A HISTORY OF WOMEN IN 101 OBJECTS

How women have lived, loved, and survived through the ages.

Hirsch makes an engaging book debut with a feminist chronicle of women’s lives from prehistoric times to the present. Focusing on women in the Western Hemisphere, the author presents 101 artifacts, featured in full-page illustrations, about which she offers richly detailed but succinct essays, smoothly translated by Updegraff. All of the objects, Hirsch explains, “have a bearing on women—the body, sex, love, work, art, politics” and “bear witness to the movements women instigated, and to all the myths to which they’ve been forced to conform since time immemorial.” The idiosyncratic compendium begins with a healed femur bone from 30,000 B.C., which has significant anthropological meaning; while other injured animals would die of starvation or be eaten by predators, human healing indicates caring—particularly, Hirsch argues, by grandmothers, who raised children while their daughters hunted with their sons and who “watched patiently over the injured until their bones had healed.” The author profiles iconoclasts, including novelist George Sand, represented by a replica of her right arm; Sojourner Truth, represented by a coin bearing her famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman”; mythological figures Isis and Athena, represented by a statuette owned by Freud; and other famous personalities, such as Greta Garbo, whose ballpoint pen represents “the influence not just of women who acted but also of women scriptwriters”: In the 1930s and ’40s, women on screen “were sassy, strong-willed, brave, sometimes even bad; they were incredibly quick-witted and didn’t take anything lying down.” Hirsch delves into popular culture (Aretha Franklin, Kim Kardashian), leadership (Golda Meir), philosophy (Hannah Arendt), fashion (perfumed gloves, metal corsets), and various women’s protest movements: suffrage, abolition, labor, and politics, including the iconic pussyhat from 2017.

Filled with illuminating anecdotes, the collection is as entertaining as it is informative.