Gender History

'A matter of age: old age, women, and the importance of age as an analytical category'

by Lynn Botelho

Do Not Cite Without Permission.  Draft Only.  Paper read at theSixteenth Century Society Conference, 28 October 2011, Fort Worth, Texas.

Lynn Botelho's paper, 'A Matter of Age', explores the extent of our knowledge about older women in early modern... more Lynn Botelho's paper, 'A Matter of Age', explores the extent of our knowledge about older women in early modern Europe.  It looks at the place, composition, and nature of women past the age of menopause.  It surveys western Europe over two centuries.  Furthermore, it does not confine its investigative sweep to only post-menopausal individuals, but it also seeks to incorporate 'older' women, those who are ageing but not yet truly old.  Central to this study is the awareness that a great deal of women's history is written about the 'Every Woman', one that is neither too young, nor too old, and one that is still firmly identified with her reproductive years.  What emerges from this historiographical reading is the central importance of 'age' as a component in understanding the lived experience and, consequently,  ‘age’ should be incorporated alongside the trinity of academic analysis:  race, class, and gender.

Gender and uneven working-class formation in the Irish linen industry

by Jane Gray

Gray, Jane. 1996. “Gender and Uneven Working Class Formation in the Irish Linen Industry.” Pp. 37-56 in L.L. Frader and S.O. Rose, eds. Gender and Class in Modern Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

This analysis of the cultural changes associated with class formation centers on the gendered meanings attached to the... more This analysis of the cultural changes associated with class formation centers on the gendered meanings attached to the consumption of beer and tea in the poems of "rhyming weavers" from the northeast of Ireland. These works, published by subscription during the first half of the nineteenth century, give unique clues to how ordinary people understood and represented the changes surrounding the transition to centralized production.

‘Problems in Paradise: Race, Gender and Historical ‘Truth’ in Paradise Road’

by Christina Twomey

Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, vol. 10, no. 1, January 2006, pp. 30-52.

‘Double Displacement: Western Women Return from Japanese Internment in World War II’

by Christina Twomey

Gender & History, vol. 21, no. 3, November 2009, pp. 670-84.

This article examines the homecoming of Western women from Japanese internment camps at the end of the Second World... more This article examines the homecoming of Western women from Japanese internment camps at the end of the Second World War. It focuses on British women returning to the United Kingdom, but makes reference to women from other Allied nations such as the United States, Australia and the Netherlands. The paper argues that interned women posed contradictions to gendered understandings of wartime experience and that homecoming further exacerbated this ambiguity. Return from imprisonment exposed the dual meaning of home as the natural realm for women and a national space. Women internees had been away from both and were subjected to control by non-white men; responses to their liberation reflected these tensions. Homecoming prompted questions about released women's femininity and sexual integrity, but they faced even more difficulty having their war experiences recognised as part of a national story about war.

Australian Nurse POWs: Gender, war and captivity

by Christina Twomey

Australian Historical Studies, vol. 36, no. 124, October 2004, pp. 255-74.

Courting men: mothers, magistrates and welfare in the Australian colonies

by Christina Twomey

Women’s History Review, vol. 8, no. 2, 1999, pp. 231-46.

‘„Řekla jsem si, že se prostě musím nějak přizpůsobit:” Mladé české ženy v ghettu Terezín,’ [“I Said to Myself I Simply Have to Adapt One Way Or Another:” Young Czech Women in Terezín Ghetto]

by Anna Hajkova

Soudobé Dějiny 4, 18 (2011): 603-628

Women’s memories tell different stories about Terezín ghetto than men: but which, and what are the mechanisms behind... more Women’s memories tell different stories about Terezín ghetto than men: but which, and what are the mechanisms behind it?
In the center of my research stands the adaptation and coping mechanisms of women in Terezín: How did their everyday life look like? Which roles did they take in? I analyze the gender specific aspects of Czech Jewish women’s lives in Terezín; moreover, I focus on how does it influence their narratives as we know them today. The core of my researched is based on a sample of thirty biographic interviews from the 1990s, combined with various contemporaneous sources. Having experienced the deportation chiefly in their twenties, they represent middle-class, assimilated, emancipated, mostly Czech speaking women.
The young Czech women inmates usually abandoned their pre-deportation individual course of life as a modern, independent woman and shifted towards a strongly gendered, supportive role, focusing on the family and collective. I examine the relationship between the shift in the social role of women, formation of networks and groups and their survival chances. Thus analyzing the position of women in particular and gender in general helps us recognize the power relationships within the enforced community.

