Flattered though I was to be praised by David Kynaston (Move over history boys, Review, 6 February), this piece misses the problem. Women do write history; the issue is why they are neglected. The academic profession needs to address this. Historians who want an academic job or promotion often publish with academic presses: these have kudos, but their books can be exorbitantly expensive. My next book – a history of social mobility – is with Chatto, because I want a wide readership. But I hold a secure, senior post, while most female scholars do not – only 20% of UK professors are women.
The media is also to blame for a narrow, elitist view of what constitutes history. Books by women including Alexandra Shepard, Jane Humphries, Lisa Mckenzie, Carolyn Steedman and Pat Thane have changed our understanding of working-class life over the past five centuries. But reviews editors treat working-class history as memoir or political commentary: “real” history is written by and about the middle or upper classes. Working-class women in particular are neglected, as scholars or as our subjects. We’re discussing the role of gatekeepers like journalists and publishers at a seminar on Women and Publishing on 22 February at St Hilda’s College, Oxford: free tickets are available from the college website.
Selina Todd
Professor of modern history, University of Oxford
• Why no mention of the great Elizabeth Longford, even by her daughter Antonia Fraser? Her biographies included those of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt and Winston Churchill, but that of the Duke of Wellington inspired me to visit the battlefields of the peninsular war and to attend last June’s re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo – and I had no previous interest in military history.
Paulette Phillips
Bromley, Kent
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