Gender Perspectives in Research: Why Who Writes History Still Matters

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

When people talk about research, they often think it’s neutral and unbiased. However, anyone who has studied gender issues knows that sometimes that’s not the case.

It is the person holding the pen who writes what we read, what is dismissed, and what becomes the accepted truth. The one who writes history is very important, a lesson I began to understand more during my studies and gender advocacy work.

Although women’s experiences are mentioned, their stories are often downplayed. This reminds me of Hidden Figures, where Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe brought to life stories that had been overlooked.

I didn’t know these women until Margot Lee Shetterly’s book was adapted into a Hollywood movie. It tells the story of NASA’s most intense period of the space race.

They solved problems that helped America’s space mission. Katherine Johnson, Henson’s character, made calculations that guided rockets. Dorothy Vaughan, played by Spencer, trained herself and her team in computing. Mary Jackson, Monáe’s character, fought her way into advanced engineering roles.

Their work was vital, yet history left them out. How many of you knew about these women before the book and movie?

This kind of oversight isn’t just a thing of the past; women’s health is still often ignored. For years, common drugs were tested mostly on men, so doses didn’t always fit women’s bodies and this led to misdiagnoses and damaging outcomes.

It happens in technology too. AI learns from historical data, and that data can sometimes be biased.

When only one group writes the narrative, important details are often left out, making research incomplete or one-sided. This is why representation in research should be a call to accuracy. As more voices are allowed to contribute, the story will widen, leading us closer to the undiluted truth about history.