Download Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction
Websites
The best website for materials to accompany this book, with a range of original sources from
around the world in all periods, strategies for interpretation, website reviews, and online forums,
is Women in World History, run by the Center for History and the New Media (CHNM) at
George Mason University.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/index.html
CHNM also has a similar website for world history in general, in which many of the materials
include consideration of gender issues:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/worldhistorysources/index.html
CHNM also has a website for children and youth in world history, in which some materials also
include consideration of gender issues:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/
For original sources on women and gender, see the Internet Women’s History Sourcebook,
established by Paul Halsall and sponsored by Fordham University. The site includes hundreds of
sources, organized by topic and almost all in the public domain, and also includes sourcebooks
for ancient, medieval, modern, African, East Asian, Indian, Islamic, Jewish, LGBT (lesbians, gay
men, bisexuals and transgendered people), and global history, and the history of science.
www.fordham.edu/halsall/women/womensbook.html
Dorothy Disse has created and maintains Other Women's Voices: Translations of Women's
Writing before 1700, with substantial excerpts from more than 120 writings from around the
world, links to excerpts on other sites, and discussions of critical analyses.
http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/
Lyn Reese has created and maintains a megasite for teachers and students of all levels, with
many links to sources, lessons, and discussions.
www.womeninworldhistory.com
The Latin American Network Information Center at the University of Texas sponsors a megasite
that includes a specialized subsite on gender and women with links to other web-based materials
in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/region/women/
Diotima, launched in 1995 by Ross Scaife and Suzanne Bonefas, serves as an interdisciplinary
resource for anyone interested in patterns of gender around the ancient Mediterranean, and as a
forum for collaboration among instructors who teach courses about women and gender in the
ancient world. This site includes course materials, bibliographies, original sources, and links to
many online resources.
www.stoa.org/diotima/about.shtml
1
The H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences Online runs a number of lists designed to enable
scholars and students to easily communicate current research and teaching interests, discuss new
approaches and ideas, and share information and comments. There are regional lists for nearly
every part of the world, and many thematic and topical lists. Those of special interest for this
book include:
H-Women: Women’s History
H-World: World History
H-Gendermideast: Gender in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, the Caucasus, Central Asia,
Western Asia, Iran, and the Mediterranean.
H-Minerva: Women in War and Women and the Military
H-SAWH: Women and Gender in the US South
All of these can be accessed at:
www.h-net.org/lists/
Suggestions for Further Reading
The books in this list are organized by the topics noted below, and then in alphabetical order by
author within each topic. Most of them have descriptions taken from the book jacket or from the
publisher’s website. These descriptions are written by the author or the publisher to sell the book
as well as to explain its contents. They thus do not necessarily represent my opinion of the book,
but I have included them here so that you can get an idea of a book's contents and approach and
thus better judge whether it would be useful for your purposes.
Gender History and Theory
The Origins of Patriarchy
General Studies of Women and Gender in Specific Locations
Africa
Asia and the Middle East
Australia and New Zealand
Europe
North America
South America, Central America, and the Caribbean
Gender in Related Fields
Gender History and Theory
Alberti, Johanna. Gender and the Historian. New York: Longman, 2002.
Interest in the question of gender difference was intense during the years 1969-1999. One of
the causes of this fascination was the rapid development of women's history, spurred on by
feminist politics and a growing interest in gender history as a rich and as yet untapped vein for
research. Women had been studied by historians before, but never with the same intensity and
breadth. This accessible overview traces the theoretical debates about the nature and scope of
the history of gender, in a way that makes it both comprehensible and appealing to students of
history.
2
Arnfred, Signe. African Gender Scholarship: Concepts, Methodologies, and Paradigms. Oxford,
UK: African Books Collective, 2004.
Codesria's commitment to 'engender' the social sciences in Africa dates back some time; and its
research has contributed to the distinctive achievement of African feminism to draw from, and
rethink concepts and paradigms of mainstream feminist scholarship. This new gender series
aims to take forward that agenda, to keep alive efforts to fully integrate the dimension of gender
into African social science research and to provide a platform for new work. This first title in the
series brings together the work from leading names in gender studies in Africa. The papers
tackle subjects such as the merits and demerits of Eurocentricism, African epistemologies and
cultures, colonial legacies, postcolonial realities, and other challenges in articulating African
feminism and gender research.
Bailey, Barbara and Elsa Leo-Rhynie, eds. Gender in the 21st Century: Caribbean Perspectives,
Visions and Possibilities. Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle, 2004.
For more than two decades, feminist activists in the Caribbean have been researching, teaching,
writing and collaborating with organisations and groups at all levels to improve the status of
women, and to protect and advance their rights. This volume, Gender in the 21st Century,
commemorates the pioneering work of feminists, scholars and activists by reflecting on some of
the major issues which have engaged them and influenced their scholarship and work since the
early 1980s. It also addresses issues at the cutting edge of Gender and Development Studies,
adopting a strong policy focus for treating current social and gender inequity. Finally, the volume
looks to the future and speculates on the place of gender in the academy, as well as its
outreach, and provides a unique opportunity to explore, with highly respected and renowned
scholars, aspects of the present state of Gender Studies and prospects for the future of this
dynamic area of scholarship.
Bennett, Judith M. History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania, 2006.
Written for everyone interested in women's and gender history, History Matters reaffirms the
importance to feminist theory and activism of long-term historical perspectives. Judith M.
Bennett, who has been commenting on developments in women's and gender history since the
1980s, argues that the achievement of a more feminist future relies on a rich, plausible, and
well-informed knowledge of the past, and she asks her readers to consider what sorts of
feminist history can best advance the struggles of the twenty-first century. Bennett takes as her
central problem the growing chasm between feminism and history. Closely allied in the 1970s,
each has now moved away from the other. Seeking to narrow this gap, Bennett proposes that
feminist historians turn their attention to the intellectual challenges posed by the persistence of
patriarchy. She posits a "patriarchal equilibrium" whereby, despite many changes in women's
experiences over past centuries, women's status vis-à-vis that of men has remained remarkably
unchanged. Although, for example, women today find employment in occupations unimaginable
to medieval women, medieval and modern women have both encountered the same wage gap,
earning on average only three-fourths of the wages earned by men. Bennett argues that the
theoretical challenge posed by this patriarchal equilibrium will be best met by long-term
historical perspectives that reach back well before the modern era. In chapters focused on
women's work and lesbian sexuality, Bennett demonstrates the contemporary relevance of the
distant past to feminist theory and politics. She concludes with a chapter that adds a new twist-the challenges of textbooks and classrooms--to viewing women's history from a distance and
with feminist intent. A new manifesto, History Matters engages forthrightly with the challenges
faced by feminist historians today. It argues for the radical potential of a history that is focused
3
on feminist issues, aware of the distant past, attentive to continuities over time, and alert to the
workings of patriarchal power.
Canning, Kathleen. Gender History in Practice: Historical Perspectives on Bodies, Class, and
Citizenship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 2006.
The eight essays collected in this volume examine the practice of gender history and its impact
on our understanding of European history. Each essay takes up a major methodological or
theoretical issue in feminist history and illustrates the necessity of critiquing and redefining the
concepts of body, citizenship, class, and experience through historical case studies. Kathleen
Canning opens the book with a new overview of the state of the art in European gender history.
She considers how gender history has revised the master narratives in some fields within
modern European history (such as the French Revolution) but has had a lesser impact in others
(Weimar and Nazi Germany).Gender History in Practice includes two essays now regarded as
classics-"Feminist History after the 'Linguistic Turn'" and "The Body as Method"-as well as new
chapters on experience, citizenship, and subjectivity. Other essays in the book draw on Canning'
work at the intersection of labor history, the history of the welfare state, and the history of the
body, showing how the gendered "social body" was shaped in Imperial Germany. The book
concludes with a pair of essays on the concepts of class and citizenship in German history,
offering critical perspectives on feminist understandings of citizenship. Featuring an extensive
thematic bibliography of influential works in gender history and theory that will prove invaluable
to students and scholars, Gender History in Practice offers new insights into the history of
Germany and Central Europe as well as a timely assessment of gender history' accomplishments
and challenges.
Davidoff, Leonore, Keith McClelland and Eleni Varikas, eds. Gender and History: Retrospect and
Prospect. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000.
This book presents a wide-ranging and important collection of new work on gender history. It
includes a variety of international contributions which provide the reader with a global
perspective on how gender history has developed and where it is going. The subjects covered
include gendered space, colonial identities, biology and science, politics, citizenship and the
public sphere, work, family, and oral history. Ranging from Europe to Asia, Australia to North and
South America, together the essays provide an essential guide to the recent and future direction
of gender history.
Downs, Laura Lee. Writing Gender History. New York: Oxford University, 2005.
