Wake the Flock Up!
- Mandy Morrow
- Jul 15
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 16
Challenge the narrative by waking the flock, can sometimes lead to some pretty heavy guns being directed at you! In the insult repertoire prepare to be taken down, ridiculed and invalidated. That is how easy it is, but I ask you to look at history as we know it or think we know it in the last 300 years. Surely there is room for you and I to agree on one thing; what we know and what they show are interrelated. The careful release of details relating to events have shown us that history is maybe more like a soup left in a pan on the hob for days. It changes, improves sometimes, and ultimately goes bad as we see and smell the breakdown of the ingredients.
That my dear friends is the reason why herstory is so important. By taking women and showing you that their contribution to society was more than being consorts to male folk I can give you the gift of a wider perspective. When you take an issue like the representation of women, half the population, in society and you show that their existence has been a carefully managed smoke screen you can then start to question everything we know.
Rosalind Franklin was hugely significant in the discovery of DNA and the molecule make up of certain viruses but her work was largely ignored until recently. In fact the work she did on the discovery of DNA led to colleagues Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins being awarded a Nobel Prize in 1962. At that time posthumous awards of the Nobel prizes were not allowed. So she sunk into invisibility even though they called her the 'Queen of Science' during her life.
Again, it was only a few years ago that posts started circulating around social media about the contribution of Ada Lovelace in the world of computer programming. Experts disagree over whether Charles Babbage or Ada Lovelace wrote the notes for the first computer programme but one thing is for sure Ada’s role as either a junior partner in this evolution of computer science or as lead developer was neither acknowledged nor valued, until recently!
Many timelines will calmly quote variolation being ‘introduced into Uk in 1721 with no name attached to who or why such introduction was made, instead shouting from the rooftops that half a century later the incredibly talented Edward Jenner was the man to bring a vaccine for small pox. True he used cowpox rather than smallpox making it less dangerous but he cannot be credited with the introduction of vaccines. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had watched Turkish women prick the skin of their children and give them a small touch of smallpox. Fascinated she bought the idea back to London and that is how it was born. I am glad to see that medical websites are now crediting her with this, although a lot are not!
At the risk of sounding like one of those whiney preschoolers who cry “it’s just not fair” at every juncture I want to stop right there because I could literally tell you about hundreds of women who have been wronged by their enforced invisibility. But I would leave you with this:
If it is so easy in broad day light with all the shutters open to pull the wool over the population’s eyes by playing down the role of women in our lives then what else have they lied about?
This is why herstory matters because it is just the opening of a door to a different world. A world where facts are not things but facts quite often are distorted and heavily tainted by cultural perspective and generational restrictions, and possibilities for a reframing of our lives and collective self esteem are infinite once we know this.
May the rabbit hole of your discoveries be filled with joy.
Want to be challenged? To have your eyes open?