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A History of Women in the West #4
Histoire des femmes en Occident IV. Le XIXe siècle
With its Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, the French Revolution opened a whole new stage in the history of women, despite their conspicuous absence from the playbill. The coming century would see women put in their place as never before, their subordination to men codified in all manner of new laws and rules; and yet the period would also witness the birth of feminism, the unprecedented emergence of women as a collective force in the political arena.
763 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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February 1, 2019
You can find the whole series of five volumes here:
A History of Women in the West
This is a great and so well documented series of five exciting books, covering the history of women from antiquity to the 20th century.
These books are written by historians and scholars. Each era of history is studied and divided into chapters dealing with the history of women or the place made to women by men in history. Each chapter has a particular theme. Let's open for example Volume 4 on the 19th century. There is a chapter about politics, one about art, one about women in private and in public, etc.
Each chapter consists of several articles written by different and mostly female authors. And the name of the male author Georges Duby is on the cover. Indeed, the introduction is written jointly by two women, 18 articles are written by French, Italian, British, American or Russian women, and only two by men … fair?
That said, what do we learn in this history of women? Well, I would say ... what I already knew, namely: women are not very present in history, it's a fact! Already, in 1799, Jane Austen made a slight allusion, in her subtle and light humour, in Northanger Abbey, published later in 1817:
“ ‘… history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?’
‘Yes, I am fond of history.’
‘I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all—it is very tiresome ...’ ”
Until the 19th century, women are present in history, in very great part through the vision that men have: their stories, their myths, their sculptures, their paintings, their male representation of women, in short. Then women will go out of their homes, as early as 1789, in France, when they will go and ask for bread from the King at Versailles. But very quickly and as each time during the next 150 years, men will push them back to the only place they consider to be theirs: the family home.
"Yet the Revolution of 1789 gave women the idea that they were not children. It recognized to them a civil personality that denied them the old regime, and they became human beings in their own right, able to enjoy their rights and exercise them. "
But the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights stemming from the French Revolution, does not make women women citizens in their own right. As Mary Wollstonecraft writes in her Vindication of the Rights of Women: "... the Rights of Woman must be respected, … I loudly demands JUSTICE for one half of the human race. "
Of course, most men of the early 19th century were not, far from it! ready to recognize women the same value as men. This gave rise to quotes of the greatest stupidity, the most comic of all, the most flagrant ridiculous in the world, such as that of the English Burke who thundered against "the dirty equity" which claims "this system that gives women the right to be as licentious as we are!"
Unfortunately, it is these kind of deputies who have governed and made the laws of our countries since ever … Well!
There are five volumes in this series. I recommend them all if you want to understand women, understand you. History is not just about historians and books, history is what has shaped our grandmothers, our mothers, us.
A History of Women in the West
This is a great and so well documented series of five exciting books, covering the history of women from antiquity to the 20th century.
These books are written by historians and scholars. Each era of history is studied and divided into chapters dealing with the history of women or the place made to women by men in history. Each chapter has a particular theme. Let's open for example Volume 4 on the 19th century. There is a chapter about politics, one about art, one about women in private and in public, etc.
Each chapter consists of several articles written by different and mostly female authors. And the name of the male author Georges Duby is on the cover. Indeed, the introduction is written jointly by two women, 18 articles are written by French, Italian, British, American or Russian women, and only two by men … fair?
That said, what do we learn in this history of women? Well, I would say ... what I already knew, namely: women are not very present in history, it's a fact! Already, in 1799, Jane Austen made a slight allusion, in her subtle and light humour, in Northanger Abbey, published later in 1817:
“ ‘… history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in. Can you?’
‘Yes, I am fond of history.’
‘I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all—it is very tiresome ...’ ”
Until the 19th century, women are present in history, in very great part through the vision that men have: their stories, their myths, their sculptures, their paintings, their male representation of women, in short. Then women will go out of their homes, as early as 1789, in France, when they will go and ask for bread from the King at Versailles. But very quickly and as each time during the next 150 years, men will push them back to the only place they consider to be theirs: the family home.
"Yet the Revolution of 1789 gave women the idea that they were not children. It recognized to them a civil personality that denied them the old regime, and they became human beings in their own right, able to enjoy their rights and exercise them. "
But the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights stemming from the French Revolution, does not make women women citizens in their own right. As Mary Wollstonecraft writes in her Vindication of the Rights of Women: "... the Rights of Woman must be respected, … I loudly demands JUSTICE for one half of the human race. "
Of course, most men of the early 19th century were not, far from it! ready to recognize women the same value as men. This gave rise to quotes of the greatest stupidity, the most comic of all, the most flagrant ridiculous in the world, such as that of the English Burke who thundered against "the dirty equity" which claims "this system that gives women the right to be as licentious as we are!"
Unfortunately, it is these kind of deputies who have governed and made the laws of our countries since ever … Well!
There are five volumes in this series. I recommend them all if you want to understand women, understand you. History is not just about historians and books, history is what has shaped our grandmothers, our mothers, us.
January 29, 2023
Las mujeres del XIX comienzan a tomar independencia a través de la palabra: la literatura, las asociaciones y las redes sociales con otras mujeres; sin embargo, son estos mismos espacios en los que se siguen diseñando los estereotipos sobre ellas. Este volumen es más diverso y retoma la historia de mujeres en América Latina y de mujeres negras.
July 10, 2020
Interesante, en la linea de los volúmenes anteriores.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews