Gendered Domains: Rethinking Public and Private in Women's History
Dorothy O. Helly (Ed.)
For over two centuries the notion that societies have been sharply divided into women's (private) and men's (public) spheres has been used both to describe and to prescribe social life. More recently, it has been applied and critiqued by feminist scholars as an explanation for women's oppression. Spanning a rich array of historical contexts—from medieval nunneries to Ottoman harems to Paris communes to electronics firms in today's Silicon Valley—the twenty essays collected here offer a pathbreaking reassessment of the significance of the concept of separate spheres.
After a theoretical introduction by the editors, certain essays reexamine historians' definitions of public ... Read more
Making available the best papers on the public/private theme delivered at the 1987 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Gendered Domains will be welcomed by anyone interested in women's studies, including historians, political scientists, feminist theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers.
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About Dorothy O. Helly (Ed.)
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Journal of American History