History Through A Female Lens

The majority of history has been, and still is, written by men. Even when men write about women in history, they often get it wrong, distort the truth to fit moral or political narratives, or just plain have no idea what the female experience is so they miss what’s actually important.

Here is a list of some of history written by female authors, who are looking at history through their female gaze - not through the lense of what men have decided is history.

Suggestions welcome!

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created by jojofullo

last updated October, 2026

55 books

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The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens: A History

Nicola Clark

How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization

Mary Beard

From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World, Vol. 1

Marilyn French

Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World

Rosalind Miles

Queens of the Conquest

Alison Weir

Off With Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power

Eleanor Herman

Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths

Helen Morales

A History of the World in 21 Women: A Personal Selection

Jenni Murray

Lady Sapiens

Thomas Cirotteau

Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies

Catherine McCormack

Aphrodisia: Women, Sex and Pleasure in the Classical World

Jean Menzies

FLICK: A history of female pleasure

Kate Lister

Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It

Emily Hauser

A History of the World with the Women Put Back in

Kerstin Lücker

Fulvia: Playing for Power at the End of the Roman Republic (Women in Antiquity)

Celia E. Schultz

Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome

Jane Draycott

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power

Leah Redmond Chang

Viking Women: Life and Lore

Lisa Hannett

Women in the Viking Age

Judith Jesch

Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World

Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir

The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women

Nancy Marie Brown

The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women’s Lives, 1660–1900

Barbara Burman

The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women: A Social History

Elizabeth Norton

The Apothecary's Wife: The Hidden History of Medicine and How It Became a Commodity

Karen Bloom Gevirtz

A History of the Wife

Marilyn Yalom

Cleopatra: A Life

Stacy Schiff

A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women

Emma Southon

A Woman’s Work: Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering

Elinor Cleghorn

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation

Silvia Federici

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear

Kate Moore

Comments

Amberthefool92

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Edited

Anything by Prof Alice Roberts? Ancestor etc?

jojofulloOP

Oh boy, so sorry Amber, I didn’t see your comment til now! Will definitely check Roberts out, thank you 🫶

Ravenblade86

I'm not sure I'd say she writes from a particular female perspective, but Cat Jarman has written a couple of excellent books, River Kings being my favourite. Also a shoutout for Bettany Hughes in a similar vain.

jojofulloOP

Thanks Raven! Really sorry I missed your suggestions, just saw them now. I really liked River Kings so I’ll add that one. Bethany Hughes I have some reserves about. I find she mostly just presents patriarchal history, but she does seem to be exploring outside that vein more recently. I’ll have a look at her books though and see if there’s something maybe along the lines of historical feminism.

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