Let me be honest, right off the bat: I’ve never taken a women’s studies class.

Of course, one could also say I’ve never taken a men’s studies class either.

To that, one might then be inclined to reply, “Hey, you have taken a men’s study class. It’s called ‘history’”. And then there’s usually some quip about the “his” in “history”.

The only response to that, of course, is to write your local congressman or woman, begging for state-imposed sterilization of people who would actually say something that trite and meaningless. (While you’re at it, I’d appreciate if you also include people who use the phrase “old soul” and people with bumper-stickers on their car, but I guess we shoudn’t be greedy).

But again, the point is that I’ve never had a women’s studies class.

I bring this up because not having had the pleasure of such an educational experience, I can’t really speak to the “point” of women’s studies in general. However, I’ve spoken to many people who have taken such classes, and the main (only?) justification they provide for such things — and I’d like to say I’m paraphrasing here, but the sad reality is that this really is all there is to it — is that “history”, for the most part, is written by men, about men, for men.

Bold claims, all. The last claim I would take slight issue with, as most people (male or female) who spend their life studying some aspect of history are probably excited that anyone (again, male or female) actually cares about their work. But perhaps it’s true.

The first claim might be true as well. Most historians are probably men, so they do most of the writing of history books. Besides, many women who would be historians, at least these days, are too busy writing women’s studies books to be bothered with history. But I would certainly grant that most history — especially the sort that was written as it was happening — was written by men.

Which brings us to the central claim here, both literally and figuratively. That is that history is written “about” men. Some people, for whatever reason, take umbrage with this, and I don’t really understand why. This strikes me as tantamount to complaining about how the New Testament is “mostly about Christians”.

I guess I’ve never read a book on, say, Queen Victoria, and thought to myself, “wait a gosh durned second here. WHERE ARE THE DUDES?!” Like, it’s a book about a Queen. Last time I checked, most of those were women. Or at least lived in West Hollywood, and I don’t believe WeHo was under control of the British Empire in the mid-nineteenth century, so it’s not really part of the conversation. A chick was queen, so you’re gonna end up reading a lot about her.

It’s pretty hard to refute that over 90% of the interesting shit to happen to the world, at least in a historical sense, was done by dudes. Art, literature, war, science. All dominated by men.

“But Jeremy!”, you might say, “don’t you see? You’ve proved the point. They were all dominated by men because men were in control! If women had been….”

At this point, I’d like to mention an old Cuban saying my other was fond of: “If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a bicycle.”

See, history is supposed to be about crap that happened, like, before, uh, now. Right? You can get into the whys and hows, but for the most part it’s about the whats and the whens. Time, unless people in women’s studies classes do a lot of psychotropic substances I’m not aware of, is gender-neutral. Figuring the gender of someone perpetrating a “what” is pretty straight forward. (Unless, again, we’re dealing with WeHo, which I don’t think we are). So that means that if something happened way back when, and it was important, and it was some guy that did it, it probably makes sense to talk about the guy, right? I mean, I guess we could talk about the guy’s mother, or the girl he took to prom, or any of the countless other women who have likely influenced his life, but that’s more of a biography. If we’re talking a historical account of what this dude did, at some point is it really about, uh, what he did?

(This is, of course, presupposing that there isn’t some Da Vinci Code-level cover-up at work here, and it turns out that, like, Napoleon was a chick or something. A while I might buy the whole thing with Watson and Crick the fact that most women weren’t allowed to vote in this country, much less do anything interesting 100 years ago, doesn’t really give credence to those sorts of theories)

That isn’t to say that women are (or were) incapable of any of these things. I’m a firm believer that women can do anything just as well as men can. Except, of course, connect stereo equipment and play basketball. I think we’ve sorta got a monopoly on those. But it’s really a toss up with just about everything else. So it’s not about women’s talent or ability, which last time I checked, wasn’t in question.

It’s about what happened. (You know, like “history”, right? Isn’t that what the word means?)

So I can totally understand a historical sociology class discussing the climate in, say, the 1700s that lead to Newton and Leibniz discovering calculus instead of some girl named Marsha. That makes sense. But to bitch about how all the history books ever talk about is Newton and Leibniz because they’re dudes is completely pointless and nonsensical.

Much like, to bring things full circle, taking a women’s studies class.

(Special thanks to Melaina for the inspiration for this post. When historians talk about my blog, I certainly hope they mention hers as well. Wouldn’t want to be gender-biased, would we?)