Kailey Anderson

One of the examples I think about constantly is Martha “Marty” Goddard, the woman behind the development and widespread implementation of the modern rape kit. In the 1970s, Goddard recognized that sexual-assault survivors were being dismissed and that crucial forensic evidence was often collected inconsistently or not preserved properly. She developed the concept of a standardized evidence-collection system and spent years organizing, fundraising, training hospitals and law enforcement, and getting the kits implemented.

Yet the kit became known as the Vitullo kit, named after a male Chicago police sergeant who helped develop the prototype. Goddard’s name essentially disappeared from the invention’s public history. And what’s especially striking is that she reportedly chose to put the man’s name on the kit because she understood that a man’s name carried more authority with the institutions she needed to convince.

Think about that. A woman created a system intended to make women’s experiences harder to dismiss, and she had to step into the background so that the system would actually be accepted.

That’s my Roman Empire: wondering how many women throughout history had to make themselves smaller, give someone else the credit, or work behind the scenes because their ideas would be taken more seriously if a man was attached to them.

And then I wonder how many brilliant women’s names we don’t know because they made the same calculation.

So how many women were never forgotten because they weren’t remembered in the first place?

The house is now 24,000 square feet and features 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, and 47 doorways. Many believe this house is a testament to Sarah’s insanity, but I believe it is much deeper than that, it is a symbol of how different individuals process grief, the common human importance of finding a purpose, and how her story has gotten lost in history and buried by the blanket of “insanity”.

Sarah was the heir of the Winchester Rifle business, and many believe she made the house resemble a labyrinth to confuse the spirits of the individuals killed by Winchester artillery. This connects to the mistreatment of women throughout history, especially on the topic of mental and health disorders. This is my Roman Empire because I often find myself lost in this story and I wonder what Sarah’s purpose really was, why she suffered so many tragedies throughout her life, how she would react to her home being a haunted tourist attraction in the present day, and how her story can indirectly parallel the experiences of many around the world and help us learn and move forward instead of dwell in the past.

How could her story have been different if it occurred a century later?

By Isabel Bartolucci

By: Raghav Jayakumar