Best known for her historical fiction, with Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries bestselling UK writer Kate Mosse takes a deep dive into the tales of women – over a thousand namechecked therein – who the patriarchal writers of history didn’t give the acclaim they deserved. Her upcoming speaking tour on the subject includes a stopoff in Brecon; Carl Marsh spoke to Kate ahead of it.
When I read Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries, it made me realise I’d gone through life without questioning my education – history, geography, sciences, English – and asking, “where are all the women?”
Kate Mosse: Well, there we are, that’s it: the thing is, when any lovely, normal person, whether they’re a man or a woman, the minute I say that they go, “oh my god, that’s true!” You don’t notice it until somebody points it out, but the minute they do, it’s all you can see. You realise you’ve only been told one story. The book is not saying, “this is really unfair”; I just kept thinking [when writing it], there’s something weird about this. And then you’d think, oh yeah – this isn’t the world I see around me.
It isn’t by any means an anti-male book though. I want to make that clear to anybody reading this interview!
Kate Mosse: I’m glad that you said that because I’m married to a man; I have a son, a grandson, and my daughter has a wonderful husband. So this isn’t about men versus women. This is about that good old-fashioned thing patriarchy, which benefits no women and almost no men. It’s about the tiny number of people who have power.
An example in the modern day is the amazingly brave, wonderful Afghan men and boys standing beside their sisters, mums, and friends. It’s not about men oppressing women in Afghanistan, it’s about the Taliban. And it’s really important to keep saying that this is about everybody who knows the world is made up of both men and women. So let’s all stand shoulder-to-shoulder and celebrate that.
I’ve worked very hard to make sure Warrior Queens… didn’t seem like a moan, and the show will be very joyous and fun. I’ve had a lot of teenage boys and men at my book events coming along – it’s a show for everybody, and that’s very important to me.
Reading this book also informed me – a football fan! – that the FA banned women’s football from professional status between 1921 and 1971. That significantly harmed the development of the women’s game.
Kate Mosse: Of course, we all remember people saying, “well, nobody wants to watch it”: it wasn’t that nobody wanted to watch it, it was a deliberate thing to destroy women’s football. That is one of the fascinating reasons why women disappear from history; so often, people say, “it’s just because they weren’t there.” Well, women were always there. And then you think it’s obviously to do with the men who were, mostly, writing history but didn’t want to record it – because they didn’t know about it, or weren’t interested. And then you come across things like the story of [early 20th-century footballer of renown] Lily Parr and [Parr’s team, from Preston] the Dick, Kerr Ladies.
She and they were the true pioneers of women’s football, weren’t they? And the crowds that were watching them play before that 1921 ban!
Kate Mosse: It’s unbelievable – 48,000 people were watching them at Goodison Park on a Boxing Day match [in 1920; many sources cite an attendance of 53,000]. You know, these stories are so great to learn because it’s such a big story. Football is our country’s national sport, and to discover that this incredible, thriving female game was killed is, as you say, enraging, but that’s why this book – and the tour – is so important to me.
Lily Parr is one of the 20 women I am showcasing in the theatre show – I can’t showcase everybody, so I picked one from each area, and Lily is one of those. I think when people hear that story, they understand everything about how women are written out of history. In a way, you don’t need to say any more than that story: everybody goes, “what? I had no idea!” That’s why the book and tour feel so important to me. It’s not about taking the amazing men out of history – it’s about adding the amazing women in. When I tell that story, I want the audience to go, “that’s outrageous!”
Kate Mosse, Theatr Brycheiniog, Brecon, Thurs 9 Mar.
Tickets: £30. Info: here
Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built The World is out now via Macmillan. Info: here
words CARL MARSH
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