Women's history
Encyclopedia
Women's history is the study of the role that women
Woman
A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...

 have played in history, together with the methods needed to study women
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...

. It includes the study of the history of the growth (and decline) of woman's rights throughout recorded history, the examination of individual women of historical significance, and the effect that historical events have had on women. Inherent in the study of women's history is the belief that more traditional recordings of history have minimized or ignored the contributions of women and the effect that historical events had on women as a whole; in this respect, woman's history is often a form of historical revisionism
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...

, seeking to challenge or expand the traditional historical consensus.

The main centers of scholarship have been the U.S. and Britain, where second-wave feminist
Second-wave feminism
The Feminist Movement, or the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted through the early 1990s....

 historians, influenced by the new approaches promoted by social history
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...

, led the way. As activists in women's liberation, discussing and analyzing the oppression and inequalities they experienced as women, they felt it imperative to find out about the lives of their foremothers—and found very little scholarship in print. History was written mainly by men and about men's activities in the public sphere—war, politics, diplomacy and administration. Women are usually excluded and, when mentioned, are usually portrayed in sex-stereotypical roles, such as wives, mothers, daughters and mistresses. History is value-laden in regard to what is considered historically 'worthy'.

Britain

In the 21st century women still don't have the same rights as men, although some changes came in the 19th and 20th centuries, for example women cannot yet fight in direct combat units and although the right to equal pay is enshrined in law in reality women earn less than men even when doing the same job. Women ran the household, bore the children, were nurses, mothers, wives, neighbours, friends and teachers, but very little of their activities were formally recorded. During periods of war women were drafted in to undertake work that had been traditionally restricted to men. Following the wars they invariably lost their jobs in industry and had to return to domestic and service roles.

the late 19th century and early 20th century, Scottish women's history did not really develop as a field until the 1980s, with most work on women before 1700 appearing in the last two decades. Several recent studies have taken a biographical approach, but other work has drawn on the insights from research elsewhere to examine such issues as work, family, religion, crime, and images of women. Scholars are also uncovering women's voices in their letters, memoirs, poetry, and court records. Because of the late development of the field, much recent work has been recuperative, but increasingly the insights of gender history both in other countries and in Scottish history after 1700 are being used to frame the questions that are asked. Future work should contribute both to a reinterpretation of the current narratives of Scottish history and also to a deepening of the complexity of the history of women in late medieval and early modern Britain and Europe.

France

French historians have taken a unique approach with a great deal of scholarship in women's and gender history despite the lack of women's and gender study programs or departments at the university level. The high level of research and publication in women's and gender history is due to the high interest within French society. This structural discrimination against the study of gender history in France is changing due to international studies increasing with the formation of the European Union and more French scholars seeking appointments outside Europe.
Pre-revolution

In the Ancien Régime in France
Ancien Régime in France
The Ancien Régime refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system established in France from the 15th century to the 18th century under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties...

 very few women held any formal power—some queens did, as did the heads of Catholic convents. In the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 the writings of philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau gave political program for reform of the ancien régime, founded on a reform of domestic mores. Rousseau's conception of the relations between private and public spheres is more unified than that found in modern sociology. Rousseau argued that the domestic role of women is a structural precondition for a "modern" society.

Salic law prohibited women from rule; however, the laws for the case of a regency, when the king was too young to govern by himself, brought the queen into the center of power. The queen could assure the passage of power from one king to another—from her late husband to her young son—while simultaneously assuring the continuity of the dynasty.
Education for girls

Educational aspirations were on the rise and were becoming increasingly institutionalized in order to supply the church and state with the functionaries to serve as their future administrators. Girls were schooled too, but not to assume political responsibility. Girls were ineligible for leadership positions and were generally considered to have an inferior intellect to their brothers. France had many small local schools where working-class children - both boys and girls - learned to read, the better "to know, love, and serve God." The sons and daughters of the noble and bourgeois elites, however, were given quite distinct educations: boys were sent to upper school, perhaps a university, while their sisters - if they were lucky enough to leave the house - would be sent to board at a convent with a vague curriculum. The Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...

 challenged this model, but no real alternative presented itself for female education. Only through education at home were knowledgeable women formed, usually to the sole end of dazzling their salons.