Making men: the unlikely and ambiguous tale of Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857)

by Andy Harvey

Paper presented at Masculiniities/Femininities conference, Prague, 2012

Thomas Hughes’ idealised vision of life at Rugby public school is one of the best-known novels in the English... more Thomas Hughes’ idealised vision of life at Rugby public school is one of the best-known novels in the English language. It was regarded from the outset as a founding text of ‘muscular Christianity’. Contrary to the intentions of its author, it helped to inaugurate the cult of ‘manly’ athleticism that swept through the English public schools in the second half of the nineteenth-century. I argue that the novel reveals tensions around gender and sexuality that were in play among public schoolboys during the second half of the nineteenth-century. These tensions exploded into full public view in the trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895 and were instrumental in helping to establish a structure of homophobia within homosocial settings that has lasted through to the present day.

Women before the qāḍī under the Abbasids

by Mathieu Tillier

Published in: Islamic Law and Society, 16 (2009), p. 280-301.

In this article, I examine the appearance of Muslim women before the judge during the Abbasid period... more In this article, I examine the appearance of Muslim women before the judge during the Abbasid period (132-334/750-945), both in theory and practice. The cases involving women found in law books suggest that they came freely to the court, especially for familial or marital purposes, and that the judges employed some women as court auxiliaries. However, a comparison of judicial manuals and the biographical literature shows that a woman's appearance before the judge could create a social disturbance and that not all women were allowed to appear in court. I argue that the social distinction between those who could leave their houses—and thus come before the judge—and those who could not correlated with the social hierarchy.

She's Only A Bird in a Gilded Cage: Freedwoman at Trimalchio's Dinner Party

by Liz Gloyn

Published in Classical Quarterly (2012) 62.1: 260-280.

‘The Doctor’s Wife, (by the Blessing of God) helps Barrenness’: Gender and Infertility Treatments in Early Modern England.

by Jennifer Evans

Accepted for inclusion in the provisionally entitled, Gender, Health and Medicine in Historical Perspective edited by Sarah Toulalan.

The tensions and relationships between male medical knowledge and female medical understanding and practice have... more
The tensions and relationships between male medical knowledge and female medical understanding and practice have been examined by many scholars. In particular the development of man-midwifery and the contest between male physicians and female midwives has been extensively scrutinised.  Similarly research has been conducted on domestic medicine and the role of women in treating illness within the home.  This chapter will contribute to the debate surrounding the gendered nature of obstetric and gynaecological medicine in the early modern period. It will address issues relating to the nature and extent of women’s medical practice in this area. This research will examine the similarities and disparities between barrenness remedies offered in printed, male authored, medical texts and those recorded in the manuscript receipt collections kept by women. Moreover, it will assess a selection of advertisements to establish the extent to which male physicians and female practitioners were willing to publically offer treatments for fertility problems. It will highlight the many ways that, alongside men and independently, women were actively involved in the treatment of generative disorders both inside the home and in the broader medical market place of early modern England.

It is caused of the womans part or of the mans part": the role of gender in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunction in early modern England

by Jennifer Evans

Women’s History Review, 20/3 (July 2011), 439–457.

