What would have happened if Christopher Columbus were a woman?

Written by Lily (L6 HR)

Last term, I decided to enter the King’s College Spanish Writing competition for A-level students studying Spanish. The brief was ‘What would have happened if Christopher Colombus were a woman?’, and it could have been a creative writing piece, or you could have taken a more literal approach. In the end, I decided to take a more literal approach and write an essay in which I concluded that European conquest of the Americas would have taken much longer had Columbus been a woman, due to social stigmas at the time meaning that she would not have been able to receive funding for her voyages. I found researching and writing about this very interesting as it allowed me to learn more about what this period of Spanish history was like for women, as when I learnt about it at GCSE, it was told more from the perspective of men.

I achieved runner-up in this competition and as a result I was invited to attend a conference at King’s College London, where we learnt more about what studying languages and comparative literature at degree level would be like and we also heard some talks delivered by undergraduate students, entitled ‘What it is to be human’. Even though I do not plan on studying Spanish at university, I still found this to be a very valuable experience because it allowed me to step outside my comfort zone and learn something new! Overall, I am very glad I took part, and I would definitely recommend entering this competition.