Half In Shadow

Let’s hear it for Lottie Dod, everyone. I mean, what a woman – what a life! Sorry, you don’t know the name? Well, actually, neither did I until recently. And that’s my point, because Charlotte “Lottie” Dod ought to be famous. The youngest ever winner of the Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Championship, (a title she won five times), Lottie also excelled at golf, played hockey for England and took the silver medal in archery for Great Britain at the 1908 Olympic Games. Oh yes, I do know one other thing about Lottie Dod: if a male athlete had amassed such a superlative record there would be blue plaques all over the UK and Tom Cruise would have played him in the movie.

History pulsates with these forgotten women. When organising my thoughts into some approximation of coherence for these articles, I have occasionally quoted George Orwell, a powerfully intuitive writer. However, a recent biography of his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, a political activist, psychologist and major influence on his work, reveals how she has been reduced to a footnote. “Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life” by Anna Funder observes that in “Homage To Catalonia”, George’s account of the couple’s experiences in the Spanish Civil War, he mentions “my wife” 37 times but never once by name.

Or consider this. Last April The Guardian reported: “It took a quarter of a century but Mo Mowlam and other women who helped clinch the Good Friday agreement are finally gaining recognition.” Countless people were involved in the monumental task of bringing an end to thirty years of carnage in Northern Ireland. They came from both religious communities, across a wide political spectrum and either side of the Atlantic. So why was the contribution made by women the one to get sidelined?

We could fill this magazine with unsung heroines. There’s Nelly Bly, who practically invented investigative journalism, changed America’s perception of mental health and once voyaged alone around the world in 72 days. Or Ada King, a British mathematician whose work in the 1840s heralded modern computing; there’s the astonishing Isabella Bird, intrepid 19th-century explorer and naturalist; Caroline Norton’s blazing activism gained for British women their rights on divorce and child custody. We were all taught a roll-call of male explorers, inventors and trailblazers, yet countless women of equal achievement were simply written out. The roots of this inequity run deep, having been carefully nurtured for centuries.

Brian White lives in south Indre with his wife, too many moles and not enough guitars

The scientific world even has a name for this abomination: the “Matilda effect”, named for American campaigner Matilda Gage, who highlighted examples of female scientists having their work downplayed or even credited to male colleagues. It’s a given that politics worldwide is a horror show of misogyny but the wacky world of commerce fares little better. It’s said that among the top UK companies, the number of Chief Executive Officers named John exceeds the total of female CEOs.

Many women who did achieve success weren’t immune. Back in the 1800s writing was considered to be an ‘un-feminine’ occupation, forcing the likes of Jane Austen to publish her work anonymously. Likewise, all of Mary Ann Evans’ work, including “Middlemarch”, appeared under her pseudonym ‘George Eliot’. Here in France the celebrated and magnificently named Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil published some 70 books during her lifetime in the 19th century. But Amantine also circumvented the maleowned publishing world by adopting the pen-name George Sand. The legacy of all this? In 1997 the publishers of Joanne Rowling’s first Harry Potter book disguised her gender with two initials, worried that young boys would not read something written by a woman. Why did they suppose boys might think that way, I wonder?

This catalogue of bigotry gives me muscle spasms so let’s return to Lottie Dod. An unparalleled record of achievement across multiple sports which would have graced any athlete’s CV and bequeathed immortality. In addition to everything else, Lottie picked up a service medal for nursing during World War 1. As I said, what a woman. But despite it all, she remains largely unknown, commemorated by only a few.

So just for fun let’s contrast this with, say, Michael David Edwards. In 1988 Michael competed for Great Britain in the Olympic Games but finished last in his two events. He failed to qualify for the Games in 1992, failed again in 1994 and again 1998. Did this habitual underperforming condemn him to sporting obscurity like Miss Dod? Don’t be silly! On the contrary, global fame followed with huge media interest, multiple TV appearances and, in 2016, a biopic. In fact, so captivated was everyone by Michael’s stunning lack of success that “Eddie The Eagle” became the highestgrossing British film of that year. Take that, Lottie.