories told.