Showing papers in "Womens History Review in 1994"
TL;DR: The authors examines some of the current methodological and theoretical debates encountered by feminist historians utilising oral history, with illustrations from oral history research on wage-earning women in a small Canadian manufacturing city.
Abstract: This paper examines some of the current methodological and theoretical debates encountered by feminist historians utilising oral history, with illustrations from oral history research on wage-earning women in a small Canadian manufacturing city. After reviewing some of the literature which has indicated how we might use oral history as a means of exploring the construction of historical memory, the article examines some of the ethical questions involved in using oral sources, and emphasises the need for historians to take full account of issues of long-standing concern to other social scientists. It then examines some of the current theoretical debates surrounding historians. use of interviews, particularly the difficult concept of experience and the current emphasis on deconstructing the oral text with the use of post structuralist theories. Using women's stories of a major textile strike in 1937 as an illustration, the article argues for a feminist oral history which is enlightened by post-stru...
232 citations
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TL;DR: In the early 1930s, inter-war feminists converged on Geneva seeking international action to raise the status of women as discussed by the authors and they believed that support from the League of Nations would strengthen national efforts to combat the anti-feminist reaction caused by the Depression and the rise of conservative ideologies.
Abstract: Inter-war feminists converged on Geneva seeking international action to raise the status of women. They believed that support from the League of Nations would strengthen national efforts to combat the anti-feminist reaction caused by the Depression and the rise of conservative ideologies. During the 1930s, demands for an equal rights treaty exposed tactical and ideological tensions among women's groups. While all women's groups active in Geneva sought the extension of women's rights, some questioned the effectiveness of blanket legislation, such as an equal rights treaty, and its implications for protective legislation. Although these tensions remained unresolved, the international campaign by feminists led ultimately to a League-sponsored inquiry into the legal status of women. With this victory, inter-war feminists irrevocably challenged the idea that the status of women was a subject for consideration by national governments only. The League inquiry laid the foundations for the creation of the...
74 citations
TL;DR: For instance, this article pointed out that Indian servants were the group of Indians with whom memsahibs had the most contact, and their relationship with domestics shaped British women's attitudes towards the Indian in general.
Abstract: From the beginning of the nineteenth century, British memsahibs, the wives of officials, military officers, missionaries, and merchants, consistently expounded an image of Indians to the female reading public in Britain through their letters and diaries to female relatives, and through published autobiographies, advice manuals, articles, and advice columns in women's periodicals. Since servants were the group of Indians with whom memsahibs had the most contact, their relationship with domestics shaped British women's attitudes towards the Indian in general. The servants' dark skin and their religious, social, and linguistic differences contributed to the negative attitudes of the memsahibs towards them. The Indian rebellion of 1857 and the emergence of social Darwinism further heightened memsahibs' beliefs that Indians were subhuman savages. Earlier generations of memsahibs influenced the later generations through their derogatory comments about Indian domestics. Furthermore, by writing about the...
43 citations
TL;DR: The authors trace the historical construction of boundaries between Europe and India and the history of interstitial groups that destabilize these, and question the transition narratives of nationalism and capitalism that usually structure...
Abstract: From 1857 Indian railways built railway colonies to inculcate a practical mastery of middle-class domesticity solely in their European employees. These were key sites for the construction and contestation of European identity. They marked Europe and India as separate locales bounded by distinct racial typologies and gender identities. The central distinction reinforced was that between European modernity and Indian tradition. This project was complicated by the hybrid identities of Domiciled European and Eurasian railway employees, nationalist protests, and contradictions in the colonial discourse of modernity. By 1931 the racial logic of the railway colony was under threat, but its rhetorics of respectability, modernity, gender, and race intensified in new forms. By tracing the historical construction of boundaries between Europe and India and the history of interstitial groups that destabilize these, we can question the transition narratives of nationalism and capitalism that usually structure ...
