How Female Erasure (Mis)Shapes Our History

Record-keeping is so important. It forms the foundation of all narratives that build history. This system has nullified the entire existence of half of humanity by omitting to record the females on the family tree. This isn’t just a missing name—this is female erasure, erasing the very existence of countless women.

I’ve never seen my own family tree. My ancestors were not particularly rich or remarkable or prominent in a caste-organised society. There have been verbal stories of specific individuals. A smuggler generations ago; a top cop (funnily enough his son-in-law). A fireman here, a polygamist there. A relative rumoured to work for a top secret government department. A collector. A politician. An engineer who built the first hovercraft while still in college. All men.

I assumed, without much thought, that no remarkable women existed in my family. And I know I’ll be forgotten too, a thought that never bothered me before. I’ve never set much store by the idea of leaving a legacy or having my name known generations after I pass. But I wonder now if some amount of that male ego is necessary.

Erasing women from memory

One of the early reviews of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein outs her gender and blames that for the novel’s flaws:

Isn’t it interesting that Frankenstein while being a classic for an audience that’s mostly male (often toxically so sciencebros) explores the complexity of creating something that turns against you? Only a woman could have written that.

The women of my history that I almost didn’t know

My assumption about there being no remarkable women I was related to, isn’t unique—many of us unknowingly overlook the women in our lineage because they’re simply not recorded. This year, I became close to an elderly aunt. I never saw her at the rare functions I attended as a child. Living in Mumbai, we were cut off from the usual social glue of rituals & festivals that bind Indian communities.

As it was, I only connected with her because of the specific efforts of a few men across generations. My grandfather was very close to her husband despite being of a different generation and related only by marriage. He would travel to their town often. Her husband was very fond of my father (a younger cousin separated by distance) and would call often. My dad is very fond of her son. And her son (a second cousin in my sea of aunts/uncles/cousins of my generation) is the big brother I’ve never had. He pranks me while I yell at him; he is also there when I or my parents are unwell without question, without even needing to be asked. And he made it possible for me to build a relationship with my aunt.

In Indian families, the default trajectory of relationships goes along the lines of duty and these are always defined by the male members. Familial relationships are fulfilled (not nurtured) as obligations, as charted in records such as the family tree. If even one of these men had not bucked that trend, my aunt and I would never have met. If not for luck and these men’s actions, female erasure would have kept me from knowing my aunt’s story and my own history.

She was a gentle mother-in-law (by unanimous agreement of all three of her daughters-in-law), in direct contrast to the Indian pattern of bully MILs. She travelled with my grandparents to New Delhi in the ‘50s to help them set up home, despite having no knowledge of the language, the culture and never having had any exposure outside the house. She had very little education but wrote spiritual poetry (discovered in ragged pages after her death). Was she the original writer in my family, and I just one of her descendents with her bequeathed gift of writing?

It shouldn’t take luck or happenstance to know women’s stories. Should our lives not be documented as naturally and thoroughly as the men’s? Reflecting on my family history, I realize how much female erasure robbed me of a richer narrative, of a larger tapestry of familial life to relate to and take pride in belonging to.

Strong women are also like this

I discovered that my aunt has an M.A. in History in addition to the B.Ed degree that let her have the profession and her independence. That she achieved these well after she got married. Her husband supported her studying, another remarkable thing for 70s small town Tamil Nadu. I wonder how much that also contributed to people ‘forgetting’ about her existence after my uncle passed.

Tamilian society is just as patriarchal as the other parts of India. It isn’t necessarily very visible or obvious but it shows in the way we just erase women from our minds. If she can take care of herself, we are not required to think about her, is the attitude. Popular media doesn’t help; it perpetuates female erasure by only showing narrow images of strong women.

Once-famous, now reclaimed women

It was a similar revelation when Zeenat Aman started an Instagram account. Read the captions, she is a remarkable storyteller. Reclaiming these stories is essential—without it, future generations will lose the chance to be inspired by the real, complex lives of women. It makes a difference to the next generations of women to know they’re not the first to raise a voice to a system that doesn’t see them.

I came across an old interview of Amrita Singh. The one that many of us from the 90s remember is on the Simi Garewal show, a newly married giggly Amrita with her much younger husband, Saif Ali Khan. At the time, I thought he looked regal, every inch the Indian royal. While she was charming, bubbly, likeable, Amrita Singh was never going to look classy in the same way. It was a sweet picture of true love. And really, that was the OG gender swapped May-December fairytale, never mind Priyanka & Nick jiju.

This is a different interview with an older Amrita Singh after her divorce. The interviewer is Pooja Bedi, whom I had hoped would take a more progressive tack, given her own wildchild days in the 90s. Instead, I was appalled at her needling of her guest’s choice to quit working after marriage, then return to work after her divorce. But Amrita, Amrita – what a picture of dignity.

She sounded calm and at peace with all that she was talking through. She didn’t get pulled into a trap of being defensive or dramatic. Her matter-of-fact responses had all the charm of her Simi interview bubbliness. And now there’s something even better than class. There’s grace. Here’s her interview. Even in recognizing influential figures, we must confront female erasure that often overshadows their contributions.

Why we need to record women’s lives better

My aunt could probably explain better why history is incomplete and flawed without the records of half its population. Women’s stories are more remarkable too, not the least because they are so far and few. Women go through many more challenges to achieve the same thing that men do. That makes women’s journeys far more inspiring. For the same reason, women make for better leaders. My gender has had to worry about so many other people for long, while also fighting to exist, that the skills of big vision, resource management and sustainability come naturally now. Leaving women out of family records doesn’t just erase individual lives—it distorts entire family histories and skews our understanding of society.

Earlier this year, my mother was part of a religious function held at a temple. My father and I sat by watching the rituals and listening to the singing. When the program was over, the group made their way to a tiny lift. It had been raining heavily and the staircases were slippery. In addition, they were all senior citizens with the entire gamut of joint, bone and back related issues, my father the only man.

One of the ladies insisted that my father take the lift while my mother joined her in walking down the stairs. Uncomfortably, my father explained that it was my mother who had joint trouble and he didn’t. I assumed the lady’s idea had to do with my father being the older one. But as he said to me later,

“I think they’re all used to having to take care of the men and with women just figuring out how to deal with situations.”

Take a look around anywhere in the world at people over the age of 50. Mid-life crisis, retirement woes – all of these are assumed to happen to men only. Every culture has younger men being disproportionately pampered and older men being pandered to, fussed over and served. While the women of every age are part of the ones doing the serving. Doing the living. Why then are we not included in the history of life?