Germany

Historians have paid special attention to the efforts by Nazi Germany to reverse the gains women made before 1933, especially in the relatively liberal Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...

. It appears the role of women in Nazi Germany changed according to circumstances. Theoretically the Nazis believed that women must be subservient to men, avoid careers, devote themselves to childbearing and child-rearing, and be a helpmate of the traditional dominant father in the traditional family. However, before 1933, women played important roles in the Nazi organization and were allowed some autonomy to mobilize other women. After Hitler came to power in 1933, the activist women were replaced by bureaucratic women who emphasized feminine virtues, marriage, and childbirth. As Germany prepared for war, large numbers were incorporated into the public sector and with the need for full mobilization of factories by 1943, all women were required to register with the employment office. Hundreds of thousands of women served in the military as nurses, and support personnel, and another hundred thousand served in the Luftwaffe helping to operate the anti—aircraft systems. Women's wages remained unequal and women were denied positions of leadership or control.
More than two million women were murdered in the Holocaust. The Nazi ideology viewed women generally as agents of fertility. Accordingly, it identified the Jewish woman as an element that must be exterminated in order to thwart the rise of future generations. For these reasons, the Nazis treated women as prime targets for annihilation in the Holocaust.

Eastern Europe

Interest in the study of women's history in Eastern Europe has been delayed. Representative is Hungary, where the historiography has been explored by Petö and Szapor (2007). Academia resisted incorporating this specialized field of history, primarily because of the political atmosphere and a lack of institutional support. Before 1945, historiography dealt chiefly with nationalist themes that supported the antidemocratic political agenda of the state. After 1945, academia reflected a Soviet model. Instead of providing an atmosphere in which women could be the subjects of history, this era ignored the role of the women's rights movement in the early 20th century. The collapse of Communism in 1989 was followed by a decade of promising developments in which biographies of prominent Hungarian women were published and important moments of women's political and cultural history were the subjects of research. However, the quality of this scholarship was uneven and failed to take advantage of the methodological advances in research in the West. In addition, institutional resistance continued, as evidenced by the lack of undergraduate or graduate programs dedicated to women's and gender history at Hungarian universities.

Japan

Japanese women's history was marginal to historical scholarship until the late 20th century. The subject hardly existed before 1945 and even after that date many academic historians were reluctant to accept women's history as a part of Japanese history. However, the social and political climate of the 1980s in particular, favorable in many ways to women, gave opportunities for Japanese women's historiography to promote itself and also brought the subject fuller academic recognition. Exciting and innovative research on Japanese women's history began in the 1980s. Much of this has been conducted not only by academic women's historians, but also by freelance writers, journalists, and amateur historians; that is, by people who have been less saddled with traditional historical methods and expectations. The study of Japanese women's history has now reached the point where the subject no longer requires justification.

China

Much of the published work deals with women as visible participants in revolution, revolution and employment as women's liberation, Confucianism and the family as sources of women's oppression. While rural marriage rituals, such as bride price and dowry, have remained the same in form their function has changed, reflecting the nuclearization of family and the growth in women's agency in the marriage transaction.Gail Hershatter, Women in China's Long Twentieth Century (2007) In recent scholarship on China, the concept of gender has yielded a bounty of new knowledge in English- and Chinese-language writings.

Mann (2009) explores how Chinese biographers have depicted women over two millennia (221 BCE to 1911), especially during the Han dynasty. Zhang Xuecheng, Sima Qian, and Zhang Huiyan and other writers often portrayed domestic scenes featuring women of the governing class, and they appear in death scenes in the narratives and in the role of martyrs.