40 citations
39 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the traditions of both British imperial and British domestic historiography and calls for a re-mapping of both so that the so-called separate spheres of "home" and "away" may be brought back into the same fields of debate.
Abstract: This paper examines the traditions of both British imperial and British domestic historiography and calls for a re-mapping of both so that the so-called separate spheres of ‘home’ and ‘away’ may be brought back into the same fields of debate. Its central claim is that imperial ideology and its effects were not phenomena ‘out there’. Empire was not a singular place; nor did ‘home’ exist in isolation from it. In spite of the polarization, which has been characteristic of their historiographies, their relationship was dialectic rather than dichotomous. These insights, while derived in part from new trends inside British history itself, owe both their theoretical rigor and their self-avowedly political concerns to post-colonial and feminist historiographical work, which together insist on the desacralization of ‘Britain’ proper.
37 citations
TL;DR: While spending the better part of two academic years out of her home country, the USA, the author became increasingly perplexed by the current emphasis on poststructural theory in the writing of women's history as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: While spending the better part of two academic years out of her home country, the USA, the author became increasingly perplexed by the current emphasis on poststructural theory in the writing of women's history. She says this because such theory may not only isolate this highly successful new subfield from the ongoing Second Women's Movement in the United States and from history teachers trying to integrate material on women into their classes, but most sadly, isolate American historians of women from their counterparts in Eastern European and Third World countries who are only beginning to write about their past.
37 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the way in which former militant suffrage feminists constructed their historical and political identity in a period of political setbacks in the 1920s and 1930s, focusing upon members of the Women's Social and Political Union, the women's Freedom League and other equal rights organisations whose politics were castigated by the new feminists.
Abstract: This article explores the way in which former militant suffrage feminists constructed their historical and political identity in a period of political setbacks in the 1920s and 1930s This article focuses upon members of the Women's Social and Political Union, the Women's Freedom League and other equal rights organisations whose politics were castigated by the ‘new feminists’ It draws upon autobiographical writing to consider the way in which women related suffrage activity to their later lives
35 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored white British women's efforts to appropriate their share of the Empire through the propaganda of female emigration societies, and analyzed the views of the emigration on key issues related to female emigrations: prospects for work and for marriage; the possibilities of a freer lifestyle for women in the colonies; the class issues surrounding servants' emigration, and their assumed need for moral surveillance; the links (both biological and symbolic) between imperialism and motherhood.
Abstract: This article explores white British women's efforts to appropriate their share of the Empire through the propaganda of female emigration societies. Female emigration rejoiced in growing government recognition of their work, but sustained a style of female leadership and activism that deserves evaluation alongside other Victorian and Edwardian women's movements. The article analyses the views of the emigration on key issues related to female emigration: prospects for work and for marriage; the possibilities of a freer lifestyle for women in the colonies; the class issues surrounding servants’ emigration, and their assumed need for moral surveillance; the links (both biological and symbolic) between imperialism and motherhood. Debate surrounded these issues within the female emigration movement as well as outside it. As the female emigrators carved a space for women in the Empire, they confronted contradictions in their own lives and in gendered British society.
TL;DR: This article explored the relationship between biography and the many new developments evident in feminist history and explored the divergence between an approach to biography which assumes it to be concerned with the lives of exceptional individuals and an interest in the history of feminism which has ceased to regard it as being the story of heroic victories on the way to women's emancipation.
Abstract: This article seeks to explore the relationship between biography and the many new developments evident in feminist history. Taking as its particular focus the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century English feminism, it looks at the divergence between an approach to biography which assumes it to be concerned with the lives of exceptional individuals and an interest in the history of feminism which has ceased to regard it as being the story of heroic victories on the way to women's emancipation. The growing interest in the lives, experiences and activities of past feminists who were not the leaders of major national campaigns suggests a new approach in general to the biographies of feminists – exploring how they lived and understood the broader situation of women
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the disruptions caused by industrialization and migration to Ben and Betty Shaw and their extended families and see these households as key institutions for mutually organized survival and betterment and as the focus for diverse activities of women's work.
