Another post today refers to the Dictionary of Irish Biography now online. Digging into the advanced search I found there were articles for 9,515 men and 1,116 women, or about 9 to 1.
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography has 16,572 men and 1,118 women, about 15 to 1.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has 64,471 men and 9,265 women, about 7 to 1.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography has 11,679 men and 1,681 women, 7 to 1
There appears to be no gender search in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
American National Biography has 19,206 men and 3,583 women, 5 to 1.
You may have come a long way ladies, but you've still got a long way to go.
3 comments:
As has been the case for centuries, men are the editors, compilers, owners, and operators of our history, no matter what the country or the time period. While the men are busy making lists that exclude women, the women are in fact out there making the history, raising the children who through their nurturing will become leaders, fighting simply to get the vote and be acknowledged as "persons". Women have to fight through the barriers raised by sexism to be elected to office, to become corporate heads, to become best-selling historians. This while attempting to DO all the things required of "the woman" in a family or household. Any woman who tells you that on the way to a goal she has not been the victim of sexist behaviour has quite simply become so inured to it that she no longer recognizes the crude jokes, the offensive patting, the "little lady" put downs for what they are: the tools of men who fear what might become of them if the women are 'put in charge'.
I know your tag line comes from ads in the 70s(?) but it would be better to put it this way, "You've come a little way men, but you have a whole long way yet to go!" It is only when men change their attitudes that real significant progress will come, for it is their attitudes (and power) that have kept women down since time immemorial. Yet, as your previous commentator has pointed out, women have simply "gotten on with it", doing what must be done and fighting against the discrimination where and whenever they could. It's time men joined us, supported us and stopped seeing us as a threat!
I believe it is society as a whole that has a long way to go, not just the female component of it. The more that men ("gentlemen" or otherwise) become aware of imbalances in gendered attitudes, and work together with women to redirect them, the more fair life can be.
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