'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

2.1 Women’s Missing Voices:
Herstory 25 in Helma Sanders-Brahms’ Deutschland, bleiche Mutter
It was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that oral historians and
feminists, and later, post-modernists began to deconstruct the idea that history can only
be reconstructed by means of grand historical narratives (Reading 33). Since the 1970s,
oral history and feminism have both been preoccupied with the idea of reclaiming a
hidden history. Oral historians were striving to introduce into the historical dialogue the
missing voices of the non-hegemonic classes to create a “history from below.” As oral
historian Portelli explains in his book The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories
(1991) oral history is important because “it gives us information about […] social groups
whose history is missing or distorted” (47). Similarly, feminists wanted to emphasize the
roles played by women past and present through a reformulation of history, which for the
first time gave adequate attention to women‟s historical contributions. Thus both oral
historians and feminists have helped move the field of history away from a single
authoritative record of the past that was largely preoccupied with military events.
Through harvesting the recollections and achievements of women and other groups
traditionally disenfranchised from the historical record, feminists and oral historians have
helped history become a richer and more inclusive reservoir of human memory.
In the context of German history, until circa 1975, women‟s perspectives had
largely been ignored. There was little research addressing the issue of gender or issues
particular to women. Bodo von Borries writes that women‟s history in the German
25 The term “herstory” designates women‟s history, knowledge, and contribution to society and also refers
to the ways that women‟s perspectives have been devalued in Western history and other cultures. The term
was coined by Robin Morgan, former editor of Ms. magazine in the early 1970s and entered journalistic
writing in the 1980s (Herbst 173).
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