For Women’s History Month, let’s finally end women’s invisibility & stereotyping in the history curriculum

Guest post by Kaye Jones, The Herstorian,  theherstorian.substack.com. 

Every March, we celebrate Women’s History Month, and this is the perfect opportunity to spotlight the National Schools History Curriculum and to assess the representation of women and girls.

Research by End Sexism in Schools already shows that women and girls are mostly invisible in the taught Schools Curriculum. The challenge now is to find ways to move toward equity.

First things first, let’s get clear about the Department for Education and its role in determining what the History Curriculum looks like. I’ve crunched the numbers across Key Stages 1, 2 and 3.

Interestingly, at Key Stage 1, women slightly outperform men in terms of visibility. Of the 13 named individuals, 6 are male and 7 are female, which gives a ratio of 46% to 54%.

Once we move into Key Stage 2, the story changes. At this level, there are 9 named individuals, and only one of them is female. Similarly, at Key Stage 3, there are 8 named individuals, but only 2 of these are female.

But this isn’t just a numbers game. In my work at The Herstorian, I want to encourage history educators and publishers to think about the types of named individuals. When we apply this lens of analysis to Key Stages 1, 2 and 3, some themes emerge:

1. The curriculum favours the teaching of military, political and technological achievements. Traditionally, these achievements are dominated by men.
2. Women tend to be presented in caregiving, social change or royalty roles.
3. There is minimal (to zero) exploration of women outside of these narrow fields. Likewise, men are not investigated outside of their roles as soldiers, monarchs, explorers or leaders in other fields.  

When we look at the curriculum from this perspective, it’s clear that very distinct (and limiting) messages are being sent to young people about how men and women should behave and also about the types of people who are worthy of remembrance.

This is something that we have to challenge.

So, how do we do that?

First, let’s remember that the Department for Education’s guidance for the pre-GCSE History Curriculum is exactly that. It’s guidance. Very few of the people and topics mentioned in the curriculum are required teaching. This gives teachers, schools and exam boards a tremendous amount of creative freedom.

Second, we need to normalise women as the makers and doers of history. For example, did you know that the first named author in history was a woman? (The Sumerian priestess, Enheduanna). Or that the first known chemist in history was a woman? (A royal perfumer called Tapputi from Mesopotamia). The first novel was written by a woman, too. (Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji around 1000 AD). Here, in the UK, Margery Kempe was the first person to write an English-language autobiography in the 1400s.

So, the idea that women were so constrained by the patriarchy that they couldn’t actually contribute to the building of civilisation requires a serious rethink. And this is nothing new. In the early 20^th century, the feminist historian Mary Ritter Beard wrote:

“The dogma of woman’s complete historic subjection to man must be rated as one of the most fantastic myths ever created by the human mind.”

The keyword here is complete. Nobody debates that women have been seriously impeded by patriarchy across various times and places, but the idea that they contributed nothing more than babies and domestic labour is problematic. The history curriculum needs to reflect this reality.

Third, students must be able to see the variety and complexity of women and men’s lives throughout history. Helping students to understand the nuances of both women and men’s history is how we build critical thinkers. And connecting the past with the present, too, is a brilliant way to support student’s intellectual and social development.

When we change our approach to women’s history, we will naturally start to ask different questions, and this is another way to challenge the existing invisibility of women. Just by starting every topic with the question “where are the women?” we will open up space for debate and space for critical thinking.

Reminding students, too, that only 0.5% of the historical record includes women – a stat we know about thanks to Professor Bettany Hughes – is a thought-provoking place to start. Why were so few women recorded? How can we find out about women if history did not record them and their activities? You can see already how a single stat has so much potential for depth and richness.

Last but by no means least, subject knowledge is crucial. In five years of producing The Herstorian, my biggest takeaway is that most people’s base level of women’s history knowledge is low. Seriously low.

That’s because women’s history is not prioritised at school, college or university. This creates a cycle of invisibility: learners are not exposed to good quality women’s history and grow up to become teachers who lack the subject knowledge to teach it well. And the whole cycle repeats itself.

By no means am I suggesting that teachers should be blamed for this situation. Not at all. The reality is that the required support structures are not in place for teachers to integrate women’s experiences into their lessons.

But change is possible. It’s not easy to overhaul the existing system, but it is simple. Challenging women’s historic subjugation, presenting women in a nuanced way, prioritising subject knowledge and asking new questions are, in my view, the touchpoints on that journey.

The question is: how many more Women’s History Months will it take for us to get moving?