Allison Tyra, Uncredited Women's Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work, Rising Action Publishing | Rising Action, May 2025.

Thank you NetGalley, for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

When reading research that demonstrates, yet again, the way that women and their accomplishments have been, as Alison Tyra says ‘overlooked, misattributed and stolen,’ it is difficult, heartbreaking, enraging and distressing. But it can also be enlightening and invigorating. Tyra accomplishes so much in her work, it is certainly enlightening, with its wide reach over the numerous ways in which women’s work can be “disappeared”. It also covers a vast range of professions and activities. And, if that is not enough to demonstrate the broad range of ways in which women’s contributions are unacknowledged, hidden, stolen, or misattributed, Tyra provides so many examples of locations in which these events can be found. In short, it seems that if there is a question about whose, where, what, and why women’s work has been overlooked, misattributed, and stolen, Tyra provides answers in this compelling read.

The chapters are short, with detailed notes at the end of each. The titles are self-explanatory, not only providing pointers to where a reader might like to approach the material that is interesting to them but providing a clue to the enormity of the issue upon opening the book. In the introduction Tyra states that her focus is on larger patterns of exclusionary behaviour. Themes are documentation and gatekeepers, credit being actively stolen, contributions being overlooked, women being undermined, and the impact of respectability expectations. Readers are directed to the index to find particular women, or topics, and there is a recommended reading list. The clarity of this brief introduction is commendable, easily fulfilling its purpose to include as many readers as possible with its demonstration of the ease with which the book can be navigated. There are ninety-one chapters - accessible, detailed and illuminating.

Uncredited Women's Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work is a book not only demonstrates the way in which women treated, but is in many instances an introduction to unknown women their achievements. It is also a work that provides a wealth of research and signs to where further research might be fruitfully undertaken. So much of the records show such egregious discrimination it could suggest that this read can only be depressing. On the contrary, Tyra provides a history of such impressive women that it is abundantly clear that women have always been meritorious and that openness to acknowledging woman’s contributions is a valuable tool to approach what women were doing in the past and are doing today.

I really enjoyed reading this book, I was invested in what was going on and thought the overall concept worked well. I was invested in learning about these women and what they did in history. Allison Tyra has a strong writing style and had that research element that I was wanting and enjoyed about the subject.

I loved this book, although hearing many of these stories was frustrating. It was also disappointing to see how women were overlooked, used, mistreated, and stolen from. I would recommend this to everyone who wants to read a fascinating book about women and their many accomplishments.

I received an e-ARC of this book from NetGalley

I enjoyed reading about the many women who have made significant impacts on the world, but through no fault of their own are largly unknowns. I am happy that we are talking more about this topic and bringing these women into the light.

The author indicated that this is an incorrect proof, so I will not discuss issues that should be solved with editing of spelling and grammar, however I did fins that some parts of the book dragged, and could have made do with some editing in content and length. I understand that it is important that these women become known, but as this is essentially an overview or introduction to the issue, including as many as the author does makes for a book that in my opinion drags in some areas and seems a bit bloated.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

This book was fascinating! I learned so much about so many incredible women. There are so many women that are talked about in this book that I had never heard of, so I loved getting to educate myself on the all of the amazing women throughout history who aren't well known but should be. Allison Tyra's writing was very in depth and detailed. She included lots of sources for all of the information included in the book, so it was easy to read more about the women she talked about. She also included other books for further reading which I appreciated because after reading this book, I want to learn more about all of the women mentioned. This book took me a while to finish just because there was so much interesting information in this book. The book was well-written, and the information was divided into lots of categorized chapters which made the book easy to digest. Overall, this was an excellent collection of essays about women who have been overlooked, underappreciated, and undervalued in history.

There was so much packed in here, but I am sure it doesn't even scratch the surface of all of the ways men have stolen credit from women. Except for more current political events, and of course, the Scully Effect, I hadn't heard of most of these.
I really loved that the author included references at the end of each chapter, rather than just all of them at the end of the book. It makes it much easier for people to find sources if they want to do extra research, especially in a book like this, where it is just a snapshot of each situation. Even with that, you get enough to know exactly what happened without needing to do further research if you don't want to or have the time. Although in several cases I did. How did I not know about Pablo Picasso? The Weeping Woman? Dora Maar? He was an actual physical and emotional abuser.
Definitely recommend this! Loved it so much.

This was one of my favourite books I’ve read so far this year. I’ve already recommended it to lots of people and I kinda can’t stop talking about it (sorry friends!!).

This was a different read from what I expected, but in a good way. I was expecting this to be a series of short biographical chapters highlighting the works and stories of individual women throughout history. However this book is actually a much more thematic and historiographical read, the kind of work I find absolutely fascinating.

