Has it ever occured to you that the word History is literally made up of the words, his story. This is a realization that occured to me just recently. At first I didn’t feel the need to read into it; I decided that it was probably a mere coincidence. But then, the more I thought about it I decided that this was not something that I should just oversee. Isn’t it in the slightest bit sexist that the word we use to define and characterize our past incorporates the word “his”?
The more I looked into it, the more prevalent and significant this realization became. So much of our history is written and told from a singular, male focused perspective. Much of what we know about our collective past has been communicated to us with a particular bias, that being a male bias. So much of what we know is so subjective and people rarely even think about this. An entire half of a population’s voice is essentially silenced because of this narrative.
I think that this notion of his-story is something that is definitely worth being aware of. We should be in check with our past and attentive to the ways in which we characterize it so that we can fosture a nature of growth for the future. In a time with so much change and potential acceptance it is important for us to be mindful of the ways in which simple words or tendencies can affect and shape people’s perspectives. In the spirit of change, as our society has definitely been thrust with social issues in the past few years we should remember to think about the little things, even those that may seem trivial so that we can grow into a more welcoming society.