By the Numbers: 0.5%

Is there more to this stat than meets the eye? 👀

Hello and welcome to the first post in my new series, Women’s History By the Numbers! EXCITING (and I’d love to hear feedback, btw).

Today, I want to talk about that (in)famous stat that historian Bettany Hughes brought to our attention back in 2016 and which I’ve also reshared on socials this week:

I love sharing this stat because of the responses it provokes. Generally, people (and 99% of the time, it’s women) are either horrified or galvanised. In women’s history, no other number creates such intensity of feeling.

When I first read the stat, my reaction was to question it. How do we know it’s 0.5%? Has someone counted it? Other questions, too: does this apply only to British history? Is it across the world? As Bettany Hughes is a classicist, I also wondered if this was specific to women in antiquity.