Today on 'Iris is pissed off with the internet's perception of history': I just saw a tiktok about 'things every history girl has been obsessed with' featuring the tudors, Marie Antoinette, the Romanovs, and the Titanic and euughhrjfjrj. This is very dangerously close to just outright calling it 'girl history' and I'm really not a fan.

Tbh it goes along with a trend I've been seeing a lot that I like to call the 'coquette-ification' of history, in which what I presume to be teenage girls (with whom the 'coquette' trend has the most traction) fascinate over the presupposed 'femininity' and 'innocence' of female (usually royal) historical figures like Anne Boleyn or Marie Antoinette (obvs Titanic is an exception, I cba rn to try and analyse why that's considered 'girl history' but I think there's a reason). All of these fixations generally seem so focused on victimhood above all else rather than anything these historical figures actually did, which is something we really should've moved on from by now (did you guys not even see Six??? That was the whole message of Six!!!)

Anyway I could ramble for hours but the main point I want to hammer home is that history is so much more! From extremely niche details and people to broad systems of rule and oppression that we still see remnants of today! It is full of agents, from the average person to those famous historical figures like Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette who were their own agents, for better or worse, and weren't just subject to the actions of others! Just branch out, please