From the publisher: “Looking through the ages and across the globe, Anita Sarkeesian, founder of Feminist Frequency, along with Ebony Adams Ph.D., have reclaimed the stories of twenty-five remarkable women who dared to defy history and change the world around them. From Mongolian wrestlers to Chinese pirates, Native American ballerinas to Egyptian scientists, Japanese novelists to British Prime Ministers, History vs Women will reframe the history that you thought you knew…”
Don’t miss out: Anita Sarkeesian and Ebony Adams will be visiting Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures on Wednesday, October 3!
“Anita is a feminist for the digital age, using modern tools and platforms to engage thousands of people who want to hear her thoughts and respond to the challenges she raises.” – Wil Wheaton, TIME
By Their Works You Shall Know Them
Who cares about a bunch of dead women?
Well, we do, and we think you might, too.
We’re finding it quite tiring that rather than being celebrated as heroes, leaders, and innovators, women are often depicted — and treated — as secondary characters in history. They may be love interests, damsels in distress, sassy best friends, mothers, mistresses, or martyrs — but they rarely exist as anything except footnotes to the stories of the men whose lives and achievements we’re told actually matter.
But a closer look at history tells a different story. Did you know the inventor of the novel was a Japanese woman? Or that a Chinese woman ruled a fleet of four hundred pirate ships? Or that a fearless nineteen-year-old in 1930 was the first black woman to make a solo motorcycle ride across America, even though the laws of the time meant she had to sleep outside in gas station parking lots?
WHEN THEY WERE TOLD THAT WOMEN SHOULD ASPIRE TO BE SUBMISSIVE AND GOOD, THEY DECIDED INSTEAD TO BE DEFIANT AND GREAT.
History vs Women: The Defiant Lives That They Don’t Want You to Know aims to explore the lives and accomplishments of fascinating women across the world who defied cultural expectations and social pressures that sought to limit their ambition and erase them from the history books. When they were told that women should aspire to be submissive and good, they decided instead to be defiant and great. Their uncompromising lives and thrilling exploits are a reminder that the stories we tell about women — in TV shows, comic books, and video games, as well as in real life — often reflect the stereotypes and limitations that have been created for them, rather than the world-changing feats they have already achieved, often against incredible odds.
In History vs Women, we’ve gone searching for women across the globe and across generations to draw back the curtain on those phenomenal figures whose stories you may not know, but whose uncompromising lives still reach out to us. Digging deep into the past, we came across scores of forgotten women whose incredible triumphs and historical importance had been lost. It is invigorating and electrifying to reclaim their stories and share them with you. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to think about the others: women with inspiring stories of creativity, ambition, perseverance, and brilliance that have been lost forever. The contributions of many women simply weren’t valued enough to record. But the greatest tragedy is the sheer number of exceptional minds who never had the opportunity to explore their talents at all because as women, particularly women of color, they were never given an opportunity.
History vs Women aims to introduce you to a range of dynamic women across many different races, countries, time periods, and classes. Some of their names might be familiar to you, and we hope you discover new and fascinating parts to their stories. But we suspect that many of the women you’ll meet in these pages you’ll be hearing about for the first time. We think you’ll be as blown away as we are by the colorful tapestries of their lives and the fearsome impact they made on their societies.
The book is divided into five sections:
Reckless Rebels
Revelatory Scholars
Ruthless Villains
Restless Artists
Relentless Amazons
We’ve deliberately chosen figures across a wide variety of fields, to prove that there’s no arena in which women can’t make their mark. The “Ruthless Villains” section is especially important to us. It’s crucial that we don’t simply celebrate the heroic contributions of women in history, but instead recognize that women are fully human and are therefore capable of the heights of heroism… or the depths of wickedness. No book about women’s history is complete without acknowledging the fullness of women’s experiences, and in this book, we certainly don’t sugarcoat any gruesome or unsavory history.
Through these captivating stories — and the magnificent artwork that accompanies them — we hope to demonstrate that history is a dynamic, dramatic, living thing. To put it simply: If you are like us, and you care about the future of our planet and all the beings on it, you’ll want to understand how we got here, to this time, in this moment. To understand the heroes and villains of today, we must understand the heroes and villains of yesterday. So, join us as we initiate you into a secret society of remarkable women. We think you’ll like the other members.
History vs Women is copyright © 2018 Anita Sarkeesian and Ebony Adams. This excerpt is published here courtesy of the authors and the publisher, Feiwel & Friends, and should not be reprinted without permission.
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