How has feminist scholarship changed history? At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is
clear that scholars no longer imagine that it is possible to write history, whether of the political,
military, social, economic, or intellectual varieties, without taking gender into account. Downs's
book explores the evolution of historical writing about women and gender from the 1930s until
the early twenty-first century. The discussion moves from women's history to gender history, and
then to poststructuralist challenges to women's and gender history. Designed to be accessible to
students, discussion focuses neither on abstract theory nor on historiography per se, but rather
upon the practical application of theory in historical scholarship on women and gender.
Hawley, John C., ed. Postcolonial and Queer Theories: Intersections and Essays. Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 2001.
Since the 1960s American and Western European gays have set the agenda for sexual
liberation and defined its emergence. Western models of homosexuality often provide the only
globally recognizable frameworks for discussing gay and lesbian cultures around the world, and
4
thus Western interpretive schemes are imposed on non-Western societies. At the same time,
gay and lesbian lifestyles in emerging countries do not always neatly fit Western paradigms, and
data from those countries often clash with dominant Western models. So too, the literature of
emerging countries often depicts homosexuality in ways which challenge the existing tools of
Western literary critics. The thirteen contributors to this book examine the implied imposition of
a heavily capitalistic, white, and generally male model of homosexuality on the emerging world.
By combining postcolonial and queer theoretical approaches, this volume suggests alternative
frameworks for describing sexuality around the world and for exploring non-Western literary
representations of gay and lesbian lifestyles. The volume concludes with a chapter assessing
new questions in both postcolonial and queer theorizing that suggest common concerns and
many avenues for future research.
Järviluoma, Helmi, Pirkko Moisala and Anni Vilkko. Gender and Qualitative Methods. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 2003.
Gender and Qualitative Methods outlines the practical and philosophical issues of gender in
qualitative research. Taking a social constructionist approach to gender, the authors emphasize
that the task of the researcher is to investigate how gender//s is//are defined, negotiated and
performed by people themselves within specific situations and locations. Each chapter begins
with an introduction to a specific method and//or research subject and then goes on to discuss
gender as an analytical category in relation to it. Areas covered include: field work; life story;
membership categorisation analysis; and analysis of gender in sound and vision. Written in a
clear and accessible way, each chapter contains practical exercises that will teach the student
methods to observe and analyze the effects of gender in various texts and contexts. The book is
also packed with examples taken from women and men's studies as well as from feminist and
other gender studies.
Meade, Teresa A. and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, eds. A Companion to Gender History. Malden,
MA: Blackwell, 2004.
A Companion to Gender History surveys the history of women around the world, studies their
interaction with men in gendered societies, and looks at the role of gender in shaping human
behavior over thousands of years. Discusses family history, the history of the body and sexuality,
and cultural history alongside women’s history and gender history. Considers the importance of
class, region, ethnicity, race and religion to the formation of gendered societies. Contains both
thematic essays and chronological-geographic essays. Gives due weight to pre-history and the
pre-modern era as well as to the modern era. Written by scholars from across the Englishspeaking world and scholars for whom English is not their first language.
Morgan, Sue, ed. The Feminist History Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Over the past thirty years feminist historians have challenged and changed the way history is
written. This self-critical dialogue between women has resulted in the development of a richly
reflexive feminist historiography. "The Feminist History Reader" gathers together key articles that
have shaped this historiography and introduces students to the major shifts and turning points
in this dialogue. The Reader is divided into four sections. Part one looks at early feminist
historians' writings following the move from reclaiming women's past through to the
development of gender history. Part two focuses on the interaction of feminist history with 'the
linguistic turn' and addresses the challenges made by poststructuralism and the responses it
provoked. Part three examines the work of lesbian historians and queer theorists in their
challenge the heterosexism of feminist history writing. The final part of the Reader looks at the
work of black feminists and postcolonial critics/Third World scholars and how they have laid
5
bare the ethnocentric and imperialist tendencies of feminist theory. Each reading has a critical
introduction and guide to further reading.
Piontek, Thomas. Queering Gay and Lesbian Studies. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2006.
Queering Gay and Lesbian Studies is a broadly interdisciplinary study that considers a key
dilemma in gay and lesbian studies through the prism of identity and its discontents: the field
studies has modeled itself on ethnic studies programs, perhaps to be intelligible to the university
community, but certainly because the ethnic studies route to programs is well established. Since
this model requires a stable and identifiable community, gay and lesbian studies have
emphasized stable and knowable identities. The problem, of course is that sexuality is neither
stable, tidy, nor developmental. With the advent of queer theory, there are now other
perspectives available that frequently find themselves at odds with traditional gay and lesbian
studies. In this pioneering new study, Thomas Piontek provides a critical analysis of the
development of gay and lesbian studies alongside the development of queer theory, the
disputes between them, and criticism of their activities from both in and outside of the gay
academic community. Examining disputes about transgendering, gay male promiscuity, popular
culture, gay history, political activism, and non-normative sexual practices, Piontek argues that it
is vital to queer gay and lesbian studies--opening this emerging discipline to queer critical
interventions without, however, further institutionalizing queer theory.
Smith, Bonnie G., ed. Women’s History in Global Perspective: Vol. 1. Urbana: University of Illinois,
2004.
The American Historical Association's Committee on Women Historians commissioned some of
the pioneering figures in women's history to prepare essays in their respective areas of
expertise. This volume collects their efforts. The first in a major three-volume set, "Women's
History in Global Perspective, Volume 1" addresses the comparative themes that the editors and
contributors see as central to understanding women's history around the world. Later volumes
will be concerned with issues that have shaped the history of women in particular regions. The
authors of these essays, including Margaret Strobel, Alice Kessler-Harris, and Mrinalini Sinha,
provide general overviews of the theory and practice of women's and gender history and analyze
family history, nationalism, and work. The collection is rounded out by essays on religion, race,
ethnicity, and the different varieties of feminism.
Smith, Bonnie G., ed. Women’s History in Global Perspective: Vol. 2 and 3. Urbana: University of
Illinois, 2005.
The American Historical Association's Committee on Women Historians commissioned some of
the pioneering figures in women's history to prepare essays in their respective areas of
expertise. These volumes, the second and third in a series of three, complete their collected
efforts. The first volume of the series dealt with the broad themes necessary to understanding
women's history around the world. As a counterpoint, volume 2 is concerned with issues that
have shaped the history of women in particular places and during particular eras. It examines
women in ancient civilizations; including women in China, Japan, and Korea; women and gender
in South and South East Asia; Medieval women; women and gender in Colonial Latin America;
and the history of women in the US up to 1865.The authors included are Sarah Hughes and
Brady Hughes, Susan Mann, Barbara N. Ramusack, Judith M. Bennett, Ann Twinam, and
Kathleen Brown. As with volume 2, volume 3 also discusses current trends in gender and
women's history from a regional perspective. It includes essays on sub-Saharan Africa, the
Middle East, early and modern Europe, Russian and the Soviet Union, Latin American, and North
America after 1865. Its contributors include Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Nikki R. Keddie, Barbara
6
Engel, Asuncion Lavrin, Ellen Dubois, and Judith P. Zinsser writing with Bonnie S. Anderson.
Incorporating essays from top scholars ranging over an abundance of regions, dates, and
methodologies, the three volumes of "Women's History in Global Perspective" constitute an
invaluable resource for anyone interested in a comprehensive overview on the latest in feminist
scholarship.
Stearns, Peter N. Gender in World History, 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2006.
From classical times to the twentieth century, Gender in World History is a fascinating
exploration of what happens to established ideas about men and women, and their roles, when
difficult cultural systems come into contact. Significant issues have been the impact of new
religious ideas, the results of colonial conquest and, in modern times, the role of international
organizations and global consumerism World history and women's history are both growing and
exciting fields. However they have, until now, been notoriously difficult to put together. This book
breaks new ground to facilitate a consistent approach to gender in a world history context From
the many case studies across different societies and periods, examples include: the impact of
Islam and Middle-Eastern gender practices on India and sub-Saharan Africa, the results of new
contacts with China on conditions for women in Japan and among the Mongols, European
colonial influences on the Americas, India, Africa and Pacific Oceania, the impact of international
influences on the twentieth century Middle East. Gender in World History explores continuities,
change and patterns over time. It provides a distinctive approach to the explorations of historical
meanings of femininity and masculinity, as well as a contribution to world history itself.
Turner, William B. A Genealogy of Queer Theory. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University, 2000.
Who are queers and what do they want? Could it be that we are all queers? Beginning with such
questions, William B. Turner's lucid and engaging book traces the roots of queer theory to the
growing awareness that few of us precisely fit standard categories for sexual and gender
identity. Turner shows how Michel Foucault's work contributed to feminists' investigations into
the ways that power relates to identity. In the last decades of the twentieth century, feminists
were the first to challenge the assumption that a claim to universal identity -- the white male
citizen -- should serve as the foundation of political thought and action. Difference matters.
