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Cargando... History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminismpor Judith M. Bennett
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. A historian argues that feminism needs to develop the history of feminism. She makes a good argument that the current presentism is a bad move, and that feminist historians who don't go back any further than 1800 are missing a rich trove of material. A medieval historian herself, she focuses on Medieval Europe to make her case that the role of women in history has been much less one of transformation than one of continuity, with women's situation changing only little throughout history. She argues that our current situation, though it seems much better to some and worse to others than the pre-modern period, is actually very much a continuity with the past, and that many of the moves forward that women have made have been into fields that are in decline when women are finally allowed to enter. She also notes that this view of continuity does not require that one accept a narrative of biological inferiority. A worthwhile read, well written without a lot of jargon, and without major editing errors, a rarity in today's publishing market. ( ) This short book, by a very distinguished medieval historian, argues that the study of the past—particularly the pre-modern past—is vital to the feminist movement. Judith Bennett believes that in the decades since the 1970s, historians who study women have become increasingly disconnected from those involved in the contemporary women's movement, to the detriment of both groups. There has been much more work done on women's history outside of North America and Western Europe, and indeed on the lived experiences of women of colour within those regions, but the post-1800 West still dominates academic departments and popular history books. This means that many scholars are too presentist, and work without the kind of deep historical knowledge needed to perceive continuities within women's experiences. Though this is, as I said, a short work, it provides much food for thought and is well worth the read by historians in all fields. I wholeheartedly agree with Bennett on the necessity of studying medieval women (well, that's my day job; I would, wouldn't I), and the next time I teach on women's work I will assign the chapter here on the gender wage gap. That said I have quibbles—some minor, some less so—with her arguments in other places, particularly her advocacy for the use of the term "lesbian-like" to describe the experiences of many pre-modern women. Is failing to recognise that there were women in the Middle Ages who engaged in same-sex intercourse, whose sexual desires were directed in part or in whole towards other women, heteronormative and homophobic? Sure. Are there enormous difficulties in finding documentary smoking guns that prove romantic, sexual, and/or erotic relationships between women in pre-modern Europe? Yup. But is everything that is non-heteronormative automatically "lesbian-like"? She would classify here chaste communities of nuns, or even two biological sisters who rejected marriage and lived together, as "lesbian-like." A cross-dressing female student in fifteenth-century Poland is described as "lesbian-like." Here's where I start looking askance at Bennett. This is an oddly binary formula, and entirely rejects and/or absorbs other forms of non-heteronormativity such as asexuality or transgender identities. All she seems to be doing here is to invert heteronormativity to create a new form of categorisation to force on something that's inherently fluid and changing. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
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 on feminist issues, aware of the distant past, attentive to continuities over time, and alert to the workings of patriarchal power. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)305.42072Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people Women Role in society, statusClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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