Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

TRANSFORMING THE ACADEMY 57arts. Any History that is faithful to the facts must acknowledge that in thepast women were simply not permitted the degree of freedom commensuratewith their talents. As Virginia Woolf pointed out, even the mostgifted sister of Shakespeare would, tragically, never have been given theopportunities to make use of her genius. Lamentable as this may be, thereis simply no honest way of writing women back into the historical narrativein a way that depicts them as movers and shakers of equal importanceto men.To be sure, giving women only 1 percent of the narrative is too little,but 30 percent would be too much, and giving women half the space ina conventional History would blatantly falsify the narrative. Nor can historiansdo much about the "common people" whom God made so numerous.The vast majority of people, including most men and almost allwomen, have had a disproportionately small share in the history-makingdecisions about war, politics, and culture that historians count as momentous.But what is any historian of integrity supposed to do about that?It is a standard feminist objection to traditional History that it focusestoo much on male-dominated activities such as politics, war, and, morerecently, science. A more balanced History would focus on areas of lifethat would give women greater visibility and importance. In effect, thecomplaint is that women figure importantly in social history but thatpolitical history has been given pride of place. This was a reasonablegrievance twenty years ago, and the trend in high school and collegehistory books since then has been toward social history. Even a stronglyfeminist report on the curriculum by the Wellesley College Center forResearch on Women points this out: "An informal survey of twenty U.S.history textbooks compiled each year from 1984 to 1989 found a gradualbut steady shift away from an overwhelming emphasis on law, wars, andcontrol over territory and public policy, toward an emphasis on people'sdaily lives in many kinds of circumstances." 15In fact, both political and social history are important. By itself, socialhistory, too, is insufficient. Even an exhaustive survey of daily life cannotsubstitute for the traditional kind of political history. Students need areliable account of the events, philosophies, and cultural developmentsthat have made a difference in the fates of nations and peoples, renderingsome more successful and prosperous than others. Sooner or later theresponsible teacher of history must get down to the history of politics,war, and social change.But the gender feminists have far more ambitious goals than the redressingof historical neglect and bias. If history cannot be changed,History can be. Better yet, why not insist that all we ever have of history