Written Out of History by Amy Madsen

Years ago, when I started drumming up support for Undivided, the stated idea behind its creation was to challenge the narrative of war and peace, both current and historic, that is devoid of women’s voices. In emails sent out I wrote that: "Women have long been recognized for causing wars, for being victims of war or for providing the impetus for men to fight wars—but not for their roles IN war (on-and-off the battlefield)." 

I was reminded of that sentiment the other day when I cracked open Frank Moore’s book, “Women of the War,” written in 1866 after the Civil War and read the following: “The histories of wars are records of the achievements of men, for the most part: the chroniclers have had to record that women, by their intrigues or their fatal gifts of beauty, have been the causes of strifes innumerable; and it is confessed that they have inspired heroism and knightly deeds, but they have had small share in actual conflicts." 

History, if written by men, inevitably turns women into passive recipients of historic injustice rather than protagonists in a drama: war squarely becomes a male arena in which women can only play a supporting role. Women in war are an afterthought. Even when on frontlines, in a game of war played by men, women are like runts of the dodgeball game that get chosen last to join a team. As team captains divide the school yard into opposing sides to hurl rubber balls back and forth at each other, it’s often a toss up if the girls are chosen before or after the smallest boy. But chosen they are out of necessity. 

Rising to the occasion, women repeatedly prove themselves capable, only to be forced to the back of the historical line, when the war or conflict in question is finished. Growing up, history did not teach me about Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a WWII Soviet sniper who, in less than one year of combat, had 309 confirmed kills including 36 enemy snipers, and the other 2,000+ Soviet female snipers like her. I did not learn that 30-40% of members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), fighting in the Colombian jungles, were women and girls. No one told me that President Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader of North Vietnam, expected women to mobilise and fight to unify their country. 

Writing women out of the history of war doesn’t just render women passive, it writes them out of the attempt to overcome conflict: without recognizing women’s roles in conflict, we cannot elevate their voices in creating peace.