El contexto del manejo de la política petrolera antes del proyecto OCP

As Myna Trustram notes until twenty years ago, women did not on the whole appear in history books. The 60s and 70s women's liberation

movement sought to change that with books like Sheila Rowbottom's Hidden

from History

experience firmly on the history agenda. Feminist historiographers have sought to place women at the centre of their studies, identifying the

private sphere as the prime location oi women's experience as opposed to the public world of men. It is a movement which has sought to explore the history of women's work and of procreation, women s conorol and power over reproduction, and women's position, in terms of power and gender dynamics, in society and in the home (S.Jones & S.Pay 1990).

Women's history has now been recuperated firmly into the mainstream of

academic history. However, this movement has been slow to infiltrate museums. Donald Horn commented in The Great Museum;

"With exceptions such as the Virgin Mary or Joan of Arc, women are simply not there. They make their appearances as dummies of sturdy peasant women in folk reconstructions of peasant kitchens, or in other useful supporting roles; they may be seen nude, or partly nude, created as an object for the male gaze" (Donard Horn 1984*. 4).

As more women enter museums professionally, and society increasingly

accepts female equality, women are slowly appearing. At Kelham, the early history of Sheffield's metal working industries is illustrated by a mediaeval illustration from the Hokenham Bible (1325) of a female smith, with the jaunty caption, "Equal opps in mediaeval times- a female smith at work". Peter Smithurst explained why it was chosen;

"It was the oldest illustration we could find, which showed hand forging. I thought it was very nice that it happened to be a female smith at work. I suppose there was a slight tongue in. cheek comment there, in the light ot women's liberation over the past f e w years,

that it wasn't something n e w (Smithurst 1992)

The representation of women is not always clear cut, since it can be

open to other readings. Gaby Porter (1991) has interpreted the use of the female smith at Kelham not in terms of equality, but as a

confirmation of the main male story. She argues that in representing the mediaeval period through a women it confirms that;

"Sheffield industry began when it was lifted from the chaos in which women laboured into an organized and highly technological industry., with a clear division of labour and processes".(G.Porter 1991 p . 112).

One of the problems for curators, is that like the working class, women simply do not appear in the historical records. Catherine Hall remarked;

"One of the things which is fairly obvious from any reading through the documents relating to Oakwell, that women don't really appear, they appear in snippets and you have to elude things from the documents" (C.Hall 1992).

Oakwell Hall is exploring the possibility of an exhibition on the role of the housewife, examining her role and illustrating this through

equipment associated with food preparation and housework. Myna Trustram, in her preperation for an exhibition at the Pump House, has taken a different approach, using the autobiography of a working class woman called Hannah Mitchell, who was a suffragette in Manchester and active in local politics and the co-operative movement. As well as describing her political life, the autobiography also talks about ordinary daily activities associated with the home and role as a mother, providing a unique insight into women's experience in the early 20th century.

N. M. L.H intends to quote passages from the autobiography and illustrate Hannah Mitchell's words by some of the objects she describes in her home.

Some museums have adopted an even more radical approach. In Tolson's planned Archaeology gallery, one of the first life sized models the visitor will meet, will be that of a flint knapper, but unlike the normal convention, this will be a woman making flints. John Rumsby asserted;

"What we are always presented with in archaeology, is the man the

tool maker and there is even a book called Man the Tnnl m k r

and there is no archaeological reason why in the middle stone age it was man that made the tools, we don't have a n y evidence either way. So we put that in because it fitted in with our general p o l i c y of equality and the presentation of women's history, really just to make a point that you have to keep an open mind" ( Rumsby 1992).

Jorvik has recently been criticised by Nancy

Jd

(1983)

"If you have a lot of men producing figures in The Viking Centre then they are likely to be immersed in the culture that said men went out to war, men did the work, women did the domestic things, I think also it worries me slightly that there might be a trend the other way 'we mustn't depict women in any domestic role whatsoever', because that is as false as to suggest that women played a very secondary and subservient role. I don't believe they did in history" (McDonnell 1992).

It should also be said that Chabot-'s criticism is itself a product of late 20th century perspectives, in which domestic work is devalued and not viewed as it would have been by contemporaries as an intrinstic part of the Viking economy. This point is taken up by David Lowenthal (1992)

in Museums -Journal where he argues that it is important that society's new concern for 'political correctness' does not distort what actually happened in the past.

Richard Doughty was also influenced by Chabot's arguments. When questioned why, in a dominantly male industry, N.F.H.C began its

exhibition with three women models working in a the fish factory, a fish and chip shop and mending nets, he admitted with disarming honesty;

"Well I a m afraid it was very conscious actually, yes, because I had read in an article somebody was actually going round and counting

the ratio of male/female figures in an exhibition gallery. Yes, one thought oh cripes you know, what the hell are we g o ing to do. Ve couldn't obviously put women on trawlers it is a nonsence they weren't involved in the fishing operation or even in the handling

side of the industry, but they were of course involved in the

processsing.' So it was an opportunity to make the point. ... that women were involved in the industry" (Doughty 1992).

The representation oi women in museums is interesting, because it illustrates the discourse in which, on the one hand there are curators who wish to show society women's experience through history, but there also those who feel under pressure tD reflect the changing views of society in which women are seen to play an increasing equal role. It will be interesting to observe this process when museums begin to tackle ethnic and gay history. Black or ethnic history is still relatively marginalised in museums, although increasingly as society recognises its multi-cultural dimension, some museums are looking to explore black experience. Hackney and Leicester Museum Services, both based in strongly multi-cultural areas have begun to exhibit ethnic history

(C.Johnson 1991). Tolson is looking to incorporate the different ethnic communities in a new gallery depicting 20th century Huddersfield. Yet, with few black curators, museums are as yet unwilling to attempt

exhibitions on black history. The portrayal of gay history is more complex, the subject is to a certain extent, still a taboo area of discussion in society as a whole, and it is debatable whether a museum would actually be able to put on such an exhibition at the present.