I believe because many women think the emphasis is on battles, weapons and tactics and that's less easy to relate to for them. Many society women were mostly "domestic" and their own diaries speak of being squelched as women to do anything else but nurse or sew and supporting roles and until one does more than scratch the surface that's
mostly what comes up when researching or taught in schools. Most think only of Scarlet and hoop skirts if you bring up Civil War era women!
I remember my history classes centered on the battles and treaties and nothing on the women. There was no discussion of everyday life like recipes or basic survival which would've peeked my interest at a much younger age. That's why I love what happened again just this past weekend, a mother and her tween daughter came by to see what I had going on and her tween's eyes lit up when she saw that women could use their savvy to help the soldiers instead of just sit by the sidelines and sew at home. After touring the entire encampment that same mother strolled by with her again and shouted from the distance "you're still the best thing here!" Many a times I was told I've inspired school age girls to do a report on CW female spies. I also inspired a 40 something woman who had no idea about one of our local Union spies on my screen and got so excited because she said she actually found someone she was excited to reenact! I was even told by the man who had been playing Abe Lincoln for
decades that he had NEVER heard of anything like these women until he saw my display and was so impressed and he told me was going to change his next speech to incorporate mentioning women in it and showed me the next time I saw him! Please don't misunderstand me, I'm
not trying to brag here but only trying to emphasize the lack of knowledge even from those already interested in Civil War who attend reenactments!
So my guess is until more facts about the different roles CW era women get out and more are exposed to the amazing gamut they ran from surviving, organizing, soldiers, spying etc. their efforts will remain in the background or considered simply Hollywood's imagination like Scarlet O'Hara and Ada Munroe despite that the survival scenes actually did happen to women! It's up to us who love CW history to spread the word and inspire in
any way we can! Those women deserve it!
The young lady below gets an
E for effort (despite it's slower pace) and we need more like her to show the different ways girls/women can
just have fun learning by simply experimenting with CW era things like recipes etc. can be! Experiments like this should be brought up in today's schools...
curiosity is a great tool to inspire someone to learn more about any subject!