HERSTORY

noun (Politics) (People and Society) In feminist jargon, history emphasizing the role of women or told from a woman's point of view (so as to provide a counterbalance to the traditional view, regarded as being male-dominated); also, a piece of historical writing by or about women. Etymology: A punning coinage, formed by reinterpreting the word history (actually from Latin and Greek historia 'narrative') as though it were made up of the masculine possessive pronoun his and story, and substituting the feminine possessive pronoun her for his. History and Usage: The word was coined in the early seventies by militant feminists in the US, who had joined together to form an organization known as WITCH. In Sisterhood is Powerful (1970), feminist writer Robin Morgan wrote of the expansion of this acronym: The fluidity and wit of the witches is evident in the ever-changing acronym: the basic, original title was Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell...--and the latest heard at this writing is Women Inspired to Commit Herstory. Herstory remained effectively limited to feminist writing for some time, but during the eighties acquired a higher profile in general journalism. It is a word which has tended to annoy linguistic purists, who see it as an example of deliberate disregard for the rules of etymology; in a sense, though, this was the reason for its coinage--like wimmin, it was intended to shock people into thinking more carefully about male-dominated views of culture. A writer of herstory is sometimes called a herstorian. I have tried to write a herstory of the inner psychic meaning of the ancient religion. Peace News 2 Oct. 1981, p. 15 The television cameras overlooked the...herstorians...To the eye of the TV camera, the parade was a group of provocatively dressed gays. New Yorker 13 July 1987, p. 17 In a series of hot back-flashes we get the 'herstory' so far. As luck would have it, the dead woman was a writer and reader of modern herstory. Sunday Times 24 Jan. 1988, section G, p. 5