Race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality interact, producing a wide array of identities that
resist rigid definition and are mutable. By understanding the notion of transhistorical categories - woman, man, homosexual, and so forth -- feminist and gay male scholars launched queer
theoretical work as a new way to think about the politics of gender and sexuality. A Genealogy of
Queer Theory probes the fierce debates among scholars and activists, weighing the charges that
queer readings of texts and identity politics do not constitute and might inhibit radical social
change. Written by a historian, it considers the implications of queer theory for historical inquiry
and the distinction between philosophy and history. As such, the book will interest readers of
gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender studies, intellectual history, political theory, and the history of
gender/sexuality.
Wilson, Shamillah, Amasuya Sengupta and Kristy Evans, eds. Defending Our Dreams: Global
Feminist Voices for A New Generation. New York: Zed, 2006.
This book brings together analyses by feminists of diverse identities on themes including
women's rights and economic change, new technologies, sexuality, feminist organizations and
movements. It presents key issues arising out of the experiences of young women living in both
North and South, the challenges confronting young feminists, and the agenda for a new era of
feminist leadership and activism.
7
Wing, Adrien Katherine, ed. Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader. New York:
New York University, 2000.
Global Critical Race Feminism is the first anthology to focus explicitly on the legal rights of
women of color around the world. Containing nearly thirty essays, the book addresses such
topical themes as responses to white feminism; the flashpoint issue of female genital
mutilation; the intersections of international law with U.S. law; "Third World" women in the "First
World;" violence against women; and the global workplace. Broadly representative, the reader
addresses the role and status-legal and otherwise-of women in such countries as Cuba, New
Zealand, France, Serbia, Nicaragua, Colombia, South Africa, Japan, China, Australia, Ghana, and
many others.
Zack, Naomi. Inclusive Feminism: A Third Wave Theory of Women’s Commonality. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
In Inclusive Feminism, Naomi Zack provides a universal, relational definition of women, critically
engages both Anglo and French feminists and shows how women can become a united historical
force, with the political goal of ruling in place of men.
The Origins of Patriarchy
Hawkes Kristen and Richard R. Paine. The Evolution of Human Life History. Sante Fe, NM:
School of American Research Press, 2006.
Hrdy, Sarah Bluffer. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Human Understanding.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Hrdy, Sarah Bluffer. The Woman That Never Evolved. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1999.
Lerro, Bruce. Power in Eden: The Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World.
Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2005.
Have gender inequalities always existed? Did inequality occur instantaneously, or gradually over
centuries? How responsible were women for their subordination? why was there no women's
movement in ancient times? Power in Eden: The Emergence of gender Hierarchies in the
Ancient World answers these important questions and many others with a reconstruction (based
on the best existing evidence and research) of the multidimensional events and processes that
led to the emergence of institutionalized male dominance beginning in the late Neolithic age
and ending in the axial Iron Age in 500 BCE. I will show across a period from 6000 BCE how
socio-ecological transformations across five social formations (hunting-gathering bands, simple
and complex horticultural villages, agricultural states and commercial states) were responsible
for the dominance of a few men over most women and most other men. My principle claims are
that ecological and demographic forces such as repeated population pressure and resource
depletion created great social stress which men and women reacted to differently. These forces
also catalyzed new social processes in the Bronze Age, including the rise of political
centralization, economic stratification, the invention of the plow, and hieroglyphics. The new
gender hierarchies were deepened by the emergence of coined money, the alphabet and iron
tools which consolidated male dominance. These material forces were sustained and legitimized
by the sacred movement from animism to polytheism to monotheism. Lastly these socio-
8
ecological dynamics lead to changes in the psychology of people: the appearance of the
individualist self and new form of reasoning which I call "hyper-abstract" cognition.
General Studies of Women and Gender in Specific Locations
Africa
Cole, Catherine M., Takyiwaa Manuh and Stephan F. Miescher, eds. Africa after Gender?
Bloomington: Indiana University, 2007.
Gender is one of the most productive, dynamic, and vibrant areas of Africanist research today.
But what is the meaning of gender in an African context? Why does gender usually connote
women? Why has gender taken hold in Africa when feminism hasn't? Is gender yet another
Western construct that has been applied to Africa however ill-suited and riddled with
assumptions? Africa After Gender? looks at Africa now that gender has come into play to
consider how the continent, its people, and the term itself have changed. Leading Africanist
historians, anthropologists, literary critics, and political scientists move past simple dichotomies,
entrenched debates, and polarizing identity politics to present an evolving discourse of gender.
They show gender as an applied rather than theoretical tool and discuss themes such as the
performance of sexuality, lesbianism, women's political mobilization, the work of gendered
NGOs, and the role of masculinity in a gendered world. For activists, students, and scholars, this
book reveals a rich and cross-disciplinary view of the status of gender in Africa today.
Endeley, Joyce B., Richard A. Goodridge and Eudine Barriteau, eds. New Gender Studies: From
Cameroon and the Caribbean. Oxford, UK: African Books Collective, 2004.
This collection of studies is the first title published by the Department of Women and Gender
Studies at the University of Buea, Cameroon. The volume provides examples of research
undertaken in different parts of Cameroon on poverty reduction, women plantation workers,
gender relations within the University, and on masculinity in the city of Douala. It includes
contributions on the efforts of local faith communities to women; the quality of life and
empowerment of women; the voices representing a wide range of men and women of the faith
communities. The study further considers the role of international NGOs and work done by the
church, and concludes with two papers on labor relations in Barbados.
Gasa, Nomboniso, ed. Women in South African History: They Remove Boulders and Cross
Rivers. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2007.
n this collection of essays, the often-marginalized voices of South African women are presented,
in four chronological sections, as a nuanced and complex narrative that provides new
interpretations and different readings on the major phases of South African history. Activists and
academics seek to illuminate the struggle for emancipation, and their interrogation of past
conflict and present issues creates an overtly feminist perspective that captures the constant
struggles and movements of women in South Africa.
Asia and the Middle East
Andaya, Barbara Watson. Other Pasts: Women, Gender and History in Early Modern Southeast
Asia. Honolulu: Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai’i at Mânoa, 2001.
9
The historical study of women and gender in Southeast Asia has received relatively little
attention, despite the fact that "female autonomy" is often cited as a distinguishing feature of
the region. This pioneering collection brings together a number of international scholars
distinguished by their knowledge of relevant primary sources and their willingness to ask new
questions and apply new methodologies. Often challenging established generalizations, the
essays highlight the changes and continuities in gender roles.
Beck, Lois and Guity Nashat, eds. Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2004.
The role of women in Iran has often been downplayed or obscured, particularly in the modern
era. This volume demonstrates that women have long played important roles in different facets
of Iranian society. Together with its companion, Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800,
this volume completes a two-book project on the central importance of Iranian women from preIslamic times through the creation and establishment of the Islamic Republic. It includes essays
from various disciplines by prominent scholars who examine women's roles in politics, society,
and culture and the rise and development of the women's movement before and during the
Islamic Republic. Several contributors address the issue of regional, ethnic, linguistic, and tribal
diversity in Iran, which has long contained complex, heterogeneous societies.
Beck, Lois and Guity Nashat, eds. Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2003.
Combining scholarship from a range of disciplines, this collection of essays is a comprehensive
examination of the role of women in Iranian society and culture, from pre-Islamic times to 1800.
The contributors challenge common assumptions about women in Iran and Islam. Sweeping
away modern myths, these essays show that women have had significant influence in almost
every area of Iranian life. Focusing on a region wider than today's nation-state of Iran, this book
explores developments in the spheres that most affect women: gender constructs, family
structure, community roles, education, economic participation, Islamic practices and
institutions, politics, and artistic representations.
Bernstein, Gail Lee. Recreating Japanese Women. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1991.
In thirteen wide-ranging essays, scholars and students of Asian and women's studies will find a
vivid exploration of how female roles and feminine identity have evolved over 350 years, from
the Tokugawa era to the end of World War II. Starting from the premise that gender is not a
biological given, but is socially constructed and culturally transmitted, the authors describe the
forces of change in the construction of female gender and explore the gap between the ideal of
womanhood and the reality of Japanese women's lives. Most of all, the contributors speak to the
diversity that has characterized women's experience in Japan. This is an imaginative, pioneering
work, offering an interdisciplinary approach that will encourage a reconsideration of the
paradigms of women's history, hitherto rooted in the Western experience.
Edwards, Louise and Mina Roces, eds. Women in Asia: Tradition, Modernity and Globalisation.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2000.
