Christmas, Written by Women

From a former slave to two Nobel laureates, a selection of women writers in modern history and their often-overlooked narratives of Christmas.

Forget About Jack, You Don’t Know Matilda (but you should)

Matilda Joslyn Gage, who wrote about how cumulative advantage (a principle not named until a century later) erased women and their achievements from history, was herself erased from history because of cumulative advantage. The reason why You Don’t Know Matilda involves the Bible and science.

Define Her as Scandalous to Obscure Her Substance

What the treatment of two of history’s original “nasty women,” Mary Hays and Mary Darby Robinson, can tell us about how society has long consigned outspoken women to infamy or obliteration.

Condemn Her Actions to Silence Her Words

How the dangerously powerful words of two of history’s original “nasty women,” Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft, were silenced, suppressed, and nearly lost to history.