Philip Barrough wrote in 1590 that barrenness ‘is caused of the woman’s part or of the mans part’. By the eighteenth... more Philip Barrough wrote in 1590 that barrenness ‘is caused of the woman’s part or of the mans part’. By the eighteenth century, however, barrenness was perceived as a female disorder distinguished from male impotence. Few historians have addressed the uncertainty surrounding early modern definitions of infertility, choosing instead to adopt set terms that fit comfortably with modern ideas. This article highlights the difficulties surrounding the gender distinction of the terms barrenness and impotence during this period. Moreover, the discussion examines the role of gender in diagnosing these disorders and argues that ideas of gender were more central to diagnosis of poor sexual health than to effectual treatment. Although it initially appears that barrenness and impotence were treated with separate remedies, many treatments were described as effectual for both sexes. Additionally, the ingredients used in such recipes were often sexual stimulants that functioned to stimulate the reproductive organs and genitalia of both sexes.

La sposa in convento (Padova e Venezia 1455-1458), in: S. Seidel Menchi, D. Quaglioni (ed.), Matrimoni in dubbio. Unioni controverse e nozze clandestine in Italia dal XIV al XVIII secolo, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001, 123-148.

by Cecilia Cristellon

"Io voleva tuor quello che mio padre me daria". Autorità parentale e scelte matrimoniali dei figli: Venezia XV e XVI secolo, in: D. Lombardi, I. Fazio (ed.), Generazioni: legami di parentela tra passato e presente, Roma: Viella, 2006, 205-221.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Public Display of Affection: The Making of Marriage in the Venetian Courts before the Council of Trent (1420- 1545). In: The Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy, Hg. Matthews- Grieco, S. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 173-197.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Missionaria o in pericolo di apostasia? Donne cattoliche e matrimoni misti nei dibattiti del Sant’Ufficio, in: Famiglia e religione nella prima eta` moderna. Saggi in onore di Silvana Seidel Menchi, Hg. Ciappelli, G., Luzzi, S., Rospocher, M. (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2011), 175-186.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Une question de catégorie ? Politiques du mariage mixte entre Allemandes et Français.: France 1935-1940

by Aurélie Audeval

Does the Priest Have to Be There? Contested Marriages Before Roman Tribunals. Italy, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 3, 2009, 10-30.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more... more The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more witnesses be present at the marriage (1563), but neglected to specify who the parish priest was. The decrees provoked confusion among both laymen and churchmen. Traces thereof can be found in the hitherto essentially unexplored documentation of The Congregation of the Council. This institution was founded in 1564 specifically to resolve the questions that arose all over the catholic world by the application of the decrees promulgated at Trent. The related records are held in the Vatican Secret Archive. Through an examination of this documentation, complemented by files of the Holy Office the author analyzes how the new rules were understood, experienced, used, circumvented, and manipulated both by laymen and churchmen in order to end an unwanted marriage, to facilitate a union that was socially transgressive, opposed by family, or even heterodox, and to respond to pastoral concerns.

Marriage and Consent in Pretridentine Venice: Between Lay Conception and Ecclesiastical Conception, 1420-1545. In: The Sixteenth Century Journal, 39, 2008, 389-418.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The main sources of this article are 750 matrimonial trials discussed before the ecclesiastical court in Venice... more The main sources of this article are 750 matrimonial trials discussed before the ecclesiastical court in Venice (1420-1545). This article analyzes the differing conceptions of marriage held by the laity and by the ecclesiastical hierarchy as these ideas were expressed in a dialectical relationship in court. Central to this analysis is the concept of consent, since consent, with widely differing interpretations, formed the foundation and the essence of both canonical and lay customary marriage. In the pre-Tridentine ecclesiastical court, custom played a leading role in deciding matters related to the marriage bond. These sources allow access to aspects of marriage that are usually not recorded and make it possible to reevaluate social phenomena which have been defined from a post-Tridentine perspective as transgressive. Practices such as bigamy, concubinage, and stuprum appear not as deviant, but as part of socially accepted marital behavior that is much broader and more heterogeneous than historians have appreciated.

L'ufficio del giudice: mediazione, inquisizione, confessione nei processi matrimoniali veneziani, 1420-1532. In: Rivista Storica Italiana, 3, 2003, 851-898.

by Cecilia Cristellon