Women in Asia surveys the transformation in the status of women since 1970 in a diverse range
of nations: Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong
Kong, Korea, Japan, and Burma. Using these thirteen national case studies the book presents
new arguments about being women, being Asian, and being modern in contemporary Asia. The
book provides a comprehensive analysis of the change of women's status against a range of key
10
indicators including education, health, population, politics, law, employment, violence against
women, and militarism. In addition, the contributors unravel the complexities for women
presented by globalization and modernization, and also the specific contributions of women to
national development. Each chapter explores how women across the Asian region are refiguring
feminism within a diverse range of distinct cultures. Divergent narratives about the modern
Asian woman are explored in comparison to powerful discourses of the imagined traditional
Asian woman. The various national case studies expose how these contesting gender narratives
both challenge and inspire women around the Asian region as they create dynamic new visions
of the modern Asian woman.
Hershatter, Gail. Women in China’s Long Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California,
2007.
This indispensable guide for students of both Chinese and women's history synthesizes recent
research on women in twentieth-century China. Written by a leading historian of China, it surveys
more than 650 scholarly works, discussing Chinese women in the context of marriage, family,
sexuality, labor, and national modernity. In the process, Hershatter offers keen analytic insights
and judgments about the works themselves and the evolution of related academic fields. The
result is both a practical bibliographic tool and a thoughtful reflection on how we approach the
past.
Keddie, Nikki R. Women in the Middle East: Past and Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University, 2007.
Written by a pioneer in the field of Middle Eastern women's history, Women in the Middle East is
a concise, comprehensive, and authoritative history of the lives of the region's women since the
rise of Islam. Nikki Keddie shows why hostile or apologetic responses are completely inadequate
to the diversity and richness of the lives of Middle Eastern women, and she provides a unique
overview of their past and rapidly changing present. The book also includes a brief
autobiography that recounts Keddie's political activism as one of the first women in Middle East
Studies. Positioning women within their individual economic situations, identities, families, and
geographies, Women in the Middle East examines the experiences of women in the Ottoman
Empire and Turkey, in Iran, and in all the Arab countries. Keddie discusses the interaction of a
changing Islam with political, cultural, and socioeconomic developments. In doing so, she shows
that, like other major religions, Islam incorporated ideas and practices of male superiority but
also provoked challenges to them. Keddie breaks with notions of Middle Eastern women as
faceless victims, and assesses their involvement in the rise of modern nationalist, socialist, and
Islamist movements. While acknowledging that conservative trends are strong, she notes that
there have been significant improvements in Middle Eastern women's suffrage, education,
marital choice, and health.
Liddle, Joanna and Sachiko Nakajima. Rising Suns, Rising Daughters: Gender, Class, and Power
in Japan. New York: Zed Books, 2000.
Surprisingly little is known in the West about Japanese women. Exploring themes of gender and
class, this book traces the changing position of women through history and into the present.
Repudiating the cliché of the submissive Japanese woman, the authors show women as active
agents in both family and public life. The women's liberation movement of recent years
resonates with echoes of struggle and resistance from earlier times. The broader movements of
history and culture are brought into focus within the experiences of individual women.
11
Puwar, Nirmal and Parvati Raghuram, eds. South Asian Women in the Diaspora. New York: Berg,
2003.
South Asian women have frequently been conceptualized in colonial, academic and postcolonial
studies, but their very categorization is deeply problematic. This book, informed by theory and
enriched by in-depth fieldwork, overturns these unhelpful categorizations and alongside broader
issues of self and nation assesses how South Asian identities are 'performed'. What are the
blind spots and erasures in existing studies of both race and gender? In what ways do South
Asian women struggle with Orientalist constructions? How do South Asian women engage with
'indo-chic?' What dilemmas face the South Asian female scholar? With a combination of the
most recent feminist perspectives on gender and the South Asian diaspora, questions of
knowledge, power, space, body, aesthetics and politics are made central to this book. Building
upon a range of experiences and reflecting on the actual conditions of the production of
knowledge, South Asian Women in the Diaspora represents a challenging contribution to any
consideration of gender, race, culture and power.
Australia and New Zealand
Brookes, Barbara, Annabel Cooper and Robin Law, eds. Sites of Gender: Women, Men and
Modernity in Southern Dunedin, 1890-1939. Auckland, NZ: University of Auckland, 2003.
This comprehensive analysis of gender in the working-class New Zealand suburbs of Dunedin
illustrates the ideological changes that became manifest in the period from 1893, when New
Zealand became the first country to grant suffrage to women, to 1940. Quantitative and
qualitative data on work, education, consumption, leisure, poverty, mobility, transportation,
health, religion, and marriage in this community offer insight into the changing gender roles
during this time. This major contribution to gender studies research considers the impact of
sociology, urban planning, and geography in societal change.
Europe
Abrams, Lynn, Eleanor Gordon, Deborah Simonton and Eileen Janes Yeo, eds. Gender in Scottish
History since 1700. Edinburgh, Ireland: Edinburgh University, 2006.
This book offers gendered perspectives on the main themes in Scottish history since 1700. It
starts from the assumption that gender is integral to our understanding of the ways in which
societies in the past were organised but that national histories have a tendency to be gender
blind, to assume that the processes of nation-making have little to do with sexual difference.
Allen, Ann Taylor. Women in Twentieth-Century Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Women's lives changed more in the twentieth century than in any previous century. It was a
period of transformation, not only of the political realm, but also of the household, family and
workplace. Innovations in military technology, the mass media, manufacturing, medicine, travel
and communications shaped the lives of women. Ranging widely over the whole of Europe and
the entirety of the long twentieth century, this fascinating account is the first comprehensive
survey of women in twentieth-century Europe.
Barker, Hannah. Women’s History: Britain, 1700-1850. New York: Routledge, 2005.
This volume provides a wide-ranging, thematic survey of women's history in Britain in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Chapters written by both well-established writers and
12
new and dynamic scholars are presented in a thorough and well-balanced selection. Topics
covered include women's roles in and experiences of politics, religion, consumption, crime, and
many other areas. This overview of women in the eighteenth century is essential reading for any
student of women's history.
Bitel, Lisa M. Women in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Boxer, Marilyn J. and Jean H. Quataert, eds. Connecting Spheres: European Women in a
Globalizing World, 1500 to the Present, 2d ed. New York: Oxford, 2000.
In Connecting Spheres, Boxer and Quataert, along with an array of eminent contributors,
examine the social history of women within western civilization over the past 500 years.
Expanded and updated, this new edition addresses both long-standing and more recent issues
which have affected women's lives in modern Europe. These topics include the role of women in
public versus private spheres; changes in family life in post-communist Eastern Europe; the
impact of religion on the lives of women; the growth of the prostitution sector; the rise of
feminism and antifeminism; and the part female sexuality has played in impacting women's
roles in social and political life.
Brubaker, Leslie and Julia M. H. Smith, eds., Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West,
300-900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Includes essays on Byzantium and
Islam as well as western Europe.
Buturovi, Amila and Ìrvín Cemíl Schick, eds. Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, Culture
and History. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007.
Women in the Ottoman Balkans were founders of pious endowments, organizers of labour and
conspicuous consumers of western luxury goods; they were lovers, wives, castaways, divorcées,
widows, the subjects of ballads and the narrators of folk tales, victims of communal oppression
and protectors of their communities against supernatural forces. In their daily lives they
experienced oppression and self-denial in the face of frequently unsympathetic local customs,
but also empowerment, self-affirmation, and acculturation. This volume not only deepens our
understanding of the distinctive contributions that women have made to Balkan history but also
re-evaluates this through a more inclusive and interdisciplinary analysis in which gender takes
its place alongside other categories such as class, culture, religion, ethnicity and nationhood.
Caine, Barbara and Glenda Sluga. Gendering European History 1780-1920. New York:
Continuum, 2002.
Gendering European History covers the period from the French Revolution to the end of the First
World War. Organised both chronologically and thematically, its central theme is the issue of
gender and citizenship. The book encompasses the late eighteenth-century revolutionary period,
nineteenth-century developments concerning work, urban and domestic life, national politics,
gender in the fin de siècle and imperialism, and concludes with the gender crisis of the First
World War. Caine and Sluga explore the question of sexual difference in relation to class,
ethnicity and race, and the development of key historical debates about identity, work, home,
politics, and citizenship in specific national contexts and across Europe. At the same time, they
provide readers new to European history with general information about the social and political
contexts in which those debates arose. Intended both as an introductory work for tertiary
students and one that offers new interpretations for scholars in the field, this study is a
synthesis, bringing together the extensive but often fragmented existing literature on gender in
European history. It also raises new questions and introduces new sources, particularly in
13
relation to the history of gender and nation-building. The result is a challenging view of the
contours of European history in the period from the Enlightenment to the 1920's.
Donawerth, Jane and Adele Seeff, eds. Crossing Boundaries: Attending to Early Modern Women.
