Does Gender Matter?

Author(s):  
Paula E. Hyman

This chapter probes the significant contributions to the understanding of the past, which postmodern criticism that has attributed vital importance to women as a historical subject and to gender as a category of critical analysis. It offers a valuable assessment both of inroads already made by women's history and gender analysis into Jewish historical research. It also invokes distinctions drawn by Gerda Lerner, 'the doyenne of women's history', to categorize both achievements and desiderata in the field of feminism. The chapter reviews compensatory history which focuses on women previously ignored, including gender-based adjustment and refinement of interpretation in areas ranging from the Conversos to the shtetl and from the Holocaust to the family. It tackles areas where women's and gender-sensitive history have the power to transform and reshape the fundamental assumptions of European Jewish history.

Author(s):  
Habiba Khaled

In 1986 Joan Scott published “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” an article examining the disconnect between the way in which gender is explored within the scholarship and gender history itself. In her work Scott operationalized gender as a framework. Utilizing Scott's framework, this historiographical analysis explores the question of gender as an analytical tool within the scholarship on 1930s Soviet Russia. Works produced prior to and post Scott's “calling” are categorized based upon a gender-based spectrum. Works are categorized as being: descriptive history exploring women; women’s history; beyond women’s history but short of gender history; and gender history. Situating the scholarship of 1930s Soviet Russia alongside Scott's conception of gender history allows for exploration of the evolution of gender- as an analytical tool utilized in the scholarship. Contrasting Scott's conception with scholars' usage of gender alludes to why gender, as a lens, is often overlooked.


2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54
Author(s):  
Richard Abayomi Aborisade ◽  
Similade Fortune Oni

AbstractIncreasing female involvement in violent crime is a concern in Nigeria; still, it is unclear what informs this sudden surge in a society that supposedly socializes feminine gender to be soft, caring, and compassionate. This article explores the sociological profiles of women involved in armed robbery, drawing case examples from 32 convicts in a Nigerian female penitentiary. It was found that women were made susceptible to deviance by some social factors such as familial variables, neighborhood characteristics, gender discrimination, neglect, and violence. Both primary and secondary social groups were found to be major facilitators in the initiation into crime, development of criminal career, entry into armed robbery, and maintenance of life as a robber. This article concludes that gender-based inequality in all social facets and the unfavorable socio-economic conditions in Nigeria increase the vulnerability of women to be recruited into criminality. A revival of the family institution, gender-neutral parenting, government’s intervention for improvement of socio-economic wellbeing, and gender education are suggested.


1989 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise A. Tilly

Recently, I attended a seminar at which a historian of women presented a dazzling interpretation of the polemical writing of Olympe de Gouges and its (not to mention her) reception during the French Revolution. A crusty old historian of the Revolution rose during the question period and inquired, in his own eastern twang, “Now that I know that women were participants in the Revolution, what difference does it make!” This encounter suggested to me what I will argue are two increasingly urgent tasks for women’s history: producing analytical problem-solving studies as well as descriptive and interpretive ones, and connecting their findings to general questions already on the historical agenda. This is not a call for integrating women’s history into other history, since that process may mean simply adding material on women and gender without analyzing its implications, but for writing analytical women’s history and connecting its problems to those of other histories. Only through such an endeavor is women’s history likely to change the agenda of history as a whole.


Author(s):  
Naila Farah

Today's women's issues are still very important to pay attention to because women's rights have not been fully fulfilled. The marginalization of women's rights often stems from local religious and cultural beliefs. This is where the importance of the thinking of figures like Asghar Ali Engineer is reviewed in the present. This paper discusses the thoughts of Asghar Ali Engineer about liberation theology in the matter of women's rights in Islam. Asghar Ali Engineer in many of his works has offered various kinds of deconstruction of discourses. In the matter of women's rights in Islam, he presents his opinion on inheritance, wealth, testimony, the position of women in the family, polygamy and divorce which are considered as examples of inequality. With its hermeneutic interpretation, Asghar Engineering rejects the existence of a patriarchal concept that is inherent in the classical interpretation of the Quran, which is considered discriminatory against women. Then he applies the verses of the Quran into two, namely normative and contextual, with the hope that the verses of the Quran can be reinterpreted, so that it truly becomes a universal verses of “das solen” on one side and contextual verses of “das sein” on the other. Thus, the equality of men and women can be realized and gender-based justice can be manifested.


1998 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Charlotte Methuen

The broader theme of gender and Christian religion presupposes three definitions: of Christianity, of religion, and of gender. Probably none of these is as simple as it might first appear, but that of gender is perhaps the most critical for our theme. Although there are still some who would use the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ interchangeably, there is a growing tendency to recognize an important distinction between gender – that is, femininity and masculinity, regarded as largely socially constructed – and sex, the biological distinction between male and female human beings. Gender is best considered as born out of interactions between men and women. This means that the gender roles which make up what we experience as masculinity and femininity cannot be defined by looking only at men or at women, although ideas about both can be gained from looking at one group or the other. That is why gender history is different from women’s history, and that is why both women’s history and gender history are essential enterprises. We need women’s history because we need to know where women were as well as where they were not.


2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 574-584
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Jameson

The essays in this forum address the accomplishments and shortcomings of a quarter-century of western women's and gender history, suggesting future directions for the field. The authors differ in their assessments of efforts to achieve multicultural histories and to address relationships of power within western women's history, as well as about the impact of western women's history on western historical scholarship. This essay suggests that the differences in analysis, emphasis, and conclusions in the three essays that follow are only partly due to three authors' addressing different scholarly and popular discourses. Entrenched academic power relationships, conservative public politics, and the difficulty of imagining new narratives have all inhibited historians' efforts to interrogate power and disrupt relationships of domination. It is time to address these difficult and urgent tasks.


1989 ◽  
Vol 22 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 279-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel V. Hull

The purpose of this essay is not to provide a review of the extensive literature on women's history, gender history, or feminist scholarship, but to reflect on the implications that these three vantage points have for the practice of writing German history. The framework for these reflections is the charge of the conference at which an earlier version of this paper was presented, namely, to consider the interdisciplinary, theoretical, and methodological challenges to historiography raised by “postmodernism.” These challenges are roughly similar for all national historiographies, though Germany's historians, it could be argued, have distinguished themselves by their especially intense focus on state institutions, national events, aggregated socioeconomic structures, large organizations, and the theories and methods appropriate to these concerns. Such foci stand in particular danger of being dissolved by alternate historiographic interests, like feminist, women's, and gender history. When the center no longer holds, that is the “postmodern” condition; their part in dissolving the center is what links feminist, women's, and gender history to “postmodernism.” Rather than rehearsing specific examples of how, say, women's history has challenged the received picture of German history, and thereby implicitly to suggest methods of damage control, this essay instead attempts to discuss some of the broader theoretical and methodological issues that feminist scholarship poses to historians and to do so within the context of the “postmodern.” References to the specific German context are mostly in the footnotes.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Zawil Kiram

This study aims to reveal gender-based discrimination, forms of gender education, and the importance of gender education in Acehnese families. This study was conducted by using the method of descriptive qualitative with data collection techniques through observation and interview. The result showed that in Acehnese families, the forms of gender-based discrimination that often faced by women are inequality in housework distribution and childcare. In Aceh, most men still play fewer roles in taking care of children because domestic jobs are seen to be women’s’ responsibilities. Another form of gender-based discrimination in Aceh is domestic violence against women. The result also demonstrated that in Acehnese families there is no gender education because many people do not understand the term of gender equality and gender issues are considered as western culture and still taboo to discuss. Gender education in the family is important because children acquire gender stereotypes at an early age, and they learn about gender equality from their family for the first time. Teaching gender equality to children is never too early, and they never too young to learn about it, they would come out and bring the gender equality in the family and society in general as they will be the pioneer or gender equality when they reach adulthood.


Author(s):  
Roque Sampedro

Resumen  Este artículo pretende explorar las conexiones y particularidades de la historia de las mujeres y la historia de género a través de un ejemplo medieval: la llamada querella de las mujeres en la Castilla del siglo XV. Primero, se describirán brevemente los rasgos fundamentales de este debate sobre la condición femenina. A continuación, se analizará brevemente el surgimiento de la historia de las mujeres y la interpretación que se hace de la querella de las mujeres dentro de esta corriente historiográfica. En tercer lugar, se estudiarán la aplicación de postulados del feminismo de la diferencia a la querella en el ámbito castellano. Finalmente, se explicará la emergencia de la historia de género y se expondrán algunas de las posibles aproximaciones desde esta perspectiva al análisis de la querella de las mujeres.  Palabras clave  Historia de las mujeres, historia de género, querella de las mujeres, feminismo de la diferencia Abstract  This article aims to explore the connections and particularities of women's history and gender history through a medieval example: the so-called “querelle des femmes” in fifteenth century Castile. First, the fundamental traits of this debate about the feminine condition will be described. Next, I will analyze the emergence of women's history and the interpretation of the “querelle des femmes” within this historiographical tendency. In the third place, the use of the postulates of difference feminism in relation to the debate in a Castilian context will be studied. Finally, the emergence of gender history will be explained, and some of the posible approaches to the analysis of the “querelle des femmes” from this perspective will be layed out.  Key Words women's history, gender history, querelle des femmes, difference feminism


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