It’s been suggested that women’s stories account for a paltry 0.5 per cent of recorded history.[1] There are more UK statues of goats than of Black women; more statues of pigs than of Muslim women; and more of men named John than of any non-mythical, non-royal women.[2]

Even in contemporary records only 18 percent of Wikipedia biographies are about women.[3] As well as neglecting a wealth of fascinating lives historically, what might this mean for women and girls today?

East End Women’s Museum wants to balance the history books and challenge contemporary inequality. Since 2015, we’ve been working to put some of the missing women back in the picture, through archive research, interviews, exhibitions and events. We’ve also been facilitating people to tell their own stories and those of their families and local communities – ensuring they make their mark so that future historians can know of their lives.

We tell stories of ‘ordinary’ women as well as more well-known figures. For example, take Adelaide Knight, leader of the first London branch of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), based in Canning Town. After a childhood injury, she used crutches or a stick to walk, and experienced repeated ill health. Nevertheless she was a fearless suffragette, who went to prison rather than give up campaigning. Adelaide Knight was also a pioneer in that she had an interracial marriage with mixed-race sailor Donald Adolphus Brown. Very unusually for the late 19th century, he took her surname, and the couple shared domestic chores.

Or Josie Woods, a Black woman from very humble beginnings in Canning Town. Aged 14 in 1926, she was picked out by American music hall star Belle Davis as having star quality and found great success as a dancer. She was passionate about equality and led a strike for Black extras over late payment, while working on a film in 1951.

There are so many women’s lives and voices we won’t hear without being proactive about capturing, safeguarding, and sharing them. That’s what drives the East End Women’s Museum to do what we do. In our time we’ve researched women in the Silvertown factories, celebrated some of the women who owned and ran businesses in Newham from 1850–1960 and spoken about women of colour and community activism in Newham in the 1980s. And we will be taking part in Newham Heritage Month this year, researching women in sport in Newham.

Since 2015 we’ve operated as a pop-up and virtual museum, but now we’re working towards opening our first brick and mortar museum in Barking in the next year – the only dedicated women’s museum building in England. And we won’t stop until that 0.5 per cent turns into 50 percent (at the very least!).

Please sign up for our e-newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to be the first to hear about our building developments, new exhibitions and events.

[1] http://blog.english-heritage.org.uk/women-written-history-interview-bettany-hughes/?_ga=2.109810572.801992371.1601626490-122631883.1597826406

[2] https://twitter.com/EEWomensMuseum/status/1271475141990547460

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women

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