Newark: University of Delaware, 2000.
This volume contains the proceedings from the 1997 symposium "Attending to Early Modern
Women: Crossing Boundaries, " which was sponsored by the Center for Renaissance and
Baroque Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. It provides a detailed overview of
current research in early modern women's studies.
Edmondson, Linda, ed. Gender in Russian History and Culture. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
This book charts the changing aspects of gender in Russia's cultural and social history from the
late 17th century to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The essays, while focusing on women as a
primary subject, highlight the construction of both femininity and masculinity in a culture that
has undergone major transformation and disruptions over the period of three centuries.
Farmer, Sharon and Carol Braun Pasternack, eds. Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2003.
Nothing less than a rethinking of what we mean when we talk about "men" and "women" of the
medieval period, this volume demonstrates how the idea of gender -- in the Middle Ages no less
than now -- intersected in subtle and complex ways with other categories of difference.
Responding to the insights of postcolonial and feminist theory, the authors show that medieval
identities emerged through shifting paradigms -- that fluidity, conflict, and contingency
characterized not only gender, but also sexuality, social status, and religion. This view emerges
through essays that delve into a wide variety of cultures and draw on a broad range of
disciplinary and theoretical approaches. Scholars in the fields of history as well as literary and
religious studies consider gendered hierarchies in western Christian, Jewish, Byzantine, and
Islamic areas of the medieval world.
Fuchs, Rachel G. and Victoria E. Thompson. Women in Nineteenth-Century Europe. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
During the nineteenth century, European women experienced dramatic and enduring changes in
their familial, working and political lives. Breaking away from traditional categories, the authors
of this book provide a sense of the variety and complexity of women's lives across national and
regional boundaries, juxtaposing the experiences of women with their perceptions of their lives.
Three themes unite this study: the tension between tradition and modernity, the changing
relationship between the community and individual, and the shifting boundaries between public
and private.
McClure, Laura K., ed. Sexuality and Gender in the Classical World: Readings and Sources.
Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002.
This volume provides essays that represent a range of perspectives on women, gender and
sexuality in the ancient world, tracing the debates from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.
McHardy, Fiona and Eireann Marshall, eds. Women’s Influence on Classical Civilization. New
York: Routledge, 2004.
Written by an international range of renowned academics, this volume explores how women in
antiquity influenced aspects of culture normally though of as male.Looking at politics,
economics, science, law and the arts, the contributors examine examples from around the
14
ancient world asking how far traditional definitions of culture describe male spheres of activity,
and examining to what extent these spheres were actually created and perpetuated by women.
Women’s Influence of Classical Civilization provides students with a valuable wider perspective
on the roles and influence of women in the societies of the Greek and Roman worlds.
Richards, Penny and Jessica Munns. Gender, Power, and Privilege in Early Modern Europe:
1500-1700. Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2003.
Organized into four sections, Courtly Worlds, Religious Experience, Civic Worlds, and Literature
and Gender, this original collection provides a contemporary map with which to understand the
past. The essays reflect the current trend towards integrating the historical experience of women
and men. They focus on key areas of contemporary interest and importance, and incorporate
research and research methods that have evolved over the last twenty years.
Roberts, Michael and Simone Clarke, eds. Women and Gender in Early Modern Wales. Cardiff:
University of Wales, 2000.
This collection of essays deals with the material, social and cultural experience of women in
Wales from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It offers information and insight about every aspect
of female experience, covering the more conventional aspects of life, such as religion, education
and work, as well as a variety of other topics, such as violence, radicalism, embroidery and its
connotations, festivals and poetic creativity. Some of the contributions, notably those on female
abduction, witchcraft, needlework, and masculinity, have had light thrown upon them alongside
such traditional topics as unionm reformation, Anglicanisation, the Civil War and revivals.
Rosslyn, Wendy, ed. Women and Gender in 18th-Century Russia. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.
Although the topic of gender has been comparatively well explored with respect to Russia in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the eighteenth century (1700-1825) is still underresearched. This collection of essays by authorities in the field from the USA, Russia, and
Western Europe focuses on the social history and culture both of noblewomen and of lowerclass women, about whom relatively little is currently known. This is the first collection of essays
on women in eighteenth-century Russia. Much of the research is based on women's own
evidence and on archival documents. The volume opens with a survey of recent research in this
area and with discussions of male constructions of femininity at the beginning and end of the
century. Women's culture is explored through women's own accounts of their education, and
studies of their letters and literary works. Particular attention is paid to the direction of their
reading by mentors and to the journals provided for women by male writers. Special topics
include dress and cosmetics, arrangements for the defence of privacy, dowries, and irregular
marital unions. Three essays uncover evidence about the lives of lower-class women, their
involvement with the courts, and their experience of employment.
Rublack, Ulinka, ed. Gender in Early Modern German History. New York: Cambridge University,
2002.
Why did parents prosecute their children as witches? Why did a sixteenth-century midwife entice
a burgher woman to pretend she was giving birth to puppies? How did the life of a transsexual
woman in early eighteenth-century Hamburg end? This volume presents a range of startling
case-studies from German society between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The study
reveals new meanings of gender and identity relating to the experiences of men and women in
early modern German history.
15
Schaus, Margaret, ed. Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. Boca Raton:
CRC Press, 2006.
From women's medicine and the writings of Christine de Pizan to the lives of market and
tradeswomen and the idealization of virginity, gender and social status dictated all aspects of
women's lives during the middle ages. A cross-disciplinary resource, Women and Gender in
Medieval Europe examines the daily reality of medieval women from all walks of life in Europe
between 450 CE and 1500 CE, i.e., from the fall of the Roman Empire to the discovery of the
Americas. Moving beyond biographies of famous noble women of the middles ages, the scope of
this important reference work is vast and provides a comprehensive understanding of medieval
women's lives and experiences. Masculinity in the middle ages is also addressed to provide
important context for understanding women's roles.
North America
Ackerman, Lillian A. A Necessary Balance: Gender and Power among Indians of the Columbia
Plateau. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 2003.
In the past, many Native American cultures have treated women and men as equals. In A
Necessary Balance, Lillian A. Ackerman examines the balance of power and responsibility
between men and women within each of the eleven Plateau Indian tribes who live today on the
Colville Indian Reservation in north-central Washington State. Ackerman analyzes tribal cultures
over three historical periods lasting more than a century--the traditional past, the farming phase
when Indians were forced onto the reservation, and the twentieth-century industrial present.
Ackerman examines gender equality in terms of power, authority, and autonomy in four social
spheres: economic, domestic, political, and religious. Although early explorers and
anthropologists noted isolated instances of gender equality among Plateau Indians, A Necessary
Balance is the first book-length examination of a culture that has practiced such equality from
its early days of hunting and gathering to the present day. Ackerman's findings also relate to an
examination of European and American cultures, calling into question the current assumption
that gender equality ceases to be possible with the advent of industrialization.
Appleton, Thomas H. Jr. and Angela Boswell, eds. Searching for Their Places: Women in the
South across Four Centuries. Columbia: University of Missouri, 2003.
Searching for Their Places is a collection inspired by the Fifth Southern Conference on Women's
History. The essays in this volume are particularly astute in assessing how southern women, in
the course of "searching for their places," have individually or collectively sought to empower
themselves. They convincingly illustrate how the national experience looks different when
southern women become the focus.
Censer, Jane Turner. The Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood, 1865-1895. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University, 2003.
The important but little-known story of elite southern white women's successful quest for a
measure of self-reliance and independence between antebellum strictures and the restored
patriarchy of Jim Crow.
Coryell, Janet L., Thomas H. Appleton Jr., Anastatia Sims, and Sandra Gioia Treadway, eds.
Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood: Dealing with the Powers That Be. Columbia:
University of Missouri, 2000.
16
In eleven thought-provoking essays covering the early nineteenth through the early twentieth
centuries, Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood examines the complex intersections
of race, class, and gender and the ways in which southern women dealt with "the powers that
be" and, in some instances, became those powers. Elitism, status, and class were always filtered
through a prism of race and gender in the South, and women of both races played an important
role in maintaining as well as challenging the hierarchies that existed to claim a share of power
for themselves in a male-dominated world.
Epp, Marlene, Franca Iacovetta and Frances Swyripa, eds. Sisters or Strangers: Immigrant,
Ethnic and Racialized Women in Canadian History. Toronto: University of Toronto,
2004.Spanning two hundred years of history from the nineteenth century to the 1990s, Sisters
or Strangers? explores the complex lives of immigrant, ethnic, and racialized women in Canada.