The amount of research that has gone into this book is truly impressive. I learned so much! Some of it was really cool!! Some of it made me really angry!!! I also felt that this book had a more intersectional approach than some similarly themed works that I have read. I appreciated that the author consistently highlighted the additional barriers faced by multiply marginalised women.

The notes and further reading are extensive and give a lot of opportunity to dive further in to the themes highlighted in the book, as well as individual stories. I picked up lots of new articles and books to add to my (already massive!!!) nonfic tbr!

Overall I would honestly recommend this to anyone, including those without a history background (or those of you who think you aren’t really interested in history!). The book is very accessible and the short chapters make it easier to dip in and dip out of, as well as focus on themes that you’re personally more interested in.

Thank you very much to Rising Action Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC. This book is out now.

This was such a fascinating read! I truly learned so much whilst reading it about how women are excluded in so many sectors and areas of life. It has short snappy chapters that made it so easy to pick up and learn a little at a time.

Women's contributions have been overlooked, misattributed, and uncredited in various fields throughout history.Historically, societies have been dominated by men, leading to a lack of opportunities for women such as education and funding, and other resources, as well as overall recognition.

Women's work and goals have been derailed and unappreciated by family members (parents, siblings, spouses, children), friends and lovers, educators, coworkers and employers, and by society at large.

Women were expected to prioritise domestic and caregiving roles, limiting their opportunities for professional and creative pursuits. Marriage bars prevented married women from working, and anti-nepotist policies prevented spouses from working together in the same workplace.

Women's contributions have little to no documentation or records. Women have also been excluded from decision-making positions, networks and professional associations, and other opportunities in male-dominated industries and sectors, limiting their ability to promote their work.

Efforts to Address the Issue
1. Highlighting and preserving women's contributions and achievements to raise awareness and promote recognition, as well as to ensure they're never forgotten.
2. Initiatives to promote inclusion and diversity can help create opportunities and support for women in all fields.

The list of women's accomplishments in every field is non-exhaustive. They need to be brought out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

First thing you should know before starting it: its not an easy read, it took me a really long time to finish it and 2 reason for that are the way its formatted and the themes.

I think the theme of the book is clear from the title, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how much research has been poured into this book, the amount of history that I took as fact before and while reading this book I could understand better how those events/works actually took place. I loved that there were a lot of examples of both men and women put in both good and bad "light" and its not a book that goes with the idea that women can do no wrong and men are always the worst.

I loved that it goes through a lot of categories that women were and are part of such as arts, STEM, spy work during the wars and even witchcraft and how that relates to beer making, surprisingly.

There have been quite a few times were I had to stop reading and take a break for a few days due to the rage I felt when realizing that our society still has a lot of ideals and reactions when it comes to women independence that were a thing in the 1800s or even earlier.

It reads more as a textbook, that being said its one of the points I appreciated about it. I loved how the chapters were split and structured and that each chapter has a multitude of endnotes (there are a few books referenced there that I had no idea about and now I am really interested in). I would mention here that while I read it in ebook format, its not something I would recommend to do and I will definitely buy a physical copy and move all my notes in (there are a lot of those, tbh).

Its definitely a 5 star for me and I would really recommend it to everyone.

This is a whirlwind book- we are introduced to over 500 women whose work and lives have been ignored and discredited throughout the centuries, many of whom I was familiar with but many of whom I am not. This is definitely a "pick up and read a few quick bits at once books" rather than sitting and reading for hours, as the whistle-stop approach gets a bit odd to read for a long period of time. However, I think that these are all very important stories that need to be shared!

Uncredited by Allison Tyra is a fascinating, well-researched exploration of how women’s ideas, inventions, and contributions have been overlooked or outright stolen throughout history. Tyra exposes the systemic gender bias that has shaped historical narratives, often erasing women’s achievements and attributing them to men.

The book highlights the power structures that have minimized women’s roles in science, technology, the arts, and more, while celebrating the resilience and brilliance of those whose legacies deserve recognition. Uncredited challenges readers to confront the historical erasure of women’s contributions and calls for a future where merit—not gender—drives recognition and credit.

I think there are three broad category types for books about women in history. Some are biographies about a single woman. Some are group biographies. Some attempt to show the depth and breadth of women’s achievements over centuries by including hundreds of women.

Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work, by Allison Tyra (Rising Action Publishing Co., May 2025) is of this third type.

Tyra has created a book containing details of 600 women and their achievements. This is actually a subset of the women she’s featured over on her Infinite Women project and podcast. Unsurprisingly, we have some overlap of interests and follow each other on Bluesky.

