1993/06/01 by Amanda Vickery · 3 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Arts and Humanities · #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Scottish History and National Identity #Literature: history, themes, analysis #Separate spheres #Scholarship #Narrative #Power (physics) #Identity (music) #Capitalism #Chronology #History #Gender studies #Order (exchange) #Social history (medicine) #Sociology #Genealogy #Literature #Political science #Aesthetics #Art #Law #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0018246x9300001x
openalex publication_date 1993/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
ABSTRACT Two very powerful stories structure the history of the changing roles of English women. The tale of the nineteenth-century separation of the spheres of public power and private domesticity relates principally to the experience of middle-class women. The other story, emerging from early modern scholarship, recounts the social and economic marginalization of propertied women and the degradation of working women as a consequence of capitalism. Both narratives echo each other in important ways, although strangely the capacity of women's history to repeat itself is rarely openly discussed. This paper critically reviews the two historiographies in order to open debate on the basic categories and chronologies we employ in discussing the experience, power and identity of women in past time.