Ordinary Women: Daring to Defy History is a video series about women overlooked by history raising production funds at crowdfunding site Seed & Spark. Creators Anita Sarkeesian, Laura Hudson (recently of Boing Boing and Offworld) and Elizabeth Aultman plan to feature Murasaki Shikibu, credited as the first modern novelist, 19th-century computer pioneer Ada Lovelace, womens’ rights advocate Emma Goldman and others.
Unusually for a crowdfunded production, the series will be lavishly animated, reports Bustle, creating a work of art in its own right.
It’s an exploration of women throughout history who have decimated gender stereotypes and contributed to humanity in truly impactful ways. The series will seek to remind us not only that these kinds of women — the rabble-rousers, the undercover reporters, the activists, the pirates — are extraordinary individuals, but also that women doing extraordinary things is actually quite ordinary. And that’s a good thing. Here’s why.
Women kicking ass and taking names shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, because we’ve been here all along, propping up society with our accomplishments. Unfortunately, the telling of history has a way of being whitewashed, male-focused, and more, excluding the contributions of far too many women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized groups. With this new video series, Feminist Frequency hopes to address that glaring imbalance by bringing to life the stories of some of history’s most rebellious and remarkable women.
USA Today reports that the creators hope it will inspire more women.
“We want to normalize these women in history,” says Sarkeesian. “These woman doing these extraordinary things are ordinary in and of themselves — that women can do this.”
They also wrote an article at Time about the need to rewrite the historical record that often obscures womens’ achievements.
…take a deeper look into history, and you’ll find countless women who did incredible things that weren’t recognized in their time—or even in ours. The erasure of women from history is two-fold: not only are we discouraged or punished for stepping outside the limited roles offered to us, but when we do achieve great things despite the odds, our accomplishments are often diminished, ignored or credited to men.
Ordinary Women: Daring to Defy History. [Seed & Spark]