The volume deals with a cross-section of peoples including Japanese, Chinese, Black, Aboriginal,
Irish, Finnish, Ukrainian, Jewish, Mennonite, Armenian, and South Asian Hindu women and
diverse groups of women, including white settlers, refugees, domestic servants, consumer
activists, nurses, wives, and mothers. The central themes of Sisters or Strangers? include
discourses of race in the context of nation-building, encounters with the state and public
institutions, symbolic and media representations of women, familial relations, domestic violence
and racism, and analyses of history and memory. In different ways, the authors question
whether the historical experience of women in Canada represents a 'sisterhood' of challenge
and opportunity, or if the racial, class, or marginalized identity of the immigrant and minority
women made them in fact 'strangers' in a country where privilege and opportunity fall according
to criteria of exclusion.
Hoffert, Sylvia D. A History of Gender in America: Essays, Documents, and Articles. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
This book summarizes what historians of gender have written and introduces readers to the
most recent literature on the history of gender in the United States. Gender Identities in the
English Colonies. Masculinity in the North and South. Femininity in the North and South. Gender
and Work. Gender and Sport. For anyone who is interested in an in-depth discussion of American
Gender Identities, how gender conventions change over time, and what factors have influenced
those changes.
Hune, Shirley and Gail M. Nomura, eds. Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: A Historical
Anthology. New York: New York University, 2003.
/Pacific Islander American Women is the first collection devoted to the historical study of A/PI
women's diverse experiences in America. Covering a broad terrain from pre-large scale Asian
emigration and Hawaii in its pre-Western contact period to the continental United States, the
Philippines, and Guam at the end of the twentieth century, the text views women as historical
subjects actively negotiating complex hierarchies of power.The volume presents new findings
about a range of groups, including recent immigrants to the U.S. and understudied communities.
Comprised of original new work, it includes chapters on women who are Cambodian, Chamorro,
Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Native Hawaiian, South Asian, and Vietnamese
Americans. It addresses a wide range of women's experiences-as immigrants, military brides,
refugees, American born, lesbians, workers, mothers, beauty contestants, and community
activists. There are also pieces on historiography and methodology, and bibliographic and video
documentary resources.
17
Irwin, Mary Ann and James F. Brooks, eds. Women and Gender in the American West: JensenMiller Prize Essays from the Coalition for Western Women’s History. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico, 2004.
In 1990 the Coalition for Western Women’s History inaugurated the Joan Jensen-Darlis Miller
Prize to recognize outstanding scholarship on gender and the experiences of women in the
North American West. Since then, the Jensen-Miller Prize committees have considered nearly
two hundred submissions, and chosen thirteen for the skill and imagination with which the
authors conducted research in original materials or reinterpreted a major problem in the field.
Each piece was done with grace and style, and shaped the field for future historians. Women
and Gender in the American West collects these essays for the first time on topics that range
from Mormon plural marriages to women’s experiences in Spanish Borderland slavery, from
interracial marriage to the sexual exploitation of Indian women in British Columbia, from Navajo
women weavers in the market economy to women’s reform work in gold rush era San Francisco,
from settler women in western Canada to Chicana activists in Texas. Beyond their topical
interest, the essays also present the evolving analytical force of a field that has deepened and
matured over time.
Kleinberg, S. Jay, Eileen Boris, and Vicki L. Ruiz, eds. The Practice of U.S. Women’s History:
Narratives, Intersections, and Dialogues. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, 2007.
Collection of seventeen original essays on women's lives from the colonial period to the present,
contributors take the competing forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion and region into
account.
Kugel, Rebecca and Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, eds. Native Women’s History in Eastern North
America Before 1900: A Guide to Research and Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2007.
How can we learn more about Native women’s lives in North America in earlier centuries? This
question is answered by this landmark anthology, an essential guide to the significance,
experiences, and histories of Native women. Sixteen classic essays—plus new commentary—
many by the original authors—describe a broad range of research methods and sources offering
insight into the lives of Native American women. The authors explain the use of letters and
diaries, memoirs and autobiographies, newspaper accounts and ethnographies, census data
and legal documents. This collection offers guidelines for extracting valuable information from
such diverse sources and assessing the significance of such variables as religious affiliation,
changes in women’s power after colonization, connections between economics and gender, and
representations (and misrepresentations) of Native women.
Perdue, Theda, ed. Sifters: Native American Women’s Lives. New York: Oxford University, 2001.
In this edited volume, Theda Perdue, a nationally known expert on Indian history and southern
women's history, offers a rich collection of biographical essays on Native American women. From
Pocahontas, a Powhatan woman of the seventeenth century, to Ada Deer, the Menominee
woman who headed the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the 1990s, the essays span four centuries.
Each one recounts the experiences of women from vastly different cultural traditions--the
hunting and gathering of Kumeyaay culture of Delfina Cuero, the pueblo society of San Ildefonso
potter Maria Martinez, and the powerful matrilineal kinship system of Molly Brant's Mohawks.
Contributors focus on the ways in which different women have fashioned lives that remain firmly
rooted in their identity as Native women. Perdue's introductory essay ties together the themes
running through the biographical sketches, including the cultural factors that have shaped the
lives of Native women, particularly economic contributions, kinship, and belief, and the ways in
which historical events, especially in United States Indian policy, have engendered change.
18
Riley, Glenda. Confronting Race: Women and Indians on the Frontier, 1815-1915. Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico, 2004.
In 1984, when Glenda Riley's 'Women and Indians on the Frontier' was published, it was hailed
for being the first study to take into account the roles that gender, race, and class played in
Indian/white relations during the westward migration. In the twenty years since, the study of
those aspects of western history has exploded. "Confronting Race" reflects the changes in
western women's history and in the author's own approach. In spite of white women's shifting
attitudes toward Indians, they retained colonialist outlooks toward all peoples. Women who
migrated West carried deeply ingrained images and preconceptions of themselves and racially
based ideas of the non-white groups they would meet. In their letters home and in their personal
diaries and journals, they perpetuated racial stereotypes, institutions, and practices. The women
also discovered their own resilience in the face of the harsh demands of the West. Although
most retained their racist concepts, they came to realise that women need not be passive or
fearful in their interactions with Indians. Riley's sources are the diaries and journals of trail
women, settlers, army wives, and missionaries, and popular accounts in newspapers and novels.
She has also incorporated the literature in the field published since 1984 and a deeper analysis
of relationships between white women and Indians in westward expansion.
Rochin, Refugio I. and Dennis Nodín Valdés, eds. Voices of a New Chicana/o History. East
Lansing: Michigan State University, 2000.
Issues that inspired the publication of Voices of a New Chicana/o History are to be found in the
backgrounds and lives of the work's contributors themselves. These scholars all are part of a
new generation of Chicana/o historians, a generation that is in the midst of framing a debate
over the future of the Chicana/o past. Because most were born after 1960, these men and
women also are living the history of an intellectual movement they seek to describe and explain.
In aggregate, this selection of fourteen important new pieces of in-depth research forms a kind
of paradigm for expanding the boundaries of Chicana/o cultural studies. Voices of a New
Chicana/o History presents a construct by which the Chicana/o shared experience is helping to
redefine many academic disciplines with a stimulating, multi-layered questioning of inherited
scholarly assumptions.
Ruíz, Vicki and Virginia Sánchez Korrol, eds. Latinas in the United States: A Historical
Encyclopedia. Bloomington: Indiana University, 2006.
With immigration much in the news and candidates now courting both Latino and women voters,
the history of Latinas in the U.S. becomes increasingly timely. The preface to this involving,
sweeping work cites poet Aurora Levins Morales: "I am new. History made me. My first language
was spanglish. I was born at the crossroads and I am whole." Aimed at both scholarly and
general readers, this alphabetically arranged encyclopedia contains almost 600 articles and
300 photographs. A detailed, clearly written introduction gives regional historical overviews of
the Latina experience in the Southwest, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, and Pacific Northwest.
The body of the encyclopedia consists of articles on pertinent topics (Deportations during the
Great Depression, Family, Theater); significant historical events; organizations that promote
Latina empowerment; and biographical profiles on predominately working-class women whose
experiences and actions helped build the U.S and shape the future of today's Latinas. The scope
is impressive, the more so as it encompasses not only well-known Latinas, such as Pura Belpre
and Dolores Huerta, but also women whose accomplishments are more modest: completing
nursing school, becoming a teacher, challenging unjust treatment in school districts, opening
and running a business. These entries give a clear sense of how individual lives, not just those
19
that receive media coverage, serve to drive historical change and how the slow, steady accretion
of rights gained and social institutions opened makes a society more inclusive. Black-and-white
photographs are well placed, enhancing the articles considerably. All articles are signed by the
230 contributors, most of whom have college or university affiliations. At the end of each entry,
see also notations provide superb cross-referencing, and a "Sources" section directs readers to
more comprehensive works. All three volumes begin with a full-set table of contents. Volume 3
includes a list of biographical entries by subject area (for example, "Art," "Education"); a list of
organizations; a three-page list of selected readings; notes on the contributors; and an
exemplary index, with main article pages listed in boldface and photographs noted in italics.