Tibet

The historiography of women in the history of Tibet confronts the suppression of women's histories in the social narratives of an exiled community. McGranahan (2010) examines the role of women in the 20th century, especially during the Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet. She studies women in the Tibetan resistance army, menstrual blood as a contaminating agent, and the subordination of women in a Buddhist society.

United States

The serious studies of women written by amateur women scholars were ignored by the male-dominated history profession until the 1960s, when the first breakthroughs came. The field of women's history exploded dramatically after 1970, along with the growth of the new social history
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...

 and the acceptance of women into graduate programs in history departments. An important development is to integrate women into the history of race and slavery. A pioneer effort was Deborah Gray White's Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (1985), which helped to open up analysis of race, slavery, abolitionism and feminism, as well as resistance, power, and activism, and themes of violence, sexualities, and the body. A major trend in recent years has been to emphasize a global perspective.

Rights and equality

Women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

 refers to the social and human rights of women. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the abolition movements
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

 sparked an increased wave of attention on the status of women, but the history of feminism
History of feminism
The history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...

 reaches far back before the 18th century. (See protofeminism.) The advent of the reformist age during the 19th century meant that those invisible minorities or marginalized majorities were to find a catalyst and a microcosm in such new tendencies of reform. The earliest works on the so-called "woman question" criticized the restrictive role of women, without necessarily claiming that women were disadvantaged or that men were to blame. In Britain, the Feminism movement
Feminist history in the United Kingdom
Feminism in the United Kingdom covers the Feminism movement in the United Kingdom through history to the present day.-19th century:...

 began in the 19th century and continues in the present day. In the early 20th century, Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...

 wrote a detailed analysis of women's oppression. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, feminist movement
Feminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...

s, such as the one in the United States substantially changed the condition of women in the Western world. The trigger for the revolution was the development of the birth control pill in 1960, which gave women access to easy and reliable contraception.

Employment

The 1870 US Census was the first to count “Females engaged in each and every occupation” and provides an intriguing snapshot of women's history. It reveals that, contrary to popular belief, not all American women of the Victorian period were either idle in their middle class homes or working in sweatshops. Women were 15% of the total work force (1.8 million out of 12.5). They made up one-third of factory “operatives,” to be sure, but teaching and the more gentle occupations of dressmaking, millinery, and tailoring played a larger role. Two-thirds of teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

s were women. And they could be found in such unexpected places as iron and steel works (495), mines (46), sawmills (35), oil wells and refineries (40), gas works (4), and charcoal kilns (5), and held such surprising jobs as ship rigger (16), teamster (196), turpentine laborer (185), brass founder/worker (102), shingle and lathe maker (84), stock-herder (45), gun and locksmith (33), hunter and trapper (2). There were five lawyers, 24 dentists, and 2,000 doctors.

Sex and reproduction

In the history of sex, the social construction of sexual behavior - its taboos, regulation and social and political impact - has had a profound effect on women in the world since prehistoric times. The history of abortion
History of abortion
The practice of abortion, the termination of a pregnancy so that it does not result in birth, dates back to ancient times. Pregnancies were terminated through a number of methods, including the administration of abortifacient herbs, the use of sharpened implements, the application of abdominal...

 dates back to ancient times and has impacted men and women in a variety of ways in different times and places. Historically, it is unclear how often the ethics of abortion (induced abortion) was discussed. In the later half of the 20th century some nations began to legalize abortion. This controversial subject has sparked heated debate and in some cases even violence.

Women have been exposed to various tortuous sexual conditions and have been discriminated against in various fashions in history. An example are the comfort women
Comfort women
The term "comfort women" was a euphemism used to describe women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with numbers ranging from as low as 20,000 from some Japanese scholars to as high as 410,000 from some Chinese...

, women who were forced to work as prostitutes in military brothels in Japanese-occupied countries during World War II.

