TAMING OF THE SHREW: Highlighting forgotten history

Bailey Shrewsbury

Women have been behind some of the world’s greatest accomplishments, but to everyone’s surprise men have been taking their credit for centuries.

In "Wonder Women," Sam Maggs highlights 25 specific women across a broad spectrum of accomplishments, from espionage to medicine.

The most famous example is when Watson and Crick stole the credit for discovering the double helix, even though Rosalind Franklin had submitted her paper on the same thing the day before they did. Watson and Crick actually went as far as to steal photos from Franklin, the only reason they could even publish “their” discovery.

For anyone who has put a lot of work into anything, this can be a frustrating read at times. But as Maggs points out, history is written by the victor, which in this case is straight white dudes.

This book isn’t a thrilling fantasy with swashbuckling pirates, but it’s a great coffee table book or book to read before bed. Each lady has about three pages to herself, talking about her greatest accomplishments. At first I was shocked at how little space each lady got — could this really highlight their accomplishments? But Maggs does it and does it well. This isn’t a history book where you’re told the facts in dry, boring sentences, but rather a witty and funny take on a broad range of history.

It also includes interviews with real life women in each of the fields or categories Maggs covers. It’s set up in a Q&A format and she really covers all the burning questions, including what it’s like to be a woman in a "man’s world."

Trust me, there’s more than 25 women who have influenced history. Maggs includes a small section at the end, focusing on even more ladies but in less detail.

This book also features plenty of ladies who fall into the LGBT spectrum, or as history famously describes them, gals just being pals.

Most of the ladies in this book fought gender stereotypes to be able to even practice, let alone get credit for their work. Many of the women had to work or publish under a man’s name or go as far as to pretend to be a man.

Many of these women are the frontrunners and the reason women in this century have the opportunities we do have.

Women aren’t strangers to being passed over for their accomplishments, unfortunately. Even though almost all of these rad ladies are dead, it’s about time they got recognition for their accomplishments. 

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