Londoners Take Another Swing at a Women's History Museum

By Kelly Faircloth  |  August 4, 2015 | 1:30pm
In Depth

Recently, in a perfect sick joke about the framing of women’s stories, a promised Women’s History Museum in London was revealed to be yet another Jack the Ripper attraction. Now two historians want to create an actual women’s history museum. Whoa now, let’s not get too wild, here!

The Telegraph reports that historian Sara Huws and writer Sarah Jackson have thrown up a website soliciting volunteers willing to work on an East End Women’s Museum. (For real this time.) It’s covered in black-and-white images of women across the centuries getting shit done in the area, with a heavy emphasis on protest and activism. “When a proposed women’s history museum on Cable Street in East London turned out to be an excuse to cash in on the popularity of a misogynist serial killer, we decided to make the missing museum a reality,” the site declares.

They aren’t yet sure what the result would look like, telling the Telegraph that it might be “a pop-up exhibition, a heritage trail, a smartphone app or all of these things.” They added:

“What we do know is that it will take an intersectional approach. We’re aiming to bring in the voices of women who have been pushed to the margins of society, and of history.
“East London has an incredibly rich social, political, and cultural history and women were part of all of it, although their voices are seldom heard. Those are the stories we want to tell; stories that illuminate the lives of East End women – not only their deaths.”

So the “Women Who’ve Banged Rich and Powerful Men Museum,” right?

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Photo via Getty.

 
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