This was published as an op-ed piece in the Canberra Times in March 2002

Women's History Month

I was going to start this article with a trick question, like "Name the kings of England", or "What did Margaret Whitlam do for Australia"?

The question was supposed to highlight, in less than a paragraph, that we frame our history (mostly) in terms of male endeavour. We think of kings of England and not queens, and Margaret Whitlam as Gough Whitlam's wife rather than as a remarkable person in her own right.

But I am not in the mood for trick questions. They are far too "Weakest Link", and they don't actually help understand the problem.

What is the problem? Why do most of us read women out of history? It is part of our cultural fabric - something we do automatically unless we realise what we are doing, and start changing the way we think.

When you look out at the world, what do you see? How do you read and interpret the past? Your answer to this is conditioned partly by who you are as a person, but also by how you are brought up, what sources of information are available to you, what insights life had given you.

When you think about history, how do you think about it? Is history politics and are the major players male? Or are women an automatic part of the equation? Not only women in relation to childrearing and housekeeping - but the wider roles that women play in society. There is a vast array of culture that is dependent on women, and political structures (even before women obtained the vote, 100 years ago), and economic endeavours.

These questions are not just theoretical. What you see and how you think about it, impacts on who you are and what your choices are in life. But they are big questions. So let me find a trick answer, since I didn't start with a trick question.

Look around you now. Take a mental snapshot of everything around you. Are you outside or inside? Is there a tree? Is there a coffee cup? A table or desk?

Now that you have a clear mental snapshot, think about history without women. Take a mental snapshot of the past as you know it, of the history you read in books. Where do women fit?

Every time we read history without women, we are transforming our colour snapshot into something different. We are not just leaching it of half the colour, but we are using a very narrow focus. Think of your mental snapshot of a desk - you might be focussing on the ant walking across the desk when what you really need to see is the boss calling you into her office!

Take medieval kingship, for instance. If you focus on what a king does, and ignore his crowned wife, then you miss out on a lot of the politics of the day, and the influence the crown has. Elizabeth Woodville (wife of Edward IV) is a case in point - her family-oriented approach to politics changed the face of England. And can you imagine Henry II, Richard the Lion-Heart or his brother John without the overwhelming personality of Eleanor of Aquitaine in their lives?

And this is only politics. Think of daily life. If you trace culinary history by famous male chefs who made famous recipe collections, then no-one cooked between Apicius (Roman Empire) and Taillevent (late Middle Ages). Well, it isn't as bad as that, but nearly. It is judging home cooking by the recipes of Taillevant who cooked for a king renowned for his gourmandise, and Apicius who committed suicide because he could no longer afford gourmet ingredients. Neither subject helps much in understanding what more average people ate during that long period.

Putting women in history is not just for women - it is for all of us. Cutting yourself off from half of humanity is historical impoverishment. This is what Women's History Month is about - online for the whole month of March are ways of seeing history that include women. Everything from women on the land to women in historical fiction!

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