Gender history
Gender History is a sub-field of
History and
Gender studies, which looks at the past from the perspective of
gender. It is in many ways, an outgrowth of
Women's History.
Despite its relatively short life, Gender History (and its forerunner Women's History) has had a rather significant effect on the general study of
history. Since the
1960s, when the initially small field first achieved a measure of acceptance, it has gone through a number of different phases, each with its own challenges and outcomes, but always making an impact of some kind on the historical discipline. Although some of the changes to the study of history have been quite obvious, such increased numbers of books on
famous women or simply the admission of greater numbers of women into the historical profession, other influences are more subtle, even though they may be more politically groundbreaking in the end.
Within the Profession
According to historian Joan Scott, conflict occurred between Women's History
historians and other historians in a number of ways. In the
American Historical Association, when
feminists argued that female historians were treated unequally within the field and underrepresented in the association, they were essentially leveling charges of historical negligence by traditional historians. Notions of
professionalism were not rejected outright, but they were accused of biased. If the virtues of the historical profession failed to appreciate and include the work of female historians, what kind of effect did those same virtues have on the history men were writing?
Supplementary History
The construction of Women's History as "
supplementary" to the rest of history had a similar effect. At first glance, a supplement simply adds information which has been missing from the greater story, but as Scott points out, it also questions why the information was left out in the first place. Whenever it is noticed that a woman found to be missing from written history, Women's History first describes her role, second, examines which mechanisms allowed her role to be omitted, and third, asks to what other information these mechanisms were blind. If a human being can be left out entirely, what else has been missed as a result of the established practices of the historical profession?
Gender Theory
Finally, the advent of
gender theory once again challenged commonly held ideas of the discipline, including those scholars studying Women's History.
Post-modern criticism of essentialising
socially constructed groups, be they
gender groups or otherwise, pointed out the weaknesses in various sorts of history. In the past,
historians have attempted to describe the shared experience of large numbers of people, as though these people and their experiences were homogeneous and uniform. Women have multiple
identities, influenced by any number of factors including
race and
class, and any examination of history which conflates their experiences, fails to get an accurate picture.
