In our history, women were largely overlooked to the benefit of men. Women occupy only 0.5% of recorded history. Nowadays some people including feminists are trying to bring their unquestionable contribution to light. Despite that, many women are still unaware about the importance and the impact of women in our history whether it is about discovering, inventions, poetry, war contributions, politics or by emancipating other women. I was myself ignorant concerning that topic and I realized it while talking to a friend—he was telling me that women were in the shadow of important men and not in the light for a specific reason: “they did not contribute”. I was first shocked by his statement, so we started arguing and next he asked me to name some important women… I could only name three or five. Even though I knew that many women left their mark on history (because I heard about some of them) it was very hard for me to find precise examples. So, I decided to research and learn about these unknown and hidden women. Then when I found out how much they made their input to science, politics, environment to name but a few I asked myself, why do we not hear about them? Because of patriarchism? No, in fact not only. This is a quick answer in my opinion. I think there are other factors. So, let’s find out together and then talk about these women and their tangible contribution.

In an interview, Bettany Hughes, a historian specialized in classic history, is telling us that in the pre-historical time women were very represented for example by figurines and that by the time they tended to be hidden and forgotten. However, don’t we still represent women today? We do! But only sexualized and as a representation of desire for example in television, social media, video clip, magazine…etc. Therefore, we can say that even if in the past they represented women exclusively by doing sculptures of them, it was not with the aim to show their importance as a human being and their involvement in our societies and this is the same problem today. She is also telling us that if women were important and had a real status in that time it changed because of the want to expand the territory and so the need of muscles and men. Knowing that, we can imagine that the underrepresentation of women in our history books is for a large part due to our collective vision of a man and a woman. They are both stereotyped, and we expect them to correspond to our idea of a man and a woman. We put a lot of pressure on both gender: a man must be strong, protector, virile and a woman kind, frail, and sensitive. So, in our collective imaginary an inventor should be a man, a discoverer should be a man, a conqueror should be a man. This is our vision of genders which is problematic. However, we know some important women in our history. First, we have Cleopatra! But the true question is how do we see her? When we think about cleopatra our first thought is a woman who used to take milk bath and who had an idyll with Caesar.

Now we are going to discover History’s women! First there are a lot of women discoverers as for instance Maria E. Beasley who improved the life raft invention in 1880 and created the ones that nowadays we know. In 1886 Josephine Cochran created the dishwasher after years of unsuccessful experiments that was first sold to restaurants and hotels. Many other objects that we use in our daily life or inventions that saved many people were invented by women as for example: car heater, Kevlar, cataract treatment, feeding tube, longitude and latitude or home security system. Personally, one of the women that inspired me a lot during my childhood and since is Helen Keller. If you don’t know her story, I am going to tell you. She was born deaf, blind, and dumb therefore she didn’t have the possibility to communicate white other people even with her family—she was isolated from the world. However, she miraculously met a specialized teacher that taught her a new way to communicate using her touching sense. She next learned the Braille system and read a lot. During her life she showed a deep determination and was graduated and learned to speak just as she was deaf and dumb. Her courage and determination despite all opposition is just unbelievable and so inspiring. She is a very brave woman who became a hero for many children in the same situation as her and that had no hope of becoming a full member in our society. She gave them hope and permit their condition to be known.