Over the winter I read Warrior Queens and Quiet Revolutionaries by Kate Mosse. Mosse had crowd-sourced 1,000 women to mention, creating a similar bombardment of names. What surprised me in reading Tyra’s Uncredited was that some names were still new to me.

Tyra also takes a different approach to Mosse. As well as some chapters focusing on a specific area (women who were scientists) she also combines it with looking at the specific types of patriarchal barrier women faced. So there’s a chapter on women whose work was misattributed to their brothers or husbands, or who were barred from joining their professional organizations.

There are also some chapters that cover the contemporary impact of patriarchal practices on women today. These reminded me of Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women* and how simply seeing the data laid out reawakens awareness. I really liked how Tyra’s structure showed the same barriers can apply to women across different fields: that it is a systemic issue, not an individual one.

I found the one challenge with this structure is some women are mentioned several times across the book, which can feel a little disorientating. I did like that everything is footnoted (yay, love a source) but a lot are to websites which runs the risk of link rot. It would be sadly ironic if a book that focuses on how women’s achievements are lost ends up with a lot of orphaned references.

This is a book to dip into, reading a chapter as the mood suits. It will definitely make you curious about more women in history who you might not have known about.

This is a really long book - in a good way - so I'll admit that I haven't read the entire book; if that colours your reading of this review, so be it. But I would point out that the author herself suggests - even encourages - the reader to dip in and out, to go follow up points and people as they read through the book, so perhaps it would be better to say that I have not finished the book YET. But I am aware of time ticking on, and so I will provide my review now.

This is a necessary book. Despite everything that has been done over the last several decades to reclaim women's places in history, their contributions are still not particularly well known - and, well, I can't help but think that feminism and an understanding that women are actually humans with something to contribute - and have been that for, like, ever - is currently under threat, and it therefore needs to be constantly brought to the fore.

Some of these stories weren't new to me, because I am the sort of person who has sought out these stories and indeed I already own some books like this; but those have tended to be more specialist (eg women as scientists in Europe). One advantage of this book is that it covers a wide range of topics, as well as locations. One of its drawbacks is that it's not a particularly deep book, precisely because it's aiming for breadth instead. But knowing that intention, the reader can then seek out more depth on their own.

I will note one surprising omission, based on the index: there's no mention of Joanna Russ, and her seminal "How to Suppress Women's Writing". I would have thought this an entirely apropos book to reference. But maybe it's too old now and has itself gone the way of much previous women's work. Oh the irony.

I hope this book will become a valued and valuable reference for all people seeking to counter the lie of the Great Man, and the idea that women have contributed nothing to our current society.

This book is both inspiring and rage inducing. I've always been interested in the phenomenon of women being erased in every area despite being incredibly accomplished. This book shines a light on women's history with passion and without prejudice

Reading the ebook was not ideal due to the formatting and encyclopedic nature, but, like an encyclopedia, Uncredited is a book we should all have on hand to pick up and dip into, reading some highlights of unsung women of history, then, as the author herself suggests, use that as inspiration to dig deeper and learn more.

Reading Uncredited by Allison Tyra was both eye-opening and deeply frustrating, as I uncovered the countless stories of women whose accomplishments were overlooked or stolen throughout history. I felt a mix of admiration and anger as I learned about these hidden trailblazers, whose contributions have long been ignored or suppressed. This book not only inspired me but also left me with a greater understanding of the systemic barriers women have faced and continue to face in achieving recognition for their work.

this was a great read. this book catalogues areas in history where women have gone uncredited. the topics range from journalism, to art, to comedy, and many more. the book highlights facts that have been altered or overlooked in order to avoid crediting women throughout history. after reading a book like this readers are left with the maddening thought: these women are able to have their credit acknowledged due to gaps in attempts to exclude them, but how many women have been fully erased from history with <b>no</b> trace of their effort?

tyra does well at reporting facts, though there are some quips against men who have worked to erase women from history that are extremely satisfying. one that stands out is: “He was also known to be petty and jealous, and his so-called literary magazine BLAST has the same premise as a middle school mean girl clique’s burn book—it was a space to "blast" things Lewis didn't like.” tyra is sure to add a little bit of bite much needed in order to cool off from the maddening history lesson she is presenting us with.

each topic/story is really short but extremely informative

A book we desperately need. Loved everything about it, and I’ll be buying copies for a lot of my friends.

While good, this book was overwhelming- it was so full of facts and stories of women’s work overlooked that I was almost overstimulated. This isn’t necessarily a criticism - I should have expected it - it was just overwhelming. The amount of research that went into this is insane!