Clothing

The social aspects of
Social aspects of clothing
Dress codes are written and, more often, unwritten rules with regards to clothing. Clothing like other aspects of human physical appearance has a social significance, with different rules and expectations being valid depending on circumstance and occasion...

 clothing have revolved around traditions regarding certain items of clothing intrinsically suited different gender role
Gender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...

s. In particular, the wearing of skirts and trousers has given rise to common phrases expressing implied restrictions in use and disapproval of offending behaviour. For example, ancient Greeks often considered the wearing of trousers by Persian men as a sign of an effeminate
Effeminacy
Effeminacy describes traits in a human male, that are more often associated with traditional feminine nature, behaviour, mannerisms, style or gender roles rather than masculine nature, behaviour, mannerisms, style or roles....

 attitude. Women's clothing in Victorian fashion
Victorian fashion
Victorian fashion comprises the various fashions and trends in British culture that emerged and grew in province throughout the Victorian era and the reign of Queen Victoria, a period which would last from June 1837 to January 1901. Covering nearly two thirds of the 19th century, the 63 year reign...

 was used as a means of control and admiration. Reactions to the elaborate confections of French fashion led to various calls for reform on the grounds of both beauty (Artistic and Aesthetic dress) and health (dress reform; especially for undergarments and lingerie). Although trousers for women did not become fashionable until the later 20th century, women began wearing men's trousers (suitably altered) for outdoor work a hundred years earlier. In the 1960s, André Courrèges introduced long trousers for women as a fashion item, leading to the era of the pantsuit and designer jeans and the gradual eroding of the prohibitions against girls and women wearing trousers in schools, the workplace, and fine restaurants. Corsets also have long been used
History of corsets
A corset is a garment that girds the torso and shapes it according to the fashionable silhouette of the day. Most often it has been used for cinching the waist and supporting the breasts....

 for fashion, and body modification, such as waistline reduction. There were, and are, many different styles and types of corsets, varying depending on the intended use, corset maker's style, and the fashions of the era.

Status

The status
Social status
In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....

 of women in the Victoria Era
Women in the Victorian era
The status of women in the Victorian era is often seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between the United Kingdom's national power and wealth and what many, then and now, consider its appalling social conditions. During the era symbolized by the reign of British monarch Queen...

 is often seen as an illustration of the striking discrepancy between the nation's power and richness and what many, then and now, consider its appalling social conditions. Victorian morality
Victorian morality
Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria's reign and of the moral climate of the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century in general, which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous Georgian period...

 was full of many contradictions. A plethora of social movements concerned with improving public morals co-existed with a class system that permitted harsh living conditions for many, such as women. There is an apparent contradiction between the widespread cultivation of an outward appearance of dignity and restraint and the prevalence of social phenomena that included prostitution. In the Victorian era, the bathing machine
Bathing machine
The bathing machine was a device, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, to allow people to change out of their usual clothes, possibly change into swimwear and then wade in the ocean at beaches. Bathing machines were roofed and walled wooden carts rolled into the sea...

 was developed. It was a device that flourished in the 19th century to allow people to wade in the ocean at beaches without violating Victorian notions of modesty. The bathing machine was part of sea-bathing etiquette that was more rigorously enforced upon women than men.

Religion

The Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, Islamic and Christian views about women vary considerably today and have varied even more throughout the last two millennia, evolving along with or counter to the societies in which people have lived. For much of history, the role of women in the life of the church both local and universal has been downplayed, overlooked, or simply denied. When some women have interreligious marriage
Interreligious marriage
Interfaith marriage, traditionally called mixed marriage, is marriage between partners professing different religions. Some religious doctrines prohibit interfaith marriage, and while others do allow it, most restrict it...

, or marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 (either religious or civil) between partners professing different religions, they can do so without disobeying both of these religions.

See also

The following is a list of issues in Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...

 either about women's history, or containing relevant information, often in a "History" section.

Lists
  • List of women's organizations
  • List of current and historical women's universities and colleges
    A women's college is an institution of higher education where enrollment is all-female. Where institutions have become coeducational, this is noted, along with the year the enrollment policy was changed.
  • List of feminists
  • List of 20th century women artists
  • List of women who sparked a revolution
  • Women's History Month
    Women's History Month
    Women's History Month is an annual declared month worldwide that highlights contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. March has been set aside as this month in the United Kingdom and in the United States...

