It's one of the mantras of feminism that history was written by men. (Thinking about it, shouldn't that be “womantras”?).

Anyway, the thing is, they're right.

Prior to events being recorded in written form (one of the things that defines “history”) which would have been around 5000 years ago, events, stories and traditions were passed on orally – a concept we might differentiate from “history” as “herstory”. And herstory had been around for 20 times longer than history.

So why “herstory”?

Really fellas, do you need to ask? Who hasn't had an argument with their Gert when she hasn't brought up what you said to her in Weston-super-Mare in 1981? or an off-the-cuff remark you made about a dress she bought from Evans 2 years earlier. Our Gert, for instance, has an encyclopaedic recollection of my misdemeanors comparable to the Wisden Bloody Almanack.

So clearly the maintenance of stories and traditions was rightly self-entrusted to women. And if you thought herstory was passe, ie died a death 5000 years ago, you are sadly mistaken, my friend.

You are trumped by it every time your wife remembers something you said or did (or fabricates some such thing) from your distant and unrecorded past. And you are powerless to contest it.

So when Lenny Lugalbanda of the Uruk dynasty of Mesopotamia made his first scratch marks of cuneiform “script” it wasn't to record for all time heroic victories over neighbouring tribes, it was to give himself a sporting chance of countering what he'd actually said about their Gert's bum.