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Recognition

In effect, Gertrude Bel became a powerful official of the British administration in Middle East and was hold in high esteem as you can see in this obituary written by her peer D.G.Hogarth:

No woman in recent time has combined her qualities – her taste for arduous and dangerous adventure with her scientific interest and knowledge, her competence in archaeology and art, her distinguished literary gift, her sympathy for all sorts and condition of men, her political insight and appreciation of human values, her masculine vigour, hard common sense and practical efficiency – all tempered by feminine charm and a most romantic spirit

D.G.Hogarth

   From Obituary of Gertrude Bell by D.G. Hogarth, in The Geographical Journal,1926, quoted in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Bell

  • Do you think that she is regarded as an exception among the women of that time?
  • In which way is she compared with men?

British archaeologist and scholar

Activity

She was not the only one who had a recognition of her achievements - don´t forget Isabellle Bird or Marianne North - but it was not easy for them to be taken into account.

  • You are going to work in pairs. Try to imagine the social response that those women´s adventures caused  (you can revisit the pages with information about them) and then you make a word cloud ( with Tagxedo or another tool ) with the terms suggested after your reflexion.

Think About It

It is certain that it was difficult for women explorers to get the approval of their societies, but it´s also true that history focused more on male exploration, overlooking the huge effort of those women to overcome the constraints of domesticity, and their achivements.