How Historical Fiction Does What History Textbooks Do Not

It's a fallacy to say that women have been written out of the history books: we were never written in. Studies have shown that women account for less than 3% of content in a typical American history textbook. The majority of historical non-fiction is written about men and by men. If you based your ideas and knowledge of history only on textbooks and the available popular historical non-fiction, you would think history is one long story of war, with men achieving great things in the respites between battles. The women who do garner a mention are either connected to men (Marie Antoinette) or achieve something so extraordinary they can hardly be overlooked (Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks). Sometimes, their own achievements are subsumed by their connection to men (Eleanor Roosevelt).