Queens You Should Know

For a number of reasons (mostly patriarchial but that’s for another time), our history books and literature are dominated by white men. By omitting the contributions of women, we are essentially erasing their impact; this is particularly true for women of color. Sure, it’s great to know the societal contributions of men (give us the ENTIRE story though), but that occupied space is at the expense of telling the stories of women who have also shaped our history and culture.

Don’t believe me? Let’s check:

• How many female scientists can you list?
• Are there any historical women you can name that are noteworthy not only because of who they are married to (bonus points if you have examples that are not popular because of their beauty/sexualized version)?
• Name five female literary authors that are also women of color.
• What is the percentage of women serving in the United States government? How many of THOSE women are POC?

Huzzah to you if you were able to answer even one of these questions because according to one study, women make up 50% of our population but yet only .5% of our recorded history. Research conducted in 2016 found that 40% of respondents thought women did not impact history as much as men. Ahem.

The purpose of  QYSK is to tell those untold stories of women who have contributed to the arts, sciences, politics, justice, AND THE WORLD that were left out of our history books. We’ve always been here; you probably just haven’t heard of us. In the words of the Spanish protestors during the first International Women’s Day: “If we stop, the world stops.”