Britischer Historiker: Geschichtsforschung immer stärker feminisiert

Der britische Geschichtswissenschaftler Dr. David Starkey beklagt, dass sein Fachbereich unter weiblichen Autoren leide, die unter dem Beifall eines ebenfalls weiblichen Publikums beispielsweise lieber über das Leben der sechs Frauen von Heinrich dem Achten schreiben als über den König selbst. Starkey bekundet, er sei unter diesem Einfluss schon fast selbst soweit gewesen, lieber das Privatleben Heinrichs des Achten als eine Art Seifenoper zu schildern, statt sich etwa mit dessen Bruch mit Rom und seiner Bedeutung für die Reformation zu beschäftigen.

In dem Artikel des Daily Telegraph heißt es weiter:

Dr Starkey went further, by saying that modern attempts to paint many women in history as "power players" was to falsify the facts.

He said: "If you are to do a proper history of Europe before the last five minutes, it is a history of white males because they were the power players, and to pretend anything else is to falsify."

For example, while he considered Elizabeth I to be a great monarch, "the way she is presented as some sort of female icon is ludicrous".

During Victorian times her conduct was regarded as "perfectly deplorable", he added.

Dr Starkey insisted: "I'm not joining forces with Fathers for Justice, it is simply saying that our new world has its own set of prejudices, its set of distinctive lenses, and we need to be aware of them."

He also stressed his comments were not a "value statement" about how he thought the world should be, but argued: "It is a great impertinence to impose our values on the past. It instantly reduces the people of the past from real people to mere straw men and women in our struggles."