What do you think?
Rate this book
Where are the Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland
For most of recorded history, women have been sidelined, if not silenced, by men who named the built environment after themselves. Now is the time to look unflinchingly at Scotland's heritage and bring those women who have been ignored to light. Can you imagine a different Scotland, a Scotland where women are commemorated in statues and streets and buildings - even in the hills and valleys?
This is a guidebook to that alternative nation, where the cave on Staffa is named after Malvina rather than Fingal, and Arthur's Seat isn't Arthur's, it belongs to St. Triduana. You arrive into Dundee at Slessor Station and the Victorian monument on Stirling's Abbey Hill interprets national identity through the women who ran hospitals during the First World War. The West Highland Way ends at Fort Mary. The Old Lady of Hoy is a prominent Orkney landmark. And the plinths in central Glasgow proudly display statues of suffragettes. In this guide fictional streets, buildings, statues and monuments are dedicated to real women, telling their often unknown stories.
This is a guidebook to that alternative nation, where the cave on Staffa is named after Malvina rather than Fingal, and Arthur's Seat isn't Arthur's, it belongs to St. Triduana. You arrive into Dundee at Slessor Station and the Victorian monument on Stirling's Abbey Hill interprets national identity through the women who ran hospitals during the First World War. The West Highland Way ends at Fort Mary. The Old Lady of Hoy is a prominent Orkney landmark. And the plinths in central Glasgow proudly display statues of suffragettes. In this guide fictional streets, buildings, statues and monuments are dedicated to real women, telling their often unknown stories.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published May 19, 2019
About the author
Sara Sheridan
42 books367 followersBorn in Edinburgh. I'm a complete swot - love books always have! Currently obsessed with late Georgian/ early Victorian culture, the subject of several of my novels, and with 1950s Britain for my Mirabelle Bevan murder mystery series set across the UK - and even one in Paris. Occasionally write tie-in books for historical dramas on TV, children's picture books and short stories, mostly for charitable causes.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
February 14, 2024
I came across Where are the Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland in a charity shop and couldn't resist reading it immediately. An excellent concept with great execution: it's a tourist guidebook to an alternate Scotland that commemorates women's achievements. In reality, my lovely home of Edinburgh is notorious for having many, many statues of men but more of animals than women. Sheridan ranges around Scotland from Edinburgh to the Shetland Islands, gleefully renaming landmarks and inventing new statues, memorials, museums, and festivals. The most audacious renamings are probably Magdelene (St Andrews) and Fort Mary (Fort William). Among my favourites are Destiny Station (Waverley), Princess Street (Princes), and Suffragette Square (St Andrews), as all three places are very familiar. However there's so much more to the book than changing names. Sheridan brings out the stories of a great many Scottish women I knew nothing about and conjures memorials worthy of them in appropriate locations. I really appreciated her efforts to incorporate Scotland's history with slavery, witch trials, and the Highland Clearances into the recognition of women's history.
I was left feeling uplifted, fascinated, and eager to visit the many museums in this alternate universe. However the vast majority of the information in Where are the Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland will not be retained in my memory as it doesn't form a contiguous narrative, so I will keep my copy for future reference. That's certainly no trial, as it is also beautifully presented with lovely art.
I was left feeling uplifted, fascinated, and eager to visit the many museums in this alternate universe. However the vast majority of the information in Where are the Women? A Guide to an Imagined Scotland will not be retained in my memory as it doesn't form a contiguous narrative, so I will keep my copy for future reference. That's certainly no trial, as it is also beautifully presented with lovely art.
April 16, 2022
I desperately wanted to like this book. It’s reimagining Scotland if famous landmarks, statues and buildings were named after women. It explores the stories of hundreds of women that have contributed to Scottish history who have previously been ignored or glossed over. The idea is fantastic… but the execution is not so good. It is written like a guide book but stands at over 400 pages and packed full with fact after fact. The format is really hard to follow and it’s impossible to tell what has been theoretically renamed and made up and what is real. Also the renaming makes it hard to follow where the author is actually talking about. Due to its length and the huge amount that is covered I found it painful to read and really hard to stay engaged and I am struggling to remember any specific names or facts. Despite this, it’s a pioneering book and has reminded me and inspired me through the stories of the women that came before me. These stories need to be more mainstream but this book did not have the effective format for this
January 31, 2021
What an essential book for the 21st Century. Why do we mainly have monuments of men, and areas named after men? This book reminds both sexes that women have contributed to our history more than we realize. It is something we need to offer in schools regularly and send to politicians to read and understand why these changes need to take place. I received this book in July and began reading it while many of the BIOPC and Black Lives Matter protests were taking place. They were removing old statues that were celebrating white guys who had slaves or supported slavery and other inhumane acts. I am so glad I have the ability to educate myself on these issues and plan to continue doing so in the future.
