Thursday, August 11, 2022

Top ten books about women written out of history

Janina Ramirez is an Oxford lecturer, BBC broadcaster, researcher and author. She has presented and written over 30 hours of BBC history documentaries and series on TV and radio, and written five books for children and adults.

Ramirez's new book is Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It.

At the Guardian she tagged ten "books that have pushed the boundaries of history as a discipline and put the women back in." One title on the list:
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

This book has done more for women’s history than almost any other. Rather than continuing to fetishise the murderer, Hallie presents the victims’ stories. By immersing readers in the social conditions the women experienced, the five have contexts other than being written off as “prostitutes”. This book has also affected the true crime genre, where more writers are focusing on victims rather than perpetrators.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue