Women and Gender in the Western Past

This two-volume survey of the history of women in western civilization spans prehistory to the present. While devoting attention to women of all classes, religions, and ethnicities, the text examines political, economic, intellectual, and social history through the lens of gender. The narrative emphasizes women's agency over oppression and makes cutting-edge scholarship in women's history accessible to a wide audience.

Five major themes run throughout the narrative: the relationship between key historical events and ideas and women's lives, the history of the family and sexuality, the social construction of gender, cultural assumptions about women (versus their actual lives), and self perception and women's place in western societies. A rich collection of primary sources and biographies reinforces these themes.

• Sources from the Past introduce students to primary sources on women's history, from the poetry of Sappho and Sarah Fyge Egerton, to proposals on women's rights during the French Revolution and the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, to modern documents, including an oral history of the Holocaust and an excerpt from the Kinsey Report.
• The Women's Lives feature tells the stories of interesting women, and engages students through the use of biography. Women profiled include the early Christian martyr Saint Perpetua, 19th century Russian activist Sofia Perovskaia, Harlem Renaissance writer Jessie Redman Fauset, and the Nobel-prize winning chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin.
• Maps and photos enhance the learning experience by introducing students to geography and visual sources.
• Each chapter includes an extensive Notes section documenting the wealth of recent scholarship on women and gender. A short list of Suggested Readings provides a useful starting point for student exploration.