January 19, 2024
I will take this book on my travels with me. A wonderful guide which allows you to see Herstory all around Scotland, invicting you to read up more on these fascinating women and delve deeper into history. I only properly read parts of it just now because it is so dense and full of information, but the amount of work that has gone into "Where are the Women?" is to be applauded. So many things to discover, so many assumptions to be challenged, great!
February 23, 2020
This is a remarkable book. Packed full of stories about women whose impact has been forgotten, neglected or erased. Sara Sheridan says she could have included 5000 or so women who’s lives should be celebrated. Despite whittling this number down, the collection still runs to over 400 pages. It’s such a condensed book, you feel that were you to drop it in the bath, it would create a chemical reaction, expanding to a volume a thousand times its original size. There are so many notable women that there is only room for the briefest of sketches. Even now, only having just finished reading it, can I recollect but a small fraction of those included.
The book reads like a guide book. The author takes us on a tour of imagined landmarks across Scotland that recall female greatness, or mark a horrific event that has scarred the nation’s geohistory (at the hands of men). The book is littered with scientists, suffragists and suffragettes, writers, poets, entrepreneurs, historical figures...none of whom are remembered by a monument or even a plaque, unlike their omnipresent male counterparts. And most of the women I had never heard of. To me Alexander Trocchi was the forgotten Scot who was part of the Beat Generation (well he was forgotten at some point 30 years ago anyway) but I had never heard of Helen Adam. I’ve now been sent down a number of different rabbit holes to find her work, as well as others, including photographer and writer Maud Sulter and the short stories of Lorna Moon.
Sheridan does well not to gloss over the unsavoury aspects of Scotland’s history either, not omitting our nation’s role in slavery and it’s ongoing legacy. In many cases, the erasure of the black or minority ethnic woman’s experience has been complete but there are some surviving stories that the author has drawn out. The stories of the women of the Clearances were equally powerful - as were their imagined monuments. For me the suffering of women murdered for their ‘witchcraft’ was keenly related, and for the first time I feel compelled to find out more.
This is the kind of book you need to keep going back to. It’s obvious the incredible lengths of research that went into the making of this book. The ‘problem’ is there are just so many stories to follow up on. A powerfully condensed mini encyclopaedic collection of forgotten female history in Scotland. *applauds*
The book reads like a guide book. The author takes us on a tour of imagined landmarks across Scotland that recall female greatness, or mark a horrific event that has scarred the nation’s geohistory (at the hands of men). The book is littered with scientists, suffragists and suffragettes, writers, poets, entrepreneurs, historical figures...none of whom are remembered by a monument or even a plaque, unlike their omnipresent male counterparts. And most of the women I had never heard of. To me Alexander Trocchi was the forgotten Scot who was part of the Beat Generation (well he was forgotten at some point 30 years ago anyway) but I had never heard of Helen Adam. I’ve now been sent down a number of different rabbit holes to find her work, as well as others, including photographer and writer Maud Sulter and the short stories of Lorna Moon.
Sheridan does well not to gloss over the unsavoury aspects of Scotland’s history either, not omitting our nation’s role in slavery and it’s ongoing legacy. In many cases, the erasure of the black or minority ethnic woman’s experience has been complete but there are some surviving stories that the author has drawn out. The stories of the women of the Clearances were equally powerful - as were their imagined monuments. For me the suffering of women murdered for their ‘witchcraft’ was keenly related, and for the first time I feel compelled to find out more.
This is the kind of book you need to keep going back to. It’s obvious the incredible lengths of research that went into the making of this book. The ‘problem’ is there are just so many stories to follow up on. A powerfully condensed mini encyclopaedic collection of forgotten female history in Scotland. *applauds*
May 22, 2021
When I read feminist written books and particularly aimed towards history and recognising women in the past, I'm always wary going into it that it's not going to be inclusive or intersectional. However this book is very much inclusive, covering lgbt history, the history of BAME women who settled in Scotland and the history of women from different religions and backgrounds who were discriminated against for more than just their gender.
There were particular parts I really respected, including the Spean Bridge monument idea where it remembered the victims of rape and slavery of the slave trade, many of which was perpetrated by Scots.
Also the memorial to the 16,000+ women attacked and rape during the march of the Duke of Sutherland after the jacobite rising, as well as the battle of the braes where crofters (historically they were more women than men) were attacked by police and soldiers for stopping them from burning out people from their homes
I also have been shocked at how many women I had never heard of, despite my interest in Scottish history.
I could keep going in this manner but I would highly recommend reading this for yourself.
There were particular parts I really respected, including the Spean Bridge monument idea where it remembered the victims of rape and slavery of the slave trade, many of which was perpetrated by Scots.
Also the memorial to the 16,000+ women attacked and rape during the march of the Duke of Sutherland after the jacobite rising, as well as the battle of the braes where crofters (historically they were more women than men) were attacked by police and soldiers for stopping them from burning out people from their homes
I also have been shocked at how many women I had never heard of, despite my interest in Scottish history.
I could keep going in this manner but I would highly recommend reading this for yourself.
