The Only Woman in the Room

by Marie Benedict

I’d always thought of Papa as a successful man, and he was, but only now did I understand true power.

You can’t appease a madman.”

Both men exuded power and confidence, although the dictator’s wattage was somehow higher.

Only then did I realize that in accepting a second history, I could never really leave the first history behind.

Faulty assumptions about women’s capabilities, stemming in part from the conscripted roles into which they’d been slotted, has caused many to think more narrowly about the manner in which the past has been shaped.