Women's history
The writing of women's history has always been closely linked with contemporary feminist politics as well as with changes in the discipline of history itself. The first women's movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries produced female historians who sought to correct the absence of women from mainstream histories, as well as produce histories of the movement itself, such as the suffrage campaign. A combination of the emergence of 'second-wave' feminism and the growth in social history (with its declared aim of rescuing less powerful groups from the 'condescension of posterity') led to a growth in a feminist approach examining women's history in terms of the power relationship between men and women. Recently the emergence of gender history has provoked debate as to whether its attempts to apply the themes raised by women's history to both sexes risks diminishing the attention given to women's specific experiences.
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- Historians:
- Rowbotham, Sheila
- Institutions:
- Women's History Network
- Themes:
- Cultural history
Labour history
Oral history
Social history
Related publications
- Judith M. Bennett, 'Women's history : a study on continuity and change', Women's History Review, 2, 2 (1993), 173–84
Maxine Berg, 'The first women economic historians', Economic History Review, 45, 2 (1992), 308–29
J. Bornat and H. Diamond, 'Women's history and oral history: developments and debates', Women's History Review, 16, 1 (2007), 19–39
Leonore Davidoff, 'Gender and the great divide : public and private in British gender history', Journal of Women's History, 15, 1 (2003), 11–27
Bridget Hill, 'Women's history : a study in change, continuity or standing still?', Women's History Review, 2, 1 (1993), 5–22
June Purvis, 'Women's history today', History Today, 54, 11 (2004), 40–2
Bonnie G. Smith, 'The contribution of women to modern historiography in Great Britain, France and the United States, 1750–1940', American History Review, 89, 3 (1984), 709–32