    March is a month to celebrate the Women's history and International Women's Day
    International Women's Day
    International Women's Day , originally called International Working Women’s Day, is marked on March 8 every year. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and...

    .


General
  • Family history
    Family history
    Family history is the systematic narrative and research of past events relating to a specific family, or specific families.- Introduction :...

  • Gender history
    Gender history
    Gender history is a sub-field of History and Gender studies, which looks at the past from the perspective of gender. It is in many ways, an outgrowth of women's history.-Impact:...

  • History of feminism
    History of feminism
    The history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...



Political and legal
  • Equal Rights Amendment
    Equal Rights Amendment
    The Equal Rights Amendment was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and, in 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time...

    A proposed amendment to the United States Constitution
    United States Constitution
    The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...

     which would have guaranteed equal rights under law for Americans regardless of gender.
  • Women's suffrage
    Women's suffrage
    Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

    .
  • Suffragette
    Suffragette
    "Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...

    Suffragettes are members of the women's suffrage movement in the Britain. Suffragist is a more general term for members of the movement, whether radical or conservative. American women preferred "suffragist" because of the violent connotations of the British "suffragette".
  • A History of Woman Suffrage
    A history book of the suffrage movement, primarily in the United States
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

    , composed of six volumes from 1887 to 1922.
  • Men's League for Women's Suffrage
    Men's League for Women's Suffrage
    The Men's League for Women's Suffrage was a society formed in 1907 by the left-wing writers Henry Brailsford, Max Eastman, Laurence Housman, Henry Nevinson and others to pursue women's suffrage.-External links:*...

  • Woman's Christian Temperance Union
    Woman's Christian Temperance Union
    The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was the first mass organization among women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." Originally organized on December 23, 1873, in...

    The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is the oldest continuing non-sectarian women's organization in the US and worldwide.
  • The Subjection of Women
    The Subjection of Women
    The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes...

    This is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill
    John Stuart Mill
    John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

     in 1869, stating his views in favor of a much wider selection of people being allowed to vote.


Sexuality
  • Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
    Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
    Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures are subcultures and communities composed of persons who have shared experiences, background, or interests due to a common sexual or gender identity. Among the first to argue that members of sexual minorities can constitute cultural minorities as well as...

    It concerns the culture, knowledge, and references shared by various people by virtue of their membership in a minorities or their state of being transgendered.
  • Effeminacy
    Effeminacy
    Effeminacy describes traits in a human male, that are more often associated with traditional feminine nature, behaviour, mannerisms, style or gender roles rather than masculine nature, behaviour, mannerisms, style or roles....

    Effeminacy is character trait of a male showing femininity, unmanliness, womanliness, weakness, softness and/or a delicacy, which contradicts traditional masculine, male gender roles.


Research
  • Schlesinger Library
    Schlesinger Library
    The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F...

  • The Women's Library (London)
    The Women's Library (London)
    The Women's Library in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets is Britain's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, especially concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries.The Library has over 60,000 books and pamphlets...

  • GENESIS
    GENESIS
    GENESIS is a project maintained by the Women's Library at London Metropolitan University. It provides an online database and a list of sources with an intent to support research into women's history.- Database :...

    Guide to sources for women's history in the British Isles


Other
  • Demography
    Demography
    Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...

    Demography is the study of human population dynamics. It encompasses the study of the size, structure and distribution of populations, and how populations change over time due to births, deaths, migration and aging.
  • Herstory
    Herstory
    Herstory is history written from a feminist perspective, emphasizing the role of women, or told from a woman's point of view. Ii is a neologism coined in the late 1960s as part of a feminist critique of conventional historiography...

  • History of feminism
    History of feminism
    The history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...