Ryan, Mary P. Mysteries of Sex: Tracing Women and Men through American History. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina, 2006.
In a sweeping synthesis of American history, Mary Ryan demonstrates how the meaning of male
and female has evolved, changed, and varied over a span of 500 years and across major social
and ethnic boundaries. She traces how, at select moments of history, perceptions of sex
difference were translated into complex and mutable patterns for differentiating women and
men. How those distinctions were drawn and redrawn affected the course of American history
more generally. Ryan's bold analysis raises the possibility that perhaps, if understood in their
variety and mutability, the differences of sex might lose the sting of inequality.
Simon, Rita, ed. Immigrant Women. Piscataway: Transaction, 2001.
The obstacles to assimilation and treatment of immigrant women are major issues confronting
the leading immigrant-receiving nations today -- the United States, Canada, and Australia. This
volume provides a range of perspectives on the concerns, the sources of problems, how issues
might be addressed, and the future of immigrant women, and contains a new introduction by the
editor.
South America, Central America and the Caribbean
Ardren, Traci, ed. Ancient Maya Women. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2002.
Edited volume tracing the state of knowledge of gender in Ancient Mayan society.
Carey, David Jr. Engendering Mayan History: Kaqchikel Women as Agents and Conduits of the
Past, 1875-1970. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Presenting Mayan history from the perspective of Mayan women--whose voices until now have
not been documented--David Carey allows these women to present their worldviews in their
native language, adding a rich layer to recent Latin American historiography, and increasing our
comprehension of indigenous perspectives of the past.
Drawing on years of research among the Maya that specifically documents women's oral
histories, Carey gives Mayan women a platform to discuss their views on education, migrant
labor, work in the home, female leadership, and globalization. These oral histories present an
ideal opportunity to understand indigenous women's approach to history, the apparent
contradictions in gender roles in Mayan communities, and provide a distinct conceptual
framework for analyzing Guatamalan, Mayan, and Latin American history.
Guy, Donna J. White Slavery and Mothers Alive and Dead: The Troubled Meeting of Sex, Gender,
Public Health, and Progress in Latin America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 2000.
20
White Slavery and Mothers Alive and Dead brings together a diverse set of essays exploring
topics ranging from public health and child welfare to criminality and industrialization. What the
essays have in common is their gendered connection to work, family, and the rise of increasingly
interventionist nation-states in Latin America, and particularly in Argentina. Donna J. Guy first
looks at Latin American women from a general and international perspective. She explores
which paradigms are most useful in studying gender history in Latin America. She also
addresses the evolution of the Pan-American Child Congresses as well as the politics of PanAmerican cooperation in relation to child welfare issues. Later essays focus on Argentina in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Guy looks at how women were affected by systems of forced
labor, and she illuminates changes in the concept of patria potestad, or the right of male heads
of households to control family members' labor. Other essays address such issues as public
health, white slavery, and public notions of motherhood in Argentina.
Joseph, Gilbert M., ed. Gender and Sexuality in Latin America Special Issue of Hispanic
American Historical Review. Durham, NC: Duke University, 2002.
With this special issue, the Hispanic American Historical Review explores the vital work in
gender and sexuality by leading historians of Latin America. This collection offers readers a look
at the current state of gender and sexuality studies—areas of enormous growth and excitement
in Latin American scholarship—as well as the dynamic potential of the discipline’s future.
Sueann Caulfield, one of the most distinguished scholars of Latin American gender studies,
leads off with an insightful historiographical analysis of the field. Building on the foundation laid
by Caulfield, a forum of four younger scholars—Heidi Tinsman, Karin Rosemblatt, Elizabeth
Hutchinson, and Thomas Klubock—examines the construction of gender and power in a variety
of politically contested arenas, including agrarian reform, welfarism, and leftist activism.
Focusing on twentieth-century Chile, the collection also includes essays by Pablo Piccato and
Christina Rivera that analyze gender dynamics, class relations, and sexual violence in the
context of the medical-legal state that emerged in early-twentieth-century Mexico. The issue
concludes with Martin Nesvig’s essay, which negotiates the complex terrain of Latin American
homosexuality and bisexuality.
Kellogg, Susan. Weaving the Past: A History of Latin America’s Indigenous Women from the
Prehispanic Period to the Present. New York: Oxford University, 2005.
Weaving the Past offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary history of Latin America's
indigenous women. While the book concentrates on native women in Mesoamerica and the
Andes, it covers indigenous people in other parts of South and Central America, including
lowland peoples in and beyond Brazil, and Afro-indigenous peoples, such as the Garifuna, of
Central America. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, it argues that change, not
continuity, has been the norm for indigenous peoples whose resilience in the face of complex
and long-term patterns of cultural change is due in no small part to the roles, actions, and
agency of women. The book provides broad coverage of gender roles in native Latin America
over many centuries, drawing upon a range of evidence from archaeology, anthropology, religion,
and politics. Primary and secondary sources include chronicles, codices, newspaper articles, and
monographic work on specific regions. Arguing that Latin America's indigenous women were the
critical force behind the more important events and processes of Latin America's history, Kellogg
interweaves the region's history of family, sexual, and labor history with the origins of women's
power in prehispanic, colonial, and modern South and Central America. Shying away from
interpretations that treat women as house bound and passive, the book instead emphasizes
women's long history of performing labor, being politically active, and contributing to, even
supporting, family and community well-being.
21
Powers, Karen Vieira. Women in the Crucible of Conquest: The Gendered Genesis of Spanish
American Society, 1500-1600. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 2005.
The evidence of women in the Americas is conspicuously absent from most historical syntheses
of the Spanish invasion and early colonization of the New World. Karen Powers's ethnohistoric
account is the first to focus on non-military incidents during this transformative period. As she
shows, native women's lives were changed dramatically. “Women in the Crucible of Conquest"
uncovers the activities and experiences of women, shows how the intersection of gender, race,
and class shaped their lives, and reveals the sometimes hidden ways they were integrated into
social institutions. Powers's premise is that women were demoted in status across race and
class and that some women resisted this trend. She describes the ways women made spaces
for themselves in colonial society, in the economy, and in convents as well as other religious
arenas, such as witchcraft. She shows how violence and intimidation were used to control
women and writes about the place of sexual relations, especially miscegenation, in the forging of
colonial social and economic structures.
Rodrigues, Félix V. Matos and Linda C. Delgado. Puerto Rican Women’s History: New
Perspectives. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998.
A survey of the topics in gender and history of Puerto Rican women. Organized chronologically
and covering the 19th and 20th centuries, it deal with issues of slavery, emancipation, wage
work, women and politics, women's suffrage, industrialization, migration and Puerto Rican
women in New York.
Socolow, Susan Migden. The Women of Colonial Latin America. New York: Cambridge University,
2000.
This book presents an overview of the varied experiences of women in colonial Spanish and
Portuguese America. Beginning with the cultures that would produce the Latin American world,
the book traces the effects of conquest, colonization, and settlement on colonial women. The
book also examines the expectations, responsibilities, and limitations facing women in their
varied roles, stressing the ways in which race, social status, occupation, and space altered
women's social and economic realities.
Stafford, Pauline and Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker, ed. Gendering the Middle Ages: A Gender and
History Special Issue. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.
A collection in which a group of leading historians of medieval Europe apply a gendered analysis
to a series of questions ranging from the transformation of the Roman world and the Christian
challenge to late antique masculinity, through canon law and Byzantine coinage to the childhood
of medieval visionaries.
Gender in Related Fields
Clark, Gracia, ed. Gender at Work in Economic Life. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2003.
This new volume from SEA illuminates the importance of gender as a frame of reference in the
study of economic life. The contributors are economic anthropologists who consider the role of
gender and work in a cross-cultural context, examining issues of: historical change, the
construction of globalization, household authority and entitlement, and entrepreneurship and
autonomy. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers in anthropology and in the
22
related fields of economics, sociology of work, gender studies, women's studies, and economic
development.
Delle, James A., Stephen A. Mrozowski and Robert Paynter, eds. Lines that Divide: Historical
Archaeologies of Race, Class, and Gender. Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 2000.
Fuchs, Esther. Israeli Women’s Studies: A Reader. New Brunswick: Rutgers University, 2005.
Israeli women do not enjoy the equality, status, and power often attributed to them by the media
and popular culture. Despite significant achievements and progress, as a whole they continue to
earn less than their male counterparts, are less visible and influential in the political arena, do
not share equal responsibilities or privileges in the military, have unequal rights and freedoms in
family life and law, and are less influential in shaping the nation's self image and cultural
orientation. Bringing together classic essays by leading scholars of Israeli culture, this reader
exposes the hidden causes of ongoing discrimination and links the restrictions that Israeli
women experience to deeply entrenched structures, including colonial legacies, religious
traditions, capitalism, nationalism, and ongoing political conflict. In contrast, the essays also
explore how women act creatively to affect social change and shape public discourse in less
ostensible ways.
Geller, Pamela L. and Miranda K. Stockett, eds. Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and
Future. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2006.
Bringing together distinguished scholars and original voices from anthropology's diverse
subfields, Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future probes critical issues in the study of
gender, sex, and sexuality. Contributors offer significant reflections on feminist anthropology's
winding trajectory. In so doing, they examine what it means to practice feminist anthropology
today, at a time when the field is perceived as fragmented and contentious. By uniting around
shared feminist concerns, Feminist Anthropology establishes a common ground for varied
practitioners. A holistic perspective allows for effective and creative dialogue on such issues as
performativity, pedagogy, heteronormativity, difference, and identity. In addition, the volume
provides a vital assessment of the history and current state of feminist theorizing within the
discipline as a whole by identifying three issues central to future feminist analyses: the critical
reenvisioning of old interpretations, the political and practical aspects of the academy, and the
critique of heteronormativity.
Gubar, Susan. Rooms of Our Own. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2006.
With a little help from Virginia Woolf, Susan Gubar contemplates startling transformations
produced by the women's movement in recent decades. What advances have women made and
what still needs to be done? Taking Woolf's classic A Room of One's Own as her guide, Gubar
engages these questions by recounting one year in the life of an English professor. A meditation
on the teaching of literature and on the state of the humanities today, her chapters also provide
a crash course on the challenges and changes in feminist intellectual history over the past
several decades: the influence of post-structuralism and of critical race, postcolonial, and
cultural studies scholarship; the stakes of queer theory and the institutionalization of women's
studies; and the effects of globalism and bioengineering on conversations about gender, sex,
and sexuality. Yet Rooms of Our Own eschews a scholarly approach. Instead, through narrative
criticism it enlists a thoroughly contemporary cast of characters who tell us as much about the
comedies and tragedies of campus life today as they do about the sometimes contentious but
invariably liberating feminisms of our future.
23
Hall, Thomas D., ed. A World-Systems Reader: New Perspectives on Gender, Urbanism, Cultures,
Indigenous Peoples, and Ecology. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
This book brings together some of the most influential research from the world-systems
perspective. The authors survey and analyze new and emerging topics from a wide range of
disciplinary perspectives, from political science to archaeology. Each analytical essay is written
in accessible language so that the volume serves as a lucid introduction both to the tradition of
world-systems thought and the new debates that are sparking further research today.
Harrison, Faye V., ed. Resisting Racism and Xenophobia: Global Perspectives on Race, Gender,
and Human Rights. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2005.
Faye V. Harrison's collection of essays focuses on the intersections between race, gender,
sexuality, class, and nationality that exert a huge influence on human rights conflicts around the
world. Using compelling examples, the authors illustrate the central premise that understanding
the dynamics of these intersections has important implications for effectively confronting
oppression and constructing positive change. Investigating conflicts in Europe, the Americas,
Asia, Africa, and Australia, the contributors also reflect upon political concerns and anxieties
worldwide that have grown out of the catastrophe of 9/11. The contributors comprise an
internationally diverse group of anthropologists and human rights activists concerned with
global, culturally diverse, and gendered experiences. This anthology will be valuable to
instructors, human rights workers, and applied professionals in anthropology, gender studies,
ethnic studies, and international human rights.
Naveh, Hannah, ed. Gender and Israeli Society: Women’s Time. Portland, OR: Vallentine
Mitchell, 2003.
Looks at the complex and multi-faceted issues of feminist concern in Israel. It is the first of two
interconnected volumes engaging with the concept of `women's time' and recounts stories and
histories of women, along with other marginalized groups, categories and classes, and places
them back into history.
Nelson, Sarah Milledge. Gender in Archaeology: Analyzing Power and Prestige, 2d ed. Walnut
Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2004.
This new edition of the first comprehensive feminist, theoretical synthesis of the archaeological
work on gender reflects the extensive changes in the study of gender and archaeology over the
past 8 years. New issues--such as sexuality studies, the body, children, and feminist pedagogy-enrich this edition while the author updates work on the roles of women and men in such areas
as human origins, the sexual division of labor, kinship and other social structures, state
development, and ideology.
Nelson, Sarah Milledge, ed. Handbook of Gender in Archaeology. Lanham, MD: AltaMira, 2006.
First reference work to explore the research on gender in archaeology.
Nelson, Sarah Milledge, ed. Worlds of Gender: The Archaeology of Women’s Lives Around the
Globe. Lanham, MD: AltaMira, 2007.
Part IV of Nelson's Handbook of Gender in Archaeology (2006). Examines the archaeology of
women's lives and activities around the globe.
Nelson, Sarah Milledge and Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, eds. In Pursuit of Gender: Worldwide
Archaeological Approaches. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira, 2002.
24
Written by a distinguished group of feminist archaeologists, In Pursuit of Gender examines the
role of gender in archaeology, an area that has long been neglected. The chapters in this volume
represent sites and cultures that have been interpreted or reinterpreted from the perspective of
gender, exploding old assumptions about women and the roles they held. Greatly illuminating
the subject of gender from the perspective of their own regional traditions, the authors take the
reader through an authoritative and comprehensive discussion of gender archaeology in Asia,
Africa, North and South America. Societies represented include hunter-gatherers, early
horticulturalists, incipient and well-developed states, historic communities, as well as
ethnoarchaeological explorations. The chapters are characterized by a greater specificity in
methods, and the emergence of a social archaeology that considers the agency of both men and
women.
Oywùmí, Oyèrónké, ed. African Gender Studies: A Reader. New York: Palgrave, 2005.
Three decades of feminist research have shown that gender is a socio-cultural and historical
construct. Yet much of the development in the field of Gender Studies is based on European and
North American experiences. African Gender Studies: Theoretical Questions and Conceptual
Issues is a necessary corrective to this longstanding problem. The anthology brings African
knowledge to bear on ongoing global engagement with gender and allied concepts; feminism,
women's rights, human rights, globalization, development and social transformation. Bringing
together classic and new writings, this comprehensive text includes articles that speak to a
range of debates in the field of women's studies and African studies, as well as those that
address issues in various disciplines including history, literary studies, philosophy, sociology, and
anthropology.
Rautman, Alison E., ed. Reading the Body: Representations and Remains in the Archaeological
Record. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2000.
Classical and anthropological archaeologists share many of the same interests and confront
many of the same problems in the study of extinct cultures. Despite differences in background
and training, scholars in these disciplines are all engaged in analyzing and interpreting the
archaeological record. Traditionally, however, there have been few opportunities for classical
archaeologists and anthropologists to discuss mutually useful perspectives in method and
theory. The study of gender and its representations affords an opportunity for these two groups
to share information and increase our understanding of how people lived in the past. Reading
the Body contains current research about the body -both physical remains and artistic
representations -- from sites all over the world ranging from the European Upper Paleolithic to
the Pueblo societies of the recent past. Essay topics include the reconstruction of the lives of
Etruscan women from skeletal remains, gender symbolism in Inuit burials, the erotic clothing of
Crete's Minoan culture, and gender identities in Maya ceramic paintings.
Sørensen, Marie Louise Stig. Gender Archaeology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000.
This major new textbook explores the relations between gender and archaeology, providing an
innovative and important account of how material culture is used in the construction of gender.
Throughout this lively and accessible text, Sorensen engages with the question of how gender is
materially constituted, and examines the intersection of social and material concerns from the
Palaeolithic Age to the present day. Part One discusses a range of important general issues,
beginning with an overview of the recent role of gender and gender relations in our appropriation
of past societies. After introducing the debate about feminist or gender archaeology, Sorensen
examines archaeology's concern with the sex/gender distinction, the nature of negotiation, and
feminist epistemological claims in relation to archaeology. In Part Two, the author focuses on the
25
materiality of gender, exploring it through case studies ranging from prehistory to contemporary
society. Food, dress, space and contact are examined in turn, to show how they express and
negotiate gender roles. This illustrated textbook will be essential reading for students and
scholars in archaeology, anthropology, material culture studies and women's studies.
Twine, France Winddance and Kathleen M. Blee, eds. Feminism and Antiracism: International
Struggles for Justice. New York: New York University, 2001.A collection of international scholars
and activists answer the questions how does gender and region/nation play a defining role in
how feminists engage in anti-racist practices? How has the restructuring in the world economy
affected anti-racist organizing? How do Third World Feminists counter the perception that
feminism is a "Western" ideology and how effective are their methods? What opportunities does
globalization bring for cross-cultural organizing?
26