I Make the Governor Call Me Governor: Rewriting the History of Women’s Agency
Channel: AskHistorians
Date: 2021-10-19

There are certain histories in which we often expect women to be absent. Whether it’s elite politics, war and conflict, or male-coded workplaces, we tacitly assume that we’re not dealing with women’s history, that these were spaces in which men alone were present and exercising power. But what if these assumptions were leading us astray in the first place? This panel explores the historical reality of women’s power and presence in what have long been regarded as male-dominated spheres, challenging long-held assumptions about the ways in which women have exercised historical agency.

Learn more about this panel at https://www.askhistorians.com/womens-agency

This panel includes a live Q+A with the panelists 20 October 2021 @ 3:00 - 5:00 PM EDT, on https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians

Featured in this panel are:

"Weaponising Grief: The Women of the Guise Family and the Catholic LEague During the French Wars of Religion" by Clare Burgess 
"Standing Their Ground: Women and Warfare in the Anglo-Scottish Borders" by Dr. Chelsea Hartlen
"Masculinity, Myth-Making, and Women's Place at Sea in Maritme Life" by Julia Stryker 

Moderated by Jenn Binis

This panel is part of the AskHistorians 2021 Digital Conference. For more Conference content, please go to: https://www.askhistorians.com/2021-digital-conference

Land Acknowledgment:

The AskHistorians Digital Conference (AHDC) Organizing and Diversity and Inclusion Committees acknowledge that the AHDC 2021 is being produced in and viewed from various locations across the world. Many of these locations include lands that are the ancestral, unceded, and treaty territories of Indigenous Peoples from Turtle Island, Abya Yala  [ab-EE-ah ee-AH-lah], and the Americas in their entirety to the traditional lands of Indigenous Peoples in Sweden, Australia, and across the globe. We acknowledge that these lands have been stewarded by these Indigenous communities and nations since time immemorial and we offer our gratitude to these Peoples. We, moreover, recognize that, five hundred years later, settler colonial nations continue to benefit from the brutal realities of genocide and forced removal that enabled the original settler colonizers and conquistadores to seize these lands.

The AHDC organizers acknowledge both the land upon which we are virtually hosting this conference, those lands from which the conference is being viewed, and the deep-rooted and long-lasting wounds caused by white imperialism and settler colonialism. The harmful effects of these actions continue to hurt Indigenous communities across the world. We recognize the responsibility we have as historians to amplify Indigenous Voices and speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves. We also acknowledge that while we pursue this goal, academia itself has often been at the forefront of colonial domination and must therefore reckon with its own injustices. Understanding this, we have chosen to make a donation to the Indigenous organization, Forest Peoples Programme, in an effort to give back to Indigenous communities around the world. While we appreciate that Indigenous political, trade, and kinship relationships extend beyond the geographic boundaries that we commonly assign to distinct communities and nations, we would like to particularly acknowledge the Indigenous Peoples upon whose ancestral lands the AHDC 2021 has been produced or hosted as follows:

Anishinabewaki (Anishinaabe)
Attiwonderonk (Attawandaron)
Coahuiltecan
Doeg
Jumanos
Manahoac
Ndé Kónitsąąíí Gokíyaa (Lipan Apache)
Nʉmʉnʉʉ (Comanche)
Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga (Haudenosaunee)
Mississauga and Mississaugas of the Credit
Piscataway
Tonkawa
Wenrohronon