Abstract: Ben Shaw, mechanic of Preston, Lancashire, began to write his family history in 1826. It describes the disruptions caused by industrialization and migration to Ben and Betty Shaw and their extended families. This article reflects upon the domestic economies Shaw describes and sees these households as key institutions for mutually organised survival and betterment and as the focus for the diverse activities of women's work. Households were linked into wider support networks between kin and neighbours. Reciprocity was rarely calculative. Gendered power relations could also be close affective relations, despite conflict. Women were vital to this bargain between care and resources which, for this family at least, helped negotiate the contradictions in social identities shaped by both gender and class across the public/private divide
TL;DR: In this article, the introduction of medical care for Indian women with reference to the life of Dr Haimavati Sen (c. 1867-1932), "lady doctor" in charge of an exclusively women's hospital in Hughli district of Bengal.
Abstract: In the 1880s reform-minded men and women in Great Britain had joined the missionaries and a number of Indian reformers in demanding that Western medical care be extended to Indian women. The subjects of their concern were high-status Indian women who observed the norms of seclusion. British women, at this time entering the medical profession, supported this initiative because it legitimized their professional goals and promised employment. This paper explores the introduction of medical care for Indian women with reference to the life of Dr Haimavati Sen (c. 1867-1932), ‘lady doctor’ in charge of an exclusively women's hospital in Hughli district of Bengal. The paper explores two issues: the ways in which imperialism, feminism, and racism worked to marginalize Indian women in professional medical roles and the impact of this process upon women as patients and clients.
TL;DR: The Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex (UK) is a rich source of material on and by women as mentioned in this paper, which includes personal diaries and detailed questionnaire replies as well as reports and surveys focusing on aspects of everyday life.
Abstract: The Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex (UK) is a rich source of material on and by women. The Archive holds the papers which resulted from the work carried out by 'Mass-Observation', a pioneering British social research organisation, between 1937 and the early 1950s. These papers include personal diaries and detailed questionnaire replies as well as reports and surveys focusing on aspects of everyday life. The Archive is also the base for a contemporary writing project which invites volunteer mass-observers to record in diaries, and in response to open ended prompts and questions their opinions and experiences for the 1980s and 1990s. In this paper, the archivist describes which parts of the collections might appeal to the Women's Studies scholar.
TL;DR: In the early days of the UK's developing elementary school system domestic subjects teachers had a singular position. as discussed by the authors examined their background, their training and their working conditions and found that the struggle for the promoters of domestic skills was unique.
Abstract: In England's developing elementary school system domestic subjects teachers had a singular position. Part of a wider domestic subjects movement intent on the professionalisation of traditional domestic skills as a means of raising women's social status, these women assiduously promoted the practical domestic work of cooking and cleaning as part of the school curriculum. The period 1870-1914 saw both the elementary class teacher and the domestic subjects teacher moving towards professional status, but from an examination of their background, their training and their working conditions it can be seen that the struggle for the promoters of domestic skills was unique. Paradoxically they reinforced home-centredness and individual private domestic work from a public position as educators that increasingly required collective, standardised action to promote the movement's aims.
TL;DR: In this paper, it is suggested that under the conditions of war, a clearly defined gender order has developed were men are mainly located in the battlefield and women in the home, and the absence of women from political decision-making processes is also explored.
Abstract: This article, written while war is waging in the former Yugoslavia, attempts an explanation of the atrocities that have been committed. It is suggested that a media-war propaganda has developed between each specific grouping or ‘Nation’ with the aim of provoking hostilities. In particular, various nationalist ideologies promote an aggressive and violent masculinity whose barbaric behaviour is justified in the name of each Nation's cause. When human rights are annihilated in this way, women's rights are deleted and women are reduced to being seen as wives and mothers who will breed and rear future defenders of the Nation. The absence of women from political decision-making processes is also explored and three main explanations put forward for this. Overall, it is suggested that under the conditions of war, a clearly defined gender order has developed were men are mainly located in the battlefield and women in the home.
