If she can see it, she can be it, as Geena Davis says about equal representation in media. Strength, power, leadership, ground-breaking author, inventor, activist, creator – a person who is female at birth can be these and so much more. How often do young people have a chance to see all this about their potential?
Herstory for International Women’s Day
History was mandatory in public schools where I grew up, but I didn’t learn much about women there when I was a little girl. Even at home – and my mom was a feminist – women’s stories usually had to do with their struggles to reach equality. Things like voting rights along with equal pay and reproductive freedoms. Not so much about their strength, power, wealth or success though. I hope “her”story will be more of what young people learn sometime soon, in addition to “his”tory.
For International Women’s Day, here are some of the things I know now about what we are and can be – that I didn’t learn then.
Herstory as Strength and Power
We know this because of so many legendary women like the Pharaoh Cleopatra in Egypt (about 30 BC), the warrior Trung Sisters of Vietnam who pushed out China’s rulers around 40 CE, and Boudicca the Celtic Queen who drove out occupying Romans around that same time. And epic woman warriors like Samurai Tomoe Gozen of Japan and Khutulun in Mongolia in the 13th Century, the powerful Queen Amina of Zaria in the 16th Century – now northern Nigeria, and Queen Laskarina Bouboulina in Greece and Queen Lakshmi Bai of India in the 19th Century. We have been and can be strong, powerful leaders.
Herstory as Author
Murasaki Shikibu wrote the book celebrated as the world’s very first novel, The Tale of Genji, way back in the 10th Century in Japan. I read it recently, and her stories are still fascinating. And one of the best known tales, every child I knew had heard of Frankenstien in popular media, but most of us had no idea the original 1818 novel that spawned the films was written by a very young Mary Shelley. And not that she was the daughter of feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft either – the author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman published in 1792. We can be ground-breaking authors.
Herstory as Inventor
Actress Hedy Lamarr was also an inventor and discovered frequency-hopping, I was surprised to learn, which later led to WiFi. She was also a Hollywood favorite, and much less is said about her science work.
Rosalind Franklin discovered X-ray crystals of DNA, but when she was left off the Nobel Prize (which went to two men) few understood her contributions. Chien-Shiung Wu, a female scientist born in China, discovered that nature’s laws weren’t necessarily symmetrical, but was also left off the Nobel Prize it received (which again went to two men). My mentor when I was in graduate school, Barbara McClintock did receive a Nobel Prize for her discovery of transposons, or “jumping genes”, and so I learned from personal experience with her that we can be leading scientists.
Herstory as Activism
Sojourner Truth was the original author of Ain’t I a Woman, which shook up the country when she delivered it at a 1851 Women’s Convention. I heard the powerful piece much later as repopularized in beautiful readings performed by many like Cicely Tyson and Kerry Washington. This speech has moved me and so many people over the years, and continues to now.
And the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner ever was a female activist, Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, in 1997 for her leadership on girls’ rights to education. Women activists continue to turn things upside down where change is needed.
Herstory as Creator
A woman is a creator. Every human alive has at least this one thing in common: they came out of a person with a womb. That fact does not make a person born female the weaker sex.
One of my husbands ran a marathon some years ago, which at the time, I thought was so strong. It was, and not something I would have done. But, after living through two 24-hour labors having my own daughters, I have to say, childbirth lasted a lot longer and took way more energy. I was strong too, in ways I didn’t yet realize as a young person. So many of us are, in many different and wonderful ways.
Because “If she can see it, she can be it,” let’s add herstory back into the history we tell ourselves and our children. Tell them their stories, and our stories.
J.J.Brown Author 
Thank you for sharing these women’s stories!
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