Woman-Washing & The National Curriculum

If we want to do better women's history, we have to tackle the education system, too.

Hello to you, dear reader,

First of all, let me welcome the many new subscribers and say thank you for being here. There have been more new subscribers to this Substack in the first two weeks of February than in any month in herstory, so this is just amazing. I’m glad you’re here.

Now, let’s get down to some herstorical business. On 1^st March, I’m giving a talk about teaching women’s history authentically for the Teacher’s Talk Radio conference. (It’s on in Manchester and it’s free for teachers, so come along if you fancy it). I’ve also been putting together a blog post for the wonderful (and newly registered charity) End Sexism in Schools as part of their work for International Women’s Day.

The upshot: if you want to see woman-washing in action, look no further than the National Curriculum.

(And just as a reminder – woman-washing is the name I give to the practice of recycling the same women from history, usually a highly sanitised version of these women, and parading them with some empty adjectives, like “inspirational” and “amazing,” once or twice a year. You can read the full post I wrote about woman-washing here).

Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve sat and looked at all the key stages in the National Curriculum for history. This time, I wanted to crunch the numbers and get some data, especially in the earlier key stages, so I asked AI to give me a hand. Let me share the results.

The Findings

At Key Stage 1 (ages 5-7), we do have a relatively balanced representation between men and women. It looks like this:

Men (46%)

• Christopher Columbus

• Neil Armstrong

• William Caxton

• Tim Berners-Lee

• Pieter Bruegel the Elder

• LS Lowry

Women (54%)

• Elizabeth I

• Queen Victoria

• Rosa Parks

• Emily Davison

• Mary Seacole

• Florence Nightingale

• Edith Cavell

However, let me highlight the types of people noted here. In the men category, we have a mix of inventors, creatives and explorers. (I use the term ‘explorer’ with just a smidge of disdain. Looking at you, Chris).

In contrast, two of the 7 named women are royalty and 3 are nurses. My point here is to think about the impact on very young children and the messages that are being conveyed about men and women and their roles in society.

Now, let’s look at the next level.

At Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11), a significant disparity emerges. In place of relative balance, men dominate overwhelmingly:

Men (89%)

• Julius Caesar

• Claudius

• Hadrian

• Alfred the Great

• Athelstan

• Edward the Confessor

• William the Conqueror

• Henry II

Women (11%)

• Boudicca

Looking at the men, we have a pretty narrow definition of masculinity based on this list. Men are leaders, usually royal, and are associated with military prowess. As for the women? Sorry, I mean ‘woman.’ Boudicca is an interesting choice because she matches this narrow definition of masculinity. Technically speaking, this is an example of compensatory history, which occurs when women are only highlighted if they did things that men did.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This is a very brief snapshot of the government guidance for Key Stages 1 & 2 in history. It is by no means a thorough analysis - and that is something I’d like to do, actually, and present a real alternative. However, you can see quite clearly how we‘ve ended up in a state of constant woman-washing because I’ll bet everything in my bank account that if I walked up to a stranger on the street and asked them to name maybe 10 women from history, those are the names they’d give me. And these are the names you’ll see repeated throughout March when we have both Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day. Again, there’s nothing inherently wrong or bad about highlighting these women, but if we *never* branch out, it creates very narrow ideas about A) the kinds of women who ‘merit’ study and commemoration, and B) favours compensatory history. For boys, too, we have some problematic role models here.

However, all hope is not lost, dear reader.

Most of the government guidance for all key stages is suggested, not mandatory. There is a tremendous amount of creative freedom contained within the National Curriculum, and that should give us some hope. The key is to break the cycle of compensatory history and woman-washing, to pull back the curtain on thousands of years of lost women. These are the ideas that I’m highlighting in the projects and talks I’m giving over the next month or so.

This is also why I’m so passionate about and committed to doing women’s history differently. So far this year, we’ve looked at lost women in Romano-British curse tablets, birthday party invitations from the 1^st century, matrilocality among the Celtic kingdoms, the lost goddesses of the British calendar and women’s contributions to the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon Britain. My point in all of this is to prove that it’s possible to stop seeing women in the context of their relationships to men or seeing them only through the eyes of men. It’s not easy, don’t get me wrong. It requires investment and intention.

I’m always here to do better women’s history – whether it’s through content or a talk - so get in touch if you want to work together. And thanks again for being here and supporting this work.

Until next time,

Kaye x