Dear Suzannah,
As a subscriber to History Today I always read your regular column. Your column is always well written and in many cases thought-provoking. Your April article entitled “The World is Turning” is no exception.
As all good historians do whether female or male you make good use of your access to a large number of media outlets that many left-wing female historians would die for. You have over eighty thousand twitter followers, you have access to tv, radio and write regular columns for a number of popular history magazines and have been published several times.
My problem is not so much your access to the media but your promotion use of gender over class in the study of history. While only a fool or male chauvinist would not welcome the increase of female historians in a male-dominated field would that in itself create the conditions for a class-based study of history I do not believe so.
In your World is Turning article you mentioned Hallie Rubenhold’s book The Five[1]. There is no denying this is an excellent narrative based book and deserves a wide readership, however, there are many dangers involved in her approach. The deliberate writing out of historical figures such as Jack the Ripper because he was male gives far too much concession to the #metoo movement. Another point I make in my review is the virtual absence of the class struggle in the book that was raging at the time.
While little has changed in the plight of working-class women from Victorian times to now much has changed in the position of middle to upper-class women. The #metoo movement in the United States and here in Britain has little to do with improving the lives of working-class women than it does to increase the bank balances of already rich women.
While the tide of history is turning it will not turn on the basis of gender, race or sexual orientation it will turn on the basis of class.
[1] See my review http://keith-perspective.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-five-untold-lives-of-women-killed.html