  • Women in the Middle Ages
    Women in the Middle Ages
    Women in the Middle Ages occupied a number of different social roles. Women in the Middle Ages, a period of European history from around the 5th century to the 15th century, held the position of wife, mother, peasant, artisan, and nun, as well as some important leadership roles, such as abbess or...


Further reading

World
  • Clay, Catherine, Christine Senecal, and Chandrika Paul, eds. Envisioning Women in World History: Prehistory to 1500 (2008)
    • McVay, Pamela. Envisioning Women in World History: 1500-Present (2008)
  • Helgren, Jennifer, and Colleen A. Vasconcellos, eds. Girlhood: A Global History (Rutgers University Press; 2010) 422 pages; interdisciplinary essays on girlhood on six continents since 1750.
  • Offen, Karen M., ed. Writing women's history: international perspectives (Indiana UP, 1991) online edition


Primary sources
  • Hughes, Sarah S., and Brady Hughes, eds. Women in World History: Readings from Prehistory to 1500 (1995); Women in World History: Readings from 1500 to the Present (1997)


Ancient
  • Pomeroy, Sarah B. Women's History and Ancient History (1991) online edition


Asia
  • Edwards, Louise, and Mina Roces, eds. Women in Asia: Tradition, Modernity and Globalisation (Allen & Unwin, 2000) online edition
  • Ramusack, Barbara N., and Sharon Sievers, eds. Women in Asia: Restoring Women to History (1999) excerpt and text search

China
  • Ebrey, Patricia. The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period (1990)
  • Hershatter, Gail, and Wang Zheng. "Chinese History: A Useful Category of Gender Analysis," American Historical Review, Dec 2008, Vol. 113 Issue 5, pp 1404–1421
  • Hershatter, Gail. Women in China's Long Twentieth Century (2007), full text online
  • Hershatter, Gail, Emily Honig, Susan Mann, and Lisa Rofel, eds. Guide to Women's Studies in China (1998) online edition
  • Ko, Dorothy. Teachers of Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in China, 1573-1722 (1994)
  • Mann, Susan. Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century (1997)
  • Wang, Shuo. "The 'New Social History' in China: The Development of Women's History," History Teacher, May 2006, Vol. 39 Issue 3, pp 315–323


Europe
  • Boxer, Marilyn J. Boxer, Jean H. Quataert, and Joan W. Scott, eds. 'Connecting Spheres: European Women in a Globalizing World, 1500 to the Present (2000), essays by scholars excerpt and text search
  • Bridenthal, Renate, Susan Stuard, and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks eds. Becoming Visible: Women in European History (2nd ed. 1997), essays by scholars
  • Ewan, Elizabeth. "A New Trumpet? The History of Women in Scotland 1300-1700," History Compass, March 2009, Vol. 7 Issue 2, pp 431–446
  • Fairchilds, Cissie. Women in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700 (2007) excerpt and text search
  • Fout, John C. German Women in the Nineteenth Century: A Social History (1984) online edition
  • Offen, Karen M. European feminisms, 1700-1950: a political history (2000) online edition
  • Smith, Bonnie. Changing Lives: Women in European History Since 1700 (1988)
  • Stearns, Peter, ed. Encyclopedia of European Social History from 1350 to 2000 (6 vol 2000), 209 essays by leading scholars in 3000 pp.; many aspects of women's history covered
  • Tilly, Louise A. and Joan W. Scott. Women, Work, and Family (1978)
  • Ward, Jennifer. Women in Medieval Europe: 1200-1500 (2003)
  • Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (2008) excerpt and text search


Primary sources: Europe
  • DiCaprio, Lisa, and Merry E. Wiesner, eds. Lives and Voices: Sources in European Women's History (2000) excerpt and text search
  • Hughes, Sarah S., and Brady Hughes, eds. Women in World History: Readings from Prehistory to 1500 (1995), 270pp; Women in World History: Readings from 1500 to the Present (1997) 296pp; primary sources


