It’s Mother’s Day! And as both a mother and an Ancient historian, I thought I would make a somewhat #unpopularopinion thread on how we celebrate women and talk about them (or don’t) in ancient history. I will start with the segregation of women into “gender history”. 1/7

When I read a history of anything that purports to be a general history of something (metics, economy, labor, death, enslavement, war, etc), I look to see if there are women anywhere in it. If they aren’t, then it isn’t a general history. It is a history that is gendered male 2/7

When Whitehead wrote “The Ideology of the Athenian Metic” he was pretty clear that he was excluding women because he decided there weren’t enough women metics to matter (he was wrong about their numbers). But most histories just ignore women in the name of being “general” 3/7

This, of course, is a problem. Because if you decide to focus really on aspects of something that tend to be male dominated areas of, say, the economy or production, but call this “general” history, you have (un)intentionally gendered your history male, but it is unmarked 4/7

The worse part comes, however, when they do decide to include women in the history, it becomes not general history but “gender history” and the women are almost always studied as mothers (or prostitutes). And this confirms an ideological position that women’s place is...5/7

...dictated by and important only in terms of her sexual and/or reproductive capacity or relationships vis a vis men. And it excludes all the other roles women have in the world and all they do and contribute. So, for this Mother’s Day, Iet’s remember that women are...6/7

...more than mothers and that any history that excludes them is “gender history” not “general” history and that women need not be celebrated only if they are mothers and shouldn’t be written into history only as mothers or other based on their relationships to men. /end

PS This whole thread is basically the #subtweet I metatweeted or subprototweeted or cast-as-shadow-in-cage tweeted about not tweeting about yesterday. Today just felt right. https://twitter.com/kataplexis/status/1259083362586759168?s=20

PPS. Having a separate chapter in your history on women is by default gendering the rest of your stuff male. putting the enslaved in their own chapter pretends they weren’t integral to every aspect of ancient societies.