TL;DR: A Theosophist, Margaret Cousins left Ireland in 1913 for Theosophical headquarters in Madras, spurred by her commitment to "the cause of womanhood the world over" as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: From 1907 to 1913 Margaret Cousins was one of the most prominent leaders of the Irish Women's Franchise League, the most militant of the various Irish suffragist groups. A Theosophist, Cousins left Ireland in 1913 for Theosophical headquarters in Madras, spurred by her commitment to “the cause of womanhood the world over”. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Cousins played a central role in certain forms of Indian feminist and cultural nationalist movements. This article attempts to sketch some of the ways in which Cousins's class and imperial situation provoked and limited her feminist ideology.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the significance of the fact that the majority of the welfare supervisors employed during the war were women and pointed out that women welfare supervisors were caught between the proto-welfare state's espousal of the ideology of maternalism, and their aspirations to professionalism.
Abstract: During World War I industrial welfare work was firmly established as an occupation, especially in munitions factories under the Ministry of Munitions. This article explores the significance of the fact that the majority of the welfare supervisors employed during the war were women. Welfare supervisors are one example of the ways in which middle-class women grasped career opportunities offered by the war. Much of their work epitomized contemporary concepts of ‘womanly' duties and was designed to protect women workers as mothers of the race. Women welfare supervisors were caught between the proto-welfare state's espousal of the ideology of maternalism, and their aspirations to professionalism. To claim the status of professionals meant, not only proving their abilities, but also conforming to masculine norms of efficiency, rationality, expertise, organisation and status. By the end of the war, women welfare supervisors who sought to stay in the field had built a strong central organisation which pr...
TL;DR: Annie Besant as mentioned in this paper was a Victorian radical whose outspoken views included advocacy of women's rights and opposition to British imperial policies, and she went to live in India in her mid-forties.
Abstract: Annie Besant was a Victorian radical whose outspoken views included advocacy of women's rights and opposition to British imperial policies. In her mid-forties she went to live in India. Contesting ...
TL;DR: In this article, women's history review: Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 469-481, discusses women's empowerment, imperialism and race: a dialogue between India and Britain.
Abstract: (1994). Feminism, imperialism and race: a dialogue between India and Britain. Women's History Review: Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 469-481.
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TL;DR: On this journey, Daisies learn what animals need and how to care for them as mentioned in this paper, and how that is similar to learning to take care of themselves, and then they team up to share what they learned with other people, such as their families and friends.
Abstract: On this Journey, Daisies learn what animals need and how to care for them—and how that is similar to learning to take care of themselves. They may go on nature walks to observe animals and record their sounds; visit a farm, zoo, or shelter to see how animals are cared for; or create an animal sculpture using twigs, stones, and other found objects. Then they team up to share what they’ve learned with other people, such as their families and friends. They might use puppets to tell stories about caring for animals or draw an animal mural. They can earn three awards that recognize what they learned about taking care of animals and how they shared that information with others.
TL;DR: The authors reviewed recent developments in English-language scholarship on Chinese women in late imperial times, roughly 1500-1800, and highlighted the rapid expansion of this field since 1986, notes the richness of available sources on the period, and suggests a research agenda for the future.
Abstract: This paper reviews recent developments in English-language scholarship on Chinese women in late imperial times, roughly 1500-1800. Topics discussed include: evolution of kinship patterns and marriage institutions; women as commodities; widow chastity and suicide; women in religion; women in historical and philosophical discourse; women in medical and legal discourse; women in literary discourse; and women's cultural opportunities, literacy, and publication. The review highlights the rapid expansion of this field since 1986, notes the richness of available sources on the period, and suggests a research agenda for the future.