Canada
  • Cook, Sharon Anne; McLean, Lorna; and O'Rourke, Kate, eds. Framing Our Past: Canadian Women's History in the Twentieth Century. (2001). 498 pp.
  • Strong-Boag, Veronica and Fellman, Anita Clair, eds. Rethinking Canada: The Promise of Women's History. (3d ed. 1997). 498 pp.
  • Prentice, Alison and Trofimenkoff, Susan Mann, eds. The Neglected Majority: Essays in Canadian Women's History (2 vol 1985)


United States
Surveys
  • Banner, Lois. Women in modern America: a brief history. San Diego 1984
  • Daniel, Robert L. American women in the twentieth century San Diego 1987
  • Degler, Carl. At Odds: Women and the Family in America from the Revolution to the Present (1980).
  • Diner, Hasia, ed. Encyclopedia of American Women's History (2010)
  • Hewitt, Nancy A. A Companion to American Women's History (2005) excerpt and text search
  • Kerber, Linda K.; Kessler-Harris, Alice; and Sklar, Kathryn Kish, eds. U.S. History as Women's History: New Feminist Essays. (1995). 477 pp. online edition
  • Kessler-Harris, Alice. Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (2003) excerpt and text search
  • Melosh, Barbara. Gender and American History since 1890 (1993) online edition
  • Miller, Page Putnam, ed. Reclaiming the Past: Landmarks of Women's History. (1992). 232 pp.
  • Pleck, Elizabeth H. and Nancy F. Cott, eds. A Heritage of Her Own: Toward a New Social History of American Women (2008), essays by scholars excerpt and text search; online edition
  • Riley, Glenda. Inventing the American Woman: An Inclusive History (2001) vol 2 online edition
  • Woloch, Nancy. Women and The American Experience, A Concise History (2001)
  • Zophy, Angela Howard, ed. Handbook of American Women's History. (2nd ed. 2000). 763 pp. articles by experts


Specific studies
  • Brown, Kathleen M. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (1996)
  • Campbell, D'Ann. Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Public Era, (1984), World War II; covers housewives, nurses, Wacs, war-workers
  • Mintz, Steven, and Susan Kellogg. Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life (1988), 316pp; the standard scholarly history excerpt and text search


Primary sources: U.S.
  • Berkin, Carol and Horowitz, Leslie, eds. Women's Voices, Women's Lives: Documents in Early American History. (1998). 203 pp.
  • DuBois, Ellen Carol and Ruiz, Vicki L., eds. Unequal Sisters: A Multi-Cultural Reader in U.S. Women's History. (1994). 620 pp.


Historiography
  • Frederickson, Mary E. "Going Global: New Trajectories in U.S. Women's History," History Teacher, Feb 2010, Vol. 43 Issue 2, p169-189
  • Hershatter, Gail, and Wang Zheng. "Chinese History: A Useful Category of Gender Analysis," American Historical Review, Dec 2008, Vol. 113 Issue 5, pp 1404–1421
  • Meade, Teresa A., and Merry Wiesner-Hanks, eds. A Companion to Gender History (2006) excerpt and text search
  • Offen, Karen. "Surveying European Women's History since the Millenium: A Comparative Review," Journal of Women's History, Volume 22, Number 1, Spring 2010, pp. 154-177 DOI: 10.1353/jowh.0.0131
  • Offen, Karen; Pierson, Ruth Roach; and Rendall, Jane, eds. Writing Women's History: International Perspectives (1991). 552 pp. online edition
  • Petö, Andrea, and Judith Szapor, "The State of Women's and Gender History in Eastern Europe: The Case of Hungary," Journal of Women's History, Spring 2007, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp 160–166
  • Scott, Joan Wallach. Gender and the Politics of History (1999), influential essays excerpt and text search
  • Spongberg, Mary. Writing Women's History Since the Renaissance. (2003) 308 pages; on Europe
  • Thébaud, Françoise. "Writing Women's and Gender History in France: A National Narrative?" Journal of Women's History, Spring 2007, Vol. 19 Issue 1, pp 167–172.

External links

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