It's Women's History Month: Time to write our own stories

I was a history major in college. While I can't remember most of the facts and figures I studied, one lesson has stuck with me through the years: history is filtered through the historian. Historiography - the study of how history gets written - is as worthy a topic as history itself.

I wrote my thesis on the historiography of ?thelfl?d, the leader of the Mercians. She was a badass from more than a thousand years ago who fought off the Vikings in the English Midlands. After her husband died, she took over as a rare female ruler of the times. I examined the radically different portrayals of ?thelfl?d in the various Medieval chronicles (all written by men). Some minimized her military accomplishments. Others detailed her prowess. Sometimes she was described as a pawn of her brother. Others saw her as powerful Queen. It all depends on who was writing the chronicle and with what political motivations and gender biases.

Fast forward a thousand years to the 1920s, when another badass - Marie Curie - was winning the first of two Nobel prizes and on her way to coining the term radioactive. The Swedish man who bestowed her with the honor quoted the Bible in his remarks about the prize-winning research she had done with her husband: "It is not good that man should be alone, I will make a helpmeet for him."

At the time, much of what was published portrayed Curie as a "helpmeet" or sidekick to her smarter husband. According to Smithsonian Magazine, her friend Hertha Ayrton (who was an accomplished engineer, mathematician, physicist and inventor herself) wryly noted, "Errors are notoriously hard to kill, but an error that ascribes to a man what was actually the work of a woman has more lives than a cat."

More recognition of her accomplishments eventually followed, but that wasn't the end of the false narratives. Late in her life, some well-intentioned people crafted another portrayal of Curie that ascribed to her a personal mission to save the world from cancer to soften up her image and rally support for her work. She reminded anyone who would listen that was not her real history: her discovery of radium was the work “of pure science...done for itself.” Nonetheless she was described as the "Jeanne D’Arc of the laboratory." At least the hagiographic portrayals helped raise funds for her research.

The British historian Paul Anthony Cartledge has said that history is inevitably both present and personal: present in that it's filtered through our own times and personal in that it reflects the perspective of the person telling the story. That was certainly the case for ?thelfl?d and Curie.

Unfortunately, women have rarely held the pen in writing our histories at all - as historians or the authors of our own stories. It wasn't until the 1980s that we got Women's History Month in the United States. This was after some women who taught history in California helpfully pointed out that only 3% of texts covered women.

This Women's History Month, it's worth highlighting historiography because so many of the stories that have been written - and that continued to be written every day - are still not fully our own. For example, look at how powerful women are still portrayed in the news. Or consider how long it took for #MeToo stories to be believed. It's a long and likely never-ending endeavor to ensure women's stories aren't invisible, ignored or distorted beyond recognition.

I imagine many of you reading this column can relate - whether or not you are a woman. There are many groups in our country and around the world in the same position. That's why it matters to all of us to consider how we reclaim our pasts, shape our narratives and - in so doing - gain greater power over our collective futures.

How do we do that?

First, as any good historiographer would do, question the stories you are told. When you hear a narrative, ask yourself what it says about the person telling the story at the same time you consider the story itself. What is revealed about that person in addition to the subject at the heart of the narrative? Was that rendering of events fair? This is critical to do in the workplace, especially when the histories being written will affect someone's brand and career trajectory - like during calibrations and performance reviews. Is one person's abrasive woman another person's enthusiastic go-getter?

When you are at the receiving end of a false narrative, ask questions that encourage others to reflect on how they came to write your history: "Can you tell me how you came to see things that way?" Or acknowledge the labels and reposition them. Duke University management professor Ashleigh Shelby Rosette uses the example of a woman who is perceived as aggressive wanting to negotiate a higher salary. What's she to do? She advises naming the narrative and managing the perception at the negotiation table. "Sometimes I can come off as abrasive but that's not my intention here - let me share why I care about this." In this way, we can begin to rewrite someone else's version of us.

Second, be sure to tell your own story, as much as you can. I try to be public, open and honest about my own experiences because I feel that by being authentically and unapologetically myself as a leader, I encourage other women to do the same. It's not always easy to find our voices or take the pen on our experiences, but it's important not to cede this power to others. I'm reminded of words of the German suffragette Louise Otto-Peters: "The history of all times, and of today especially, teaches that women will be forgotten if they forget to think about themselves." Or take it from Oprah: "Speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have."

Last, don't internalize the inaccurate stories others tell you about yourself. I've made this mistake in the past, when I believed people who didn't see the full picture of my capabilities. I fell victim to meritless self-criticism. Don't internalize or perpetuate narratives that distort your own sense of self. Separate the frames that other people wield from who you truly are inside.

This time of year is a chance to celebrate our histories - but it's also an opportunity to question history itself and reclaim our own narratives. It's Women's History Month, so let's take the pen on our stories. And not just in March -- on every day of every year.