August 25, 2020
This guidebook-style book probably not intended to be read from end to end but I did just that. As a historian of Scottish women's history, I am ashamed that I hadn't heard of many of the women featured, but delighted that such a comprehensive volume about the missing women of Scottish history has been published. For too long women have been silenced, omitted and erased from Scottish history, and Sheridan's book goes some way to putting them back in an accessible way. I really enjoyed this, and at times forgot that many of the monuments were fictional, thinking "I've never noticed that before" about a familiar place, and them remembering it's fictional or renamed. However a couple of things make this four stars instead of five - the slightly confusing layout (maybe that's just my lockdown brain though) and the lack of a detailed bibliography, although she includes some brief notes on further reading at the end.
February 6, 2021
This is glorious. Full of stories about women who have contributed to Scotland but who have been left out of the history books. It's dense and definitely not for reading all in one go. I've dipped in and out regularly and will likely dip into again in the future. I'm very happy I found this in a shop on Orkney and am very happy it exists!
August 5, 2022
Interesting concept! Going to do some nerdy sightseeing in town to find some of these places mentioned :)
April 12, 2024
3.5 stars
The guidebook format of this book is probably its greatest weakness as well as its greatest strength. I was overwhelmed! For the first twenty pages or so I kept stopping to note people and events to look up later, but quickly had to stop because there were just too many. It was frustrating to get just a quick glimpse of each fascinating woman before moving on to the next, and I was frequently left thinking “wait, I want to hear more about her!”
But maybe that’s the idea; there was so, so much in this book that I didn’t know, and the author’s point (that women and their achievements have not been adequately commemorated in history) could perhaps not have been made so well had she focused on fewer women and spent longer with each of them.
Ultimately, it’s left me with a lot of research to do, which is no bad thing!
The guidebook format of this book is probably its greatest weakness as well as its greatest strength. I was overwhelmed! For the first twenty pages or so I kept stopping to note people and events to look up later, but quickly had to stop because there were just too many. It was frustrating to get just a quick glimpse of each fascinating woman before moving on to the next, and I was frequently left thinking “wait, I want to hear more about her!”
But maybe that’s the idea; there was so, so much in this book that I didn’t know, and the author’s point (that women and their achievements have not been adequately commemorated in history) could perhaps not have been made so well had she focused on fewer women and spent longer with each of them.
Ultimately, it’s left me with a lot of research to do, which is no bad thing!
July 15, 2022
“this is a guidebook to that alternative nation, where the cave on staffa is named after malvina rather than fingal, and arthur’s seat isn’t arthur’s, it belongs to st triduana. you arrive into dundee at slessor station and the victorian monument on stirling’s abbey hill interprets national identity through the women who ran hospitals during the first world war. the west highland way ends at fort mary. the old lady of hoy is a prominent orkney landmark. and the plinths in central glasgow proudly display statues of the suffragettes who fought until they won.”
June 2, 2021
Take a whistle stop tour around Scotland to learn about the role of women in Scottish history, and in some cases, how in an ideal world their stories can be memorialised around the country.
From witches to midwives, queens to poets, this book left me in wonder how I didn't know the stories of a majority of these pioneers, mavericks and inspirations that have shaped and supported this nation I'm proud to call home. A thoroughly written book which is by no means an exhaustive list of every great Scottish woman but is handled with a great deal of thought and care.
From witches to midwives, queens to poets, this book left me in wonder how I didn't know the stories of a majority of these pioneers, mavericks and inspirations that have shaped and supported this nation I'm proud to call home. A thoroughly written book which is by no means an exhaustive list of every great Scottish woman but is handled with a great deal of thought and care.
January 2, 2024
The amount of research that must have gone into creating this must have been immense. The structure took a little time to get used to, but taking a topographical and urban setting as an approach means you could dip in and out of areas of Scotland. An alternative guide to Scottish history and a reminder of the lack of representation of women in our physical landscapes.
August 18, 2019
Not a book to read, cover to cover, but great to dip in and out of. And it really makes you consider how much women are airbrushed out of common history. That will now be my answer to all the men who say, "well clearly women didn't do anything as we don't know about them".
March 19, 2024
Incredible book. So much history and so many amazing women not commemorated !
A gift for everyone who wish to learn more about feminism and women in Scotland.
A million thank you to Sara Sheridan to have created such a precious and wonderful book.
A gift for everyone who wish to learn more about feminism and women in Scotland.
A million thank you to Sara Sheridan to have created such a precious and wonderful book.
August 21, 2019
An intriguing concept but executed in a confusing way.
January 31, 2020
Excellent concept, and so well written, a definite buy and keep book!
December 4, 2021
One of only two books which have made me cry. Overwhelming, eye-opening, incredible. The sheer number of women, the scale of their achievements, and how much has been erased from history.
November 8, 2023
A fascinating and well-researched book that imagines a Scotland where women are memorialised publicly as often as men.
November 30, 2023
Really enjoy the concept but it was hard to read! Might pick it up again when travelling around Scotland so I can match the stories to the places.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews