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120-547: The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians (also known as the " Little Berks ") is an organization for female historians. The Conference welcomes women historians from all fields and historical eras, not just the history of women and gender . The Berkshire Conference is best known for its triennial meeting of the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women , or “ Big Berks .” The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

240-515: A "modern" society. Suffrage movement Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections . Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage was in effect during the Age of Liberty (1718–1772), as well as in Revolutionary and early-independence New Jersey (1776–1807) in

360-728: A constitutional amendment in 1852 rescinded female voting and put property qualifications on male voting. The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention in the United States in Seneca Falls , New York, was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. The conference refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from the U.S. because of their sex. In 1851, Stanton met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony , and shortly

480-674: A field is still developing, but expanding swiftly. Scholarship first began to appear in the 1930s and 1940s, and then further developed in the 1980s. The earliest historical research in the west came from Gertrude Stern ( Marriage in Early Islam ), Nabia Abbott ( Aishah, the Beloved of Muhammed and Two Queens of Bagdad ), and Ilse Lichtenstädter (Women in the Aiyam al- Arab: A Study of Female Life during Warfare in Preislamic Arabia ). Following

600-570: A large region of multiple countries and numerous groups, and scholars have generated research on a wide variety of specific peoples and places, both pre-modern and modern. For example, Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries of Sex and Gender covers research that ranges from women's agency in Mamluk Egypt and in the 19th century Ottoman Empire to Islamic societies' adaptations to intersex people to demonstrate

720-486: A later point, like New Zealand, Australia, and Finland . Several states and territories of the United States, such as Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870), also granted women the right to vote. Women who owned property gained the right to vote in the Isle of Man in 1881, and in 1893, women in the then self-governing British colony of New Zealand were granted the right to vote. In Australia, the colony of South Australia granted women

840-588: A local level. The two groups united became one and called themselves the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Throughout the world, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was established in the United States in 1873, campaigned for women's suffrage, in addition to ameliorating the condition of prostitutes. Under the leadership of Frances Willard , "the WCTU became

960-470: A new era of the organization. As women's history became an established discipline, hundreds, and eventually thousands, of scholars and activists came together to hold a conference on the history of women, now referred to as the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women (aka the "Big Berks"). After holding two successive conferences in 1973 and 1974, the conference moved to a biennial schedule, and in

1080-408: A place in the voting booth . But the vote was much more than simply a reward for war work; the point was that women's participation in the war helped to dispel the fears that surrounded women's entry into the public arena. Pre-WWI opponents of women's suffrage such as the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League cited women's relative inexperience in military affairs. They claimed that since women were

1200-541: A relatively dormant period, the western version of the discipline became revitalized by the feminist movement, which renewed interest in filling gendered gaps in historical narratives. Numerous studies were published during this period, a trend which has continued and even accelerated into the twenty-first century. Scholarship on the Middle East before the 1800s has suffered from the limited number direct records of women's lives during ancient and medieval periods. Since

1320-648: A series of spring weekend retreats, often in the Berkshire Mountains of New England . Initially called the Lakeville History Group, in 1935 the name changed to the BCWH since most of the meetings took place in Stockbridge, Massachusetts . By 1936, these retreats evolved into the organization known today by the nickname "Little Berks." In 1973 conference at Douglass College of Rutgers University inaugurated

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1440-619: A spectrum approaches to Islam among scholars, ranging between potentially extreme forms of criticism and defense. For example, Ida Lichter's Muslim Women Reformers takes a critical approach to gender relations in Muslim majority countries. In her introduction Lichter writes that in comparison to "liberated women in the west," it seems that Muslim women are contending with "a medieval environment of cultural restrictions and misogynistic regulations scripted by religious and patriarchal authorities intent on impounding women's lives." Lichter maintains that

1560-403: A unique approach: there has been an extensive scholarship in women's and gender history despite the lack of women's and gender study programs or departments at the university level. But approaches used by other academics in the research of broadly based social histories have been applied to the field of women's history as well. The high level of research and publication in women's and gender history

1680-684: Is value-laden in regard to what is considered historically "worthy." Other aspects of this area of study are the differences in women's lives caused by race, economic status, social status, and various other aspects of society. The study of women's history has evolved over time, from early feminist movements that sought to reclaim the lost stories of women, to more recent scholarship that seeks to integrate women's experiences and perspectives into mainstream historical narratives. Women's history has also become an important part of interdisciplinary fields such as gender studies, women's studies, and feminist theory. Some key moments in women's history include

1800-553: Is a more important area of study. A major trend in recent years has been to emphasize a global perspective. Although the word "women" is the eighth most commonly used word in abstracts of all historical articles in North America, it is only the twenty-third most used word in abstracts of historical articles in other regions. Furthermore, "gender" appears about twice as frequently in American history abstracts compared to abstracts covering

1920-606: Is due to the high interest within French society. The structural discrimination in academia against the subject of gender history in France is changing due to the increase in international studies following the formation of the European Union, and more French scholars seeking appointments outside Europe. Before the 19th century, young women lived under the economic and disciplinary authority of their fathers until they married and passed under

2040-490: Is often framed by historians as having a profound influence on many women's lives throughout Middle Eastern history. Many researchers have dedicated special attention to changes brought about after the rise of Islam , as well as specific ways in which women's lives were shaped by Islamic law and custom. However, historians are somewhat split in their interpretations on the role of Islam in mediating women's oppression since its development, with particular controversy arising in

2160-411: Is they who even delegated as first ambassadors to discuss peace." The Iroquois, like many First Nations in North America, had a matrilineal kinship system . Property and descent were passed through the female line. Women elders voted on hereditary male chiefs and could depose them. The first independent country to introduce women's suffrage was arguably Sweden. In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage

2280-538: The Bounty mutineers who lived on Pitcairn Islands could vote from 1838. This right was transferred after they resettled in 1856 to Norfolk Island (now an Australian external territory). The emergence of modern democracy generally began with male citizens obtaining the right to vote in advance of female citizens, except in the Kingdom of Hawai'i , where universal suffrage was introduced in 1840 without mention of sex; however,

2400-643: The Liberia Women's League and the Liberian Women's Social and Political Movement , and in 1946, limited suffrage was finally introduced for women of the privileged Libero-American elite, and expanded to universal women's suffrage in 1951. One of the first occasions when women were able to vote was in the elections of the Nova Scotian settlers at Freetown . In the 1792 elections, all heads of household could vote and one-third were ethnic African women. Women won

2520-594: The Convention on the Political Rights of Women , which went into force in 1954, enshrining the equal rights of women to vote, hold office, and access public services as set out by national laws. One of the most recent jurisdictions to acknowledge women's full right to vote was Bhutan in 2008 (its first national elections). Most recently, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia , after both national and international condemnation and activism by feminist groups, granted Saudi women

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2640-571: The Grand Duchy of Tuscany , in Italy, was the first European state to have a law that provided for the vote of women, for administrative elections, taking up a tradition that was already informally sometimes present in Italy. The 1853 Constitution of the province of Vélez in the Republic of New Granada , modern day Colombia , allowed for married women, or women older than the age of 21, the right to vote within

2760-957: The International Woman Suffrage Alliance (founded in 1904 in Berlin , Germany). Most major Western powers extended voting rights to women by the interwar period, including Canada (1917), Germany (1918), the United Kingdom ( 1918 for women over 30 who met certain property requirements, 1928 for all women), Austria , the Netherlands (1919) and the United States (1920). Notable exceptions in Europe were France, where women could not vote until 1944, Greece (equal voting rights for women did not exist there until 1952, although, since 1930, literate women were able to vote in local elections), and Switzerland (where, since 1971, women could vote at

2880-613: The federation of the British colonies in Australia in 1901, the new federal government enacted the Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 which allowed female British subjects to vote and stand for election on the same terms as men. However, many indigenous Australians remained excluded from voting federally until 1962. The first place in Europe to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1906, and it also became

3000-682: The suffrage movement , which fought for women's right to vote; the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which brought attention to issues such as reproductive rights and workplace discrimination; and the # MeToo movement , which has drawn attention to the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault. Notable women throughout history include political leaders such as Cleopatra , Joan of Arc , and Indira Gandhi ; writers such as Jane Austen , Virginia Woolf , and Toni Morrison ; activists such as Harriet Tubman , Susan B. Anthony , and Malala Yousafzai ; and scientists such as Marie Curie , Rosalind Franklin , and Ada Lovelace . Changes came in

3120-614: The 1792 elections in Sierra Leone , then a new British colony, all heads of household could vote and one-third were ethnic African women. Other early instances of women's suffrage include the Corsican Republic (1755), the Pitcairn Islands (1838), the Isle of Man (1881), and Franceville (1889–1890), but some of these operated only briefly as independent states and others were not clearly independent. The female descendants of

3240-527: The 1970s. A pioneering study was Patricia Grimshaw , Women's Suffrage in New Zealand (1972), explaining how that remote colony became the first country in the world to give women the vote. Women's history as an academic discipline emerged in the mid-1970s, typified by Miriam Dixson , The Real Matilda: Woman and Identity in Australia, 1788 to the Present (1976). The first studies were compensatory, filling in

3360-590: The 1980s to triennial. Although the Big Berks always drew international participants, and the 1993 conference at Vassar involved particular efforts to bring international participants, the 2014 conference marked the first time it was held outside the United States (it was held in Toronto, Canada). The Berkshire Conference continues to hold yearly retreats that combine conversation, socializing, outdoor activities, mentoring of junior scholars, and administrative business such as

3480-455: 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 restricted by traditional historical methods and expectations. The study of Japanese women's history has become accepted as part of the traditional topics. With a handful of exceptions, there was little serious history of women in Australia or New Zealand before

3600-513: The 19th and 20th centuries; for example, for women, the right to equal pay is now enshrined in law. Women traditionally ran the household, bore and reared the children, were nurses, mothers, wives, neighbours, friends, and teachers. During periods of war, women were drafted into the labor market 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 history of Scottish women in

3720-491: The 20th century, the Colony of New Zealand was the first to acknowledge women's right to vote in 1893, largely due to a movement led by Kate Sheppard . The British protectorate of Cook Islands rendered the same right in 1893 as well. Another British colony, South Australia , followed in 1895, enacting laws which not only extended voting to women, but also made women eligible to stand for election to its parliament. Following

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3840-675: The Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein (ADF) was founded as an umbrella organization for women's associations, demanding rights to education, employment, and political participation. Three decades later, the Bund Deutscher Frauenverbände (BDF) replaced ADF and excluded from membership the proletarian movement that was part of the earlier group. The two movements had differing views concerning women's place in society, and accordingly, they also had different agendas. The bourgeois movement made important contributions to

3960-626: The Ancient Near East offers a comprehensive overview of women's lives in ancient Babylonia and Mesopotamia. Topics include, but are not limited to, dress, marriage, slavery, sexual autonomy, employment, and religious involvement. Amira El-Azhary Sonbol's Beyond the Exotic: Women's Histories in Islamic Societies brings together twenty-four historians' essays on sources that can be used to fill gaps in conventional historical narratives. Among

4080-512: The Czarist era, and concern was shown in the consciousness and writing of Alexander Pushkin . During the Soviet Era, feminism was developed along with ideals of equality, but in practice and in domestic arrangements, men often dominate. By the 1990s new periodicals, especially Casus and Odysseus: Dialogue with Time, Adam and Eve stimulated women's history and, more recently, gender history. Using

4200-515: The Finnish nation in 1917. In the years before World War I , women in Norway also won the right to vote. During WWI, Denmark, Russia, Germany, and Poland also recognized women's right to vote. Canada gave right to vote to some women in 1917; women getting vote on same basis as men in 1920, that is, men and women of certain races or status being excluded from voting until 1960, when universal adult suffrage

4320-824: The Holocaust. The Nazi ideology viewed women generally as agents of fertility. Accordingly, it identified the Jewish woman as an element to be exterminated to prevent the rise of future generations. For these reasons, the Nazis treated women as prime targets for annihilation in the Holocaust. Anna Kowalczyk ( pl ) has written and Marta Frej ( pl ) has illustrated a book detailing history of Polish women entitled Missing Half of History: A Brief History of Women in Poland ( Brakująca połowa dziejów. Krótka historia kobiet na ziemiach polskich ), published in 2018 by Wydawnictwo W.A.B. ( pl ). Interest in

4440-507: The Kingdom of Hawaii established a House of Representatives, but did not specify who was eligible to participate in the election of it. Some academics have argued that this omission enabled women to vote in the first elections, in which votes were cast by means of signatures on petitions ; but this interpretation remains controversial. The second constitution of 1852 specified that suffrage was restricted to males over twenty years-old. In 1849,

4560-610: The Looking Glass: A History of Women's Seclusion in the Middle East . Several authors link discussions of orientalism with the issue of translating western feminist discourses to women's historiography in the Middle East. Meriwether writes that while the discipline is gaining momentum in countries such as the U.S., Middle Eastern women's history is not as robust of a field in the countries it concerns itself with. She argues that western notions of feminism rely on cultural values which do not necessarily align with those other countries', and

4680-673: The National Woman's Suffrage Association (NWSA) in May 1869. Their goal was to change the 15th Amendment because it did not mention nor include women which is why the NWSA protested against it. Around the same time, there was also another group of women who supported the 15th amendment and they called themselves American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The American Women Suffrage Association was founded by Lucy Stone , Julia Ward Howe , and Thomas Wentworth Higginson , who were more focused on gaining access at

4800-727: The Transkei Legislative Assembly, established in 1963 for the Transkei bantustan , was granted to all adult citizens of the Transkei, including women. Similar provision was made for the Legislative Assemblies created for other bantustans. All adult coloured citizens were eligible to vote for the Coloured Persons Representative Council , which was established in 1968 with limited legislative powers;

4920-558: The UDC, with other women's associations, strove to etch women's accomplishments into the historical record and to take history to the people, from the nursery and the fireside to the schoolhouse and the public square. The work of women scholars was ignored by the male-dominated history profession until the 1960s, when the first breakthroughs came. Gerda Lerner in 1963 offered the first regular college course in women's history. The field of women's history exploded dramatically after 1970, along with

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5040-542: The US. The first territory to continuously allow women to vote to the present day is the Pitcairn Islands since 1838. The Kingdom of Hawai'i , which originally had universal suffrage in 1840, rescinded this in 1852 and was subsequently annexed by the United States in 1898. In the years after 1869, a number of provinces held by the British and Russian empires conferred women's suffrage, and some of these became sovereign nations at

5160-549: The access of women to education and employment (mainly office-based and teaching). The proletarian movement, on the other hand, developed as a branch of the Social Democratic Party. As factory jobs became available for women, they campaigned for equal pay and equal treatment. In 1908 German women won the right to join political parties, and in 1918 they were finally granted the right to vote. The emancipation of women in Germany

5280-436: The ballot," argued Adella Hunt Logan of Tuskegee, Alabama, "how much more do black Americans, male and female, need the strong defense of a vote to help secure their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" Scholars have proposed different theories for variations in the timing of women's suffrage across countries. These explanations include the activism of social movements, cultural diffusion and normative change,

5400-550: The birthplace of democracy, only adult male citizens who owned land were permitted to vote. Through subsequent centuries, Europe was ruled by monarchs, though various forms of parliament arose at different times. The high rank ascribed to abbesses within the Catholic Church permitted some women the right to sit and vote at national assemblies – as with various high-ranking abbesses in Medieval Germany, who were ranked among

5520-500: The book, the author writes: since women in China are always subject to abuse, the history of women is, naturally the history of abuse of women in China. The author revealed the motivation: the book intends to explain how the principle of women being inferior to men evolves; how the abuse to women is intensified over time; and how the misery on women's back experience the history change. The author wants to promote women's liberation by revealing

5640-522: The concept of chastity, foot-binding and women's rights movement in modern China. Inspired by the anti-traditional thoughts in New Culture Movement , the author devoted much effort to disclosing and denouncing the unfairness and suppression in culture, institutions, and life that victimize women in China. According to the book, women's conditions are slightly improved until modern China. In the Preface of

5760-594: The concept of gender has shifted the focus from women to socially and culturally constructed notions of sexual difference. It has led to deeper debates on historiography and holds a promise of stimulating the development of a new "general" history able to integrate personal, local, social, and cultural history. General overviews of women in Asian history are scarce, since most specialists focus on China, Japan, India, Korea or another traditionally defined region. Published work generally deals with women as visible participants in

5880-472: The concept of gender has yielded a bounty of new knowledge in English- and Chinese-language writings. Zhongguo fu nü sheng Huo shi ( simplified Chinese : 中国妇女生活史 ; traditional Chinese : 中國婦女生活史 ; pinyin : Zhōngguó Fùnǚ Shēnghuó Shǐ ; lit. 'Chinese Women's Life History') is a historical book written by Chen Dongyuan in 1928 and published by The Commercial Press in 1937. The book,

6000-628: The conference deleted the reference to the vote. In the US, women in the Wyoming Territory were permitted to both vote and stand for office in 1869. Subsequent American suffrage groups often disagreed on tactics, with the National American Woman Suffrage Association arguing for a state-by-state campaign and the National Woman's Party focusing on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The 1840 constitution of

6120-741: The continent's long history of female dominance Apart from individual women, working largely on their own, the first organized systematic efforts to develop women's history came from the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in the early 20th century. It coordinated efforts across the South to tell the story of the women on the Confederate home front, while the male historians spent their time with battles and generals. The women emphasized female activism, initiative, and leadership. They reported that when all

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6240-531: The control of their husbands. In order to secure a satisfactory marriage, a woman needed to bring a substantial dowry. In the wealthier families, daughters received their dowry from their families, whereas the poorer women needed to work in order to save their wages so as to improve their chances to wed. Under the German laws, women had property rights over their dowries and inheritances, a valuable benefit as high mortality rates resulted in successive marriages. Before 1789,

6360-673: The council was however abolished in 1980. Similarly, all adult Indian citizens were eligible to vote for the South African Indian Council in 1981. In 1984 the Tricameral Parliament was established, and the right to vote for the House of Representatives and House of Delegates was granted to all adult Coloured and Indian citizens, respectively. In 1994 the bantustans and the Tricameral Parliament were abolished and

6480-441: The development of settled agricultural societies and the advent of property, which motivated the careful control of women's reproduction to ensure inheritance stayed within families. A central concern in the development Middle Eastern studies is orientalism , or the tendency of western groups to view civilizations in African and Asia as backwards, exotic, and underdeveloped. Keddie and Anne Chamberlain describe this approach to

6600-481: The electoral calculations of political parties, and the occurrence of major wars. According to Adam Przeworski, women's suffrage tends to be extended in the aftermath of major wars. Scholars have linked women's suffrage to subsequent economic growth, the rise of the welfare state, and less interstate conflict. 1962 (full) Aboriginal men and women were not given the right to vote until 1960; previously, they could only vote if they gave up their treaty status. It

6720-444: The essays, analyses of women's legal statuses, patronage of arts, and religious involvement according to region figure prominently. The information available on women dating after the 1800s is much more robust, and this has led to better-developed histories of multiple Middle Eastern peoples. Similarly to scholarship of the ancient and medieval Middle East, many researchers have drawn from the later Ottoman Empire, this time to discuss

6840-577: The federal level, and between 1959 and 1990, women got the right to vote at the local canton level). The last European jurisdictions to give women the right to vote were Liechtenstein in 1984 and the Swiss canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden at the local level in 1990, with the Vatican City being an absolute   elective monarchy  (the electorate of the Holy See , the conclave , is composed of male cardinals , rather than Vatican citizens). In some cases of direct democracy , such as Swiss cantons governed by Landsgemeinden , objections to expanding

6960-451: The first action for women's suffrage within the British Isles . The Pacific commune of Franceville (now Port Vila, Vanuatu ), maintained independence from 1889 to 1890, becoming the first self-governing nation to adopt universal suffrage without distinction of sex or color, although only white males were permitted to hold office. For countries that have their origins in self-governing colonies but later became independent nations in

7080-409: The first place in continental Europe to implement racially-equal suffrage for women. As a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections , Finland's voters elected 19 women as the first female members of a representative parliament. This was one of many self-governing actions in the Russian autonomous province that led to conflict with the Russian governor of Finland, ultimately leading to the creation of

7200-473: The first to give a systematic introduction to women's history in China, has strongly influenced further research in this field. The book sheds a light on Chinese women's life ranging from ancient times (prior to Zhou dynasty ) to the Republic of China . In the book, sections are separated based on dynasties in China. Sections are divided into segments to introduce different themes, such as marriage, feudal ethical codes, education for women, virtues, positions,

7320-417: The flexibility of Middle Eastern societies. In addition, Gender, Religion, and Change in the Middle East compiles research on various phenomena in the mid-20th century, including: women's integration into student bodies at the American University of Beirut; women's organization of social welfare services in Egypt; the relationship between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israeli women's roles and rights in

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7440-403: The growth of the new social history and the acceptance of women into graduate programs in history departments. In 1972, Sarah Lawrence College began offering a Master of Arts Program in Women's History, founded by Gerda Lerner, which was the first American graduate degree in the field. Another important development was to integrate women into the history of race and slavery. A pioneering effort

7560-416: The heads of Catholic convents. In the Enlightenment , the writings of philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau provided a 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

7680-417: The history of Islam's impacts on women in the Middle East, but also the history of Christianity's and Judaism's impacts on their respective minority communities, and of the roles that class, political status, and economics have played in women's lives. They also assert that while religions, particularly Islam, have been viewed as sources of patriarchy, instances of women's subordination can be traced back to

7800-453: 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, the subordination of women in a Buddhist society, and the persistent concept of menstrual blood as a contaminating agent. 1998 Japanese women's history

7920-422: The impetus for much of the scholarship that has occurred in western countries does not translate perfectly into the academic landscape of the Middle East. She also argues that the complex relationships between gender, colonialism , and class and ethnic relations in Middle Eastern localities create very different climates for the development of women's histories compared with those of (at least mainstream) feminism in

8040-475: The independent princes of the empire. Their Protestant successors enjoyed the same privilege almost into modern times. Marie Guyart , a French nun who worked with the First Nations people of Canada during the 17th century, wrote in 1654 regarding the suffrage practices of Iroquois women: "These female chieftains are women of standing amongst the savages, and they have a deciding vote in the councils. They make decisions there like their male counterparts, and it

8160-549: The largest women's organization of its day and is now the oldest continuing women's organization in the United States." There was also a diversity of views on a "woman's place". Suffragist themes often included the notions that women were naturally kinder and more concerned about children and the elderly. As Kraditor shows, it was often assumed that women voters would have a civilizing effect on politics, opposing domestic violence, liquor, and emphasizing cleanliness and community. An opposing theme, Kraditor argues, held that women had

8280-484: The late 19th century and early 20th century was not fully developed as a field of study until the 1980s. In addition, most work on women before 1700 has been published since 1980. Several 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

8400-664: 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. In Ireland studies of women, and gender relationships more generally, had been rare before 1990; they now are commonplace with some 3000 books and articles in print. French historians have taken

8520-409: The lives and roles of women during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Judith E. Tucker , in Women in the Middle East and North Africa: Restoring Women to History , emphasizes the ways in which changes in the geopolitical and economic landscapes of the 19th century influenced women's lives and roles in Middle Eastern society. At the same time, she also argues that there is not a clear divide between

8640-439: The lower-class women were expected to be economically productive in order to help their husbands make ends meet. In the newly founded German State (1871), women of all social classes were politically and socially disenfranchised. The code of social respectability confined upper class and bourgeois women to their homes. They were considered socially and economically inferior to their husbands. The unmarried women were ridiculed, and

8760-402: The majority of the population, women should vote in local elections, but due to a lack of experience in military affairs, they asserted that it would be dangerous to allow them to vote in national elections. Extended political campaigns by women and their supporters were necessary to gain legislation or constitutional amendments for women's suffrage. In many countries, limited suffrage for women

8880-424: The majority of women lived confined to society's private sphere, the home. The Age of Reason did not bring much more for women: men, including Enlightenment aficionados, believed that women were naturally destined to be principally wives and mothers. Within the educated classes, there was the belief that women needed to be sufficiently educated to be intelligent and agreeable interlocutors to their husbands. However,

9000-603: The man. Leading the continent to prosper and flourish. By bringing an oppressive form of Christianity to Africa, European colonizers altered its trajectory by introducing and imposing patriarchal ideals and systems to replace the matriarchy that had aided in upbringing the African continent. At the First Floor Art Gallery in Zimbabwe, feminist artist Lauren Webber works on traditional fabrics and materials to expose and showcase

9120-545: The meetings of the American Historical Association (AHA), the professional organization for historians in the United States, and felt unwelcome at networking social events such as "smokers" and informal weekend retreats. In 1929, these three women historians decided after returning from the AHA meeting that women historians needed the supportive atmosphere of their own informal gatherings. These yearly events started as

9240-520: The men left for war, the women took command, found ersatz and substitute foods, rediscovered their old traditional skills with the spinning wheel when factory cloth became unavailable, and ran all the farm or plantation operations. They faced danger without having menfolk in the traditional role of their protectors. Historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall argue that the UDC was a powerful promoter of women's history: UDC leaders were determined to assert women's cultural authority over virtually every representation of

9360-504: The military and society; and Muslim women's organization of sofre , or women-only "ceremonial votive meals," dedicated to Shiite saints. In Palestinian Women's Activism: Nationalism, Secularism, Islamism , Islah Jad relays the developments and conflicts associated with women's movements in Palestine from the 1930s to early 2000's, placing particular emphasis on the relationship between Islamic and secularist groups of women activists. Islam

9480-507: The more militant Women's Social and Political Union . Pankhurst would not be satisfied with anything but action on the question of women's enfranchisement, with "deeds, not words" the organization's motto. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were the first two women in America to organize the women's rights convention in July 1848. Susan B. Anthony later joined the movement and helped form

9600-677: The new approaches promoted by social history , led the way. As activists in women's liberation , discussing and analyzing the oppression and inequalities they experienced as women, they believed it imperative to learn about the lives of their fore mothers—and found very little scholarship in print. History was written mainly by men and about men's activities in the public sphere, especially in Africa—war, politics, diplomacy and administration. Women were usually excluded and, when mentioned, were usually portrayed in sex stereotypical roles such as wives, mothers, daughters, and mistresses. The study of history

9720-411: The ones who wanted to avoid social descent could work as unpaid housekeepers living with relatives; the ablest could work as governesses or they could become nuns. A significant number of middle-class families became impoverished between 1871 and 1890 as the pace of industrial growth was uncertain, and women had to earn money in secret by sewing or embroidery to contribute to the family income. In 1865,

9840-515: The path of this right for women in the 1920s. By the time French women were granted the suffrage in July 1944 by Charles de Gaulle 's government in exile, by a vote of 51 for, 16 against, France had been for about a decade the only Western country that did not at least allow women's suffrage at municipal elections. Voting rights for women were introduced into international law by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, whose elected chair

9960-472: The political and social suppression of women. 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 study women of the governing class, and their representation in domestic scenes of death in the narratives and in the role of martyrs . The historiography of women in

10080-635: The province. However, this law was subsequently annulled by the Supreme Court of the Republic , arguing that the citizens of the province could not have more rights than those already guaranteed to the citizens of the other provinces of the country, thus eliminating female suffrage from this province in 1856. In 1881 the Isle of Man , an internally self-governing dependent territory of the British Crown, enfranchised women property owners. With this it provided

10200-533: 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 , especially 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

10320-400: The region's past. This they did by lobbying for state archives and museums, national historic sites, and historic highways; compiling genealogies; interviewing former soldiers; writing history textbooks; and erecting monuments, which now moved triumphantly from cemeteries into town centers. More than half a century before women's history and public history emerged as fields of inquiry and action,

10440-456: The rest of the world. In recent years, historians of women have reached out to web-oriented students. Examples of these outreach efforts are the websites Women and Social Movements in the United States , maintained by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Thomas Dublin. and Click! The Ongoing Feminist Revolution . In the Ancien Régime in France , few women held any formal power; some queens did, as did

10560-409: The revolution, employment as vehicles for women's liberation, Confucianism and the cultural concept of 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. This reflects the decline of the extended family and the growth in women's agency in the marriage transaction. In recent scholarship in China,

10680-616: The right to vote and stand for parliament in 1895 while the Australian Federal Parliament conferred the right to vote and stand for election in 1902 (although it allowed for the exclusion of "aboriginal natives"). Prior to independence, in the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland , women gained equal suffrage, with both the right to vote and to stand as candidates in 1906. National and international organizations formed to coordinate efforts towards women voting, especially

10800-538: The right to vote in Sierra Leone in 1930. The campaign for women's suffrage was conducted largely by the Women's Enfranchisement Association of the Union , which was founded in 1911. The franchise was extended to white women 21 years or older by the Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930 . The first general election at which women could vote was the 1933 election . At that election Leila Reitz (wife of Deneys Reitz )

10920-581: The same moral standards. They should be equal in every way and that there was no such thing as a woman's "natural role". For Black women in the United States, achieving suffrage was a way to counter the disfranchisement of the men of their race. Despite this discouragement, black suffragists continued to insist on their equal political rights. Starting in the 1890s, African American women began to assert their political rights aggressively from within their own clubs and suffrage societies. "If white American women, with all their natural and acquired advantages, need

11040-517: The same voting rights as men in the Irish Free State constitution, 1922. In 1928, British women won suffrage on the same terms as men, that is, for ages 21 and older. The suffrage of Turkish women was introduced in 1930 for local elections and in 1934 for national elections. As the 19th Amendment passed and fully gave women the right to the vote, there were other contributors that made this happen. One of which being Alice Paul as she helped sealed

11160-401: The selection of the annual book and article prizes. The Berkshire Conference also advocates for women in academia, funds graduate student fellowships, and plans the triennial Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, aka The "Big Berks." History of women The main centers of scholarship have been the United States and Britain, where second-wave feminist historians, influenced by

11280-553: The so-called "Orient" as being heavily entangled with western interpretations of Middle Eastern women's roles in their families and societies. Multiple authors, including Chamberlain, criticize approaches to Middle Eastern gender relations which rely on narratives of female oppression and victimization, as well as perhaps over-confidence in western feminist thought. Chamberlain offers an alternative interpretation of women's empowerment in Middle Eastern countries in her book The Veil in

11400-582: The specific time and region, and not necessarily by religion. This idea is supported by Crocco et al.'s "At the Crossroads of the World: Women of the Middle East", Okkenhaug and Flaskerud's Gender, Religion, and Change in the Middle East , and Keddie and Baron's Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries of Sex and Gender . Crocco et al. argue, from a pedagogical perspective, that Middle Eastern women's history needs to be regarded and taught not only as

11520-445: 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

11640-491: 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 anti-democratic political agenda of

11760-574: The sub-Sahara Africa in the context of women's history. There are numerous studies for specific countries and regions, such as Nigeria. and Lesotho. Scholars have turned their imagination to innovative sources for the history of African women, such as songs from Malawi, weaving techniques in Sokoto, and historical linguistics. Prior to the colonial era reigning across the continent of Africa, some systems and societies were matriarichal. The woman carried and represented herself as equal and even superior to

11880-497: 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. Women's history in Russia started to become important in

12000-689: The suffrage claimed that logistical limitations, and the absence of secret ballot , made it impractical as well as unnecessary; others, such as Appenzell Ausserrhoden , instead abolished the system altogether for both women and men. Leslie Hume argues that the First World War changed the popular mood: The women's contribution to the war effort challenged the notion of women's physical and mental inferiority and made it more difficult to maintain that women were, both by constitution and temperament, unfit to vote. If women could work in munitions factories, it seemed both ungrateful and illogical to deny them

12120-463: The traditional dominant fathers in the traditional family. But, 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 of women were incorporated into

12240-544: The two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women in the U.S. In 1868 Anthony encouraged working women from the printing and sewing trades in New York, who were excluded from men's trade unions, to form Working Women's Associations. As a delegate to the National Labor Congress in 1868, Anthony persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work. The men at

12360-589: The vacuum where women had been left out. In common with developments in the United States and Britain, there was a movement toward gender studies, with a field dominated by feminists. Other important topics include demography and family history. Of recent importance are studies of the role of women on the homefront, and in military service, during world wars. See Australian women in World War I and Australian women in World War II . Middle Eastern women's history as

12480-634: The vast majority of historical information has come from male authors and is primarily focused on men, accounts and data which are authored by and center on women are rare. Much of what has been synthesized has come from art, court records, religious doctrine, and other mentions. Researchers have made particular use of court records from the Ottoman Empire . Despite relative sparseness, valuable sources have been identified, and historians have been able to publish recounts of women's social, economic, political, and cultural involvement. Marten Sol's 1999 Women in

12600-570: The vote and right to run for office for the first time in the 2015 local elections . The suffrage movement was a broad one, made up of women and men with a wide range of views. In terms of diversity, the greatest achievement of the 20th-century woman suffrage movement was its extremely broad class base. One major division, especially in Britain, was between suffragists, who sought to create change constitutionally, and suffragettes , led by English political activist Emmeline Pankhurst , who in 1903 formed

12720-400: The way societies were structured before and after modernization began to creep over the world. It is also important, according to Tucker, that scholars keep in mind the differing rates of influence other countries and global dynamics exerted according to region and time period in the Middle East, over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Across all time periods, the Middle East has been

12840-581: The west. In response to potentially narrow focus of western feminism, Liat Kozma proposes a shift toward transnational feminism . She also advocates for collaboration between scholars who specialize in Middle Eastern history and who specialize in gender, respectively. She argues that this can help to center Middle Eastern women's history specifically, thus helping to counter its marginalization both in gender- and Middle Eastern-focused scholarship. Numerous short studies have appeared for women's history in African nations. Several surveys have appeared that put

12960-519: The west. Nikki R. Keddie explains that histories developed on Middle Eastern women are often written in response or reaction to historical geopolitical tension between Middle Eastern and western countries, the latter of which frequently stereotype Middle Eastern cultures as problematic based on Islam's supposed oppression of women. Scholarship on women, particularly the Muslim majority of most Middle Eastern countries, may either be hostile to or aim to defend Islam's influence on women's status. She identifies

13080-425: The women's rights activists she covers in the book are striving justly against harsh oppression by Islamic extremist groups , and of that this is important because these groups pose a threat not just to women in Muslim countries, but women everywhere. At the same time, multiple scholars assert that a large part of women's statuses in Middle Eastern society were dictated by the socioeconomic and political landscape of

13200-696: 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. It is also White who has brought up the subject of women's presence in historical archives. Speaking on the absence black women specifically in historical narratives she says "black people have an oral tradition sustained by almost 300 years of illiteracy in America." There has been an increase in women within archival repositories which means people are finding it

13320-628: Was Eleanor Roosevelt . In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ; Article 21 stated: "(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures." The United Nations General Assembly adopted

13440-621: Was achieved. The Representation of the People Act 1918 saw British women over 30 gain the vote. Dutch women won the passive vote (allowed to run for parliament) after a revision of the Dutch Constitution in 1917 and the active vote (electing representatives) in 1919, and American women on August 26, 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment (the Voting Rights Act of 1965 secured voting rights for racial minorities). Irish women won

13560-651: Was elected as the first female MP, representing Parktown for the South African Party . The limited voting rights available to non-white men in the Cape Province and Natal ( Transvaal and the Orange Free State practically denied all non-whites the right to vote, and had also done so to white foreign nationals when independent in the 1800s) were not extended to women, and were themselves progressively eliminated between 1936 and 1968. The right to vote for

13680-409: Was founded in 1930 by historians Louise Fargo Brown of Vassar College and Louise Ropes Loomis of Wells College in response to the marginalization women historians faced in the male-dominated historical profession. Because of gender discrimination in the profession at large, there were very few women with PhDs in history and most were concentrated at women's colleges. Women were underrepresented at

13800-508: Was granted before universal suffrage for men; for instance, literate women or property owners were granted suffrage before all men received it. The United Nations encouraged women's suffrage in the years following World War II, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) identifies it as a basic right with 189 countries currently being parties to this convention. In ancient Athens , often cited as

13920-563: Was in effect during the Age of Liberty (1718–1772). In 1756, Lydia Taft became the first legal woman voter in colonial America. This occurred under British rule in the Massachusetts Colony . In a New England town meeting in Uxbridge , Massachusetts, she voted on at least three occasions. Unmarried white women who owned property could vote in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807. In

14040-644: Was led by several Egyptian women's rights pioneers in the first half of the 20th century through protest, journalism, and lobbying, through women's organizations, primarily the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU). President Gamal Abdel-Nasser supported women's suffrage in 1956 after they were denied the vote under the British occupation. In 1920, the women's movement organized in the National Liberian Women's Social and Political Movement , who campaigned without success for women's suffrage, followed by

14160-508: 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. The social and political climate of the 1980s in particular, favorable in many ways to women, gave opportunities for Japanese women's historiography and also brought the subject fuller academic recognition. Exciting and innovative research on Japanese women's history began in

14280-520: Was not until 1948, when Canada signed the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that it was forced to examine the issue of discrimination against Aboriginal people. 1929 (All provinces, including princely states) The struggle for women's suffrage in Egypt first sparked from the nationalist 1919 Revolution in which women of all classes took to the streets in protest against the British occupation. The struggle

14400-527: Was to be challenged in following years. Historians have paid special attention to the efforts by Nazi Germany to reverse the political and social gains that women made before 1933, especially in the relatively liberal Weimar Republic . 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 helpmates to

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