Why is it wrong to treat women's role in decolonization as only supportive work?

Correct answer: Because women were active in organization leadership boycott communication and resistance

Women were not merely helpers in decolonization movements. They often organized meetings, carried messages, collected funds, spread political information, joined boycotts, arranged food or shelter, led protests, and sometimes took part in armed or underground resistance. Their participation also brought families and wider communities into political action. In many cases, women faced arrest, violence, social pressure, or surveillance, so their contribution involved real personal risk. Calling all of this “supportive work” hides both their agency and the variety of roles they performed.

Choice A is correct because it lists organization, leadership, boycott, communication, and resistance as active forms of political participation. Choice B denies well-documented involvement, C wrongly reduces freedom struggles to soldiers, and D makes an unrelated claim. A gender perspective improves historical understanding by asking who organized movements, whose labour sustained them, and whose voices were recognized or left out in later accounts.