This work is my own work and does not represent the views of Macquarie University staff or students.

Extract 1

Audrey Osler’s journal article ‘Still hidden from history? The representation of women in recently published history textbooks’ explores the presence of women in school history textbooks and the issues of gender equity that arise in both teaching and learning history. This source aims to examine whether such textbooks are contributing to the integral role of women in societies both historical and modern. Osler employed content analysis on thirty six textbooks in order to search for the presence of women in the England’s history curriculum. The article deduces that the inclusion of women in historical sources is not only necessary in understanding the role of women throughout time but is also essential to analysing history from an alternate female perspective.

This source appears to be reliable. The author, Audrey Osler, is a lecturer on Education at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Working such an occupation, Osler allows herself a position to comment on both education and curriculum. Additionally, as a woman, Osler is further enabled to comment on the presentation of her gender throughout history.

Furthermore, this source is transparent as the author makes consults external sources of information that support her argument regarding gender equity in history textbooks. The author also correctly cites each source with intext citations and an extensive reference list.

This source is objective as factual sources are used throughout. However, as both a lecturer of education and a woman, some elements of bias and subjectivity may be evident in the  discussion of the roles of women in sources used to educate students about history.

The target audience of this journal article is academics or intellectuals. Despite this, this source can be understood by the general public and may be of interest to those in the fields of education or history.

Written in 1994, this source is currently twenty five years old. This highlights that the information used by Osler may no longer be applicable to today’s history curriculum and textbooks in England. Nonetheless, as the role of women continues to be a topic of social and cultural interest, the arguments regarding gender equity and representation are still relevant today.

Limitations of this source include the potential skewedness of the argument based on the authors personal bias. Moreover, the outdated information used in this journal article contributes to the potential for inaccuracy in claims or arguments presented by the author. Should such research be reconducted, it would be advised that it is both researched and written from an objective standpoint, as to avoid subjectivity.

Extract 2

Women throughout history have been overshadowed by their male counterparts and thus have been unable to have their stories told and receive deserving recognition for their achievements. The two articles discussed, present arguments that question the lack of female presence in historical sources and narratives and seek to emphasise the importance of this untold side of history.

The lack of representation of women in history is a highly contentious issue in contemporary public and political discourse. Historically, as women’s roles in society were deduced to the assumption that they were solely responsible for nurturing roles such as maintaining the family household. Many historical records and data of female experiences were deemed uninteresting and unimportant and thus were not kept. Furthermore, the misogynistic and patriarchal societies understood throughout history, meant that the importance of the role of women in the community was undervalued. The understanding that the contributions of women to history are often dismissed as insignificant and purely domestic, with women being kept ‘firmly in their alleged place’ (Osler, 1994) highlights very clearly the patterns of gender inequity evident in historical sources.

Correspondingly the focus on political history rather than that of cultural, economic and social history fostered the exclusion of women from historical resources. As a repercussion of this, women are often excluded from present day discussions of history and the analyses of historical recounts.  (Osler, 1994). Moreover, should modern students engage with textbooks that are aging this will further the cycle of female underrepresentation and continue to drive the historical narrative of women’s roles in society as insignificant. Similarly to textbooks, historical records regarding women have often been discarded, deemed as unimportant and irrelevant to our world history. If this pattern of gender biased were to continue, it will remain persistently difficult for women to receive the recognition they deserve and to have their important stories told and voices heard.

The highly patriarchal and misogynistic society within which women lived, also heavily influenced the reasons for the lack of recognition of the achievements of these women. Living in an environment surrounded by successful men, may have been the demise of the explicit success and recognition of women throughout history. Ruby Lindsay, historical graphic designer, was ‘overshadowed by the men around her’ (Connory, 2019) who’s gender, and life chances accelerated their success. An explicit example of an attempt to avoid such gender supremacy is Ruby Lindsay’s act of signing her illustrations with a name other than the surname she shared with her siblings. The aim of Lindsay’s actions were to alter the relationship she had with her male siblings, removing herself from them and thus defining herself as independent of her male counterparts (Connory, 2019).

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