Post by Radical Girlsss

All our lives, as girls, as young women, we have been told over and over that women never invented, women never created, women never existed. 

When we were girls and first started reading, books taught us that boys could do anything - explore and conquer, fight injustice, save others and themselves. The same books never showed that girls were able to do the same. They made us believe that we were supposed to wait around for a boy to come and save us. Because in books and fairytales, the only women with power are witches and we are told that witches are bad. They are destined to be ugly, mean and always alone. 

When we were girls and first started going to school, we looked around and all we saw were boys - running around, occupying space like it was theirs, exploring and conquering, similar to the books we read. Girls? We were stuck on the sides, always discreet, always calm, because a girl is supposed to be that way, right? Pretty with nice clothes that prevent us from running, nice hair that prevent us from seeing. Soft and sweet, unable to defend ourselves when boys came to lift our skirts or stole kisses, unable to find help because the adults used to always look the other way and say “boys will be boys”. 

When we were girls and we first started to speak, we learnt French, a language in which women are nowhere, a language that has rules such as “the masculine form takes precedence over the feminine form”. When we grew up and learnt other languages we realised that it is not just French. In most languages, women do not exist. 

When we were girls and loved going to class, we also loved learning about history and literature, sciences and arts. But we were only told about what men created. What men did for History, what men wrote, what men invented... we were never told about Alice Guy who invented cinema as we know it, nor about Nelly Bly who revolutionized journalism against all odds, nor Emmy Noether who was critical in the development of mathematics, nor Mary Andersen, Maria Telkes, Grace Hopper, Stephanie Kwolek, Ann Tsukamoto…

We never knew that women invented life rafts, syringes, refrigerators, ice cream machines, data processing, telecommunication technology, wireless transfer, video surveillance, circular saws, central heating, distress rockets, clear glass, suspended bridges, submarines…We never knew that we discovered the structure of the DNA, the genetic code of bacterias, the chemical composition of stars, hundreds of planets, dark matter, nuclear fission, the therapy for leukaemia, the therapy for human papillomavirus, X and Y chromosomes. 

We never knew about Enheduanna, first known female writer, about Fatima el Fihriya who founded the world oldest University, about Trotula de Salerno who was one of the first people to ever talk about women health and gynaecology. We never learnt about the strong and brave women that fought against colonisation in every single continent: Fatma N’Souer in Algeria against the French, Manuela Saenz in South America against the Spanish, Tarenorerer in Australia against the British. 

We never knew we fought wars and travelled, explored and discovered, we never knew we lead people and armies, inspired and created. We never knew we flew and we sailed, we were pilots and pirates… we never knew because no one ever told us. 

All our lives, as girls, as young women, we were told it was that way, we were told: “women never invented anything”. We never saw any strong and complex female models in history books, TV, radio, in politics, in museums, in movies… we found ourselves nowhere. 

It’s often said that girls start feeling like they are less than boys around the age of 6. Why wouldn’t we when everything is done to limit our universe? In a world where everything is masculine from the name of our streets to the character of the books we love, from Gods to Presidents, how can we dream ourselves strong, inspiring, complete?

We think about all these women that are erased... All these women that we are prevented from admiring or aspiring to become. Their mere existence is obliterated to have us believe that we cannot accomplish anything, that we only exist to be beautiful and care for others... we would have loved to know about all of them sooner, to learn their names. All these women that made History but were forgotten. Artists, scientists, activists, heroines, survivors who disappeared from our collective memories because of sexism. 

As women, we believe we have a duty to tell their stories, all of them. To our sisters, to the girls around us and to the world. Because telling about them is telling about ourselves. Taking back our voices, our places. It’s taking back our lives.