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Résumé :
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Over the past two decades women's history has won for itself a place in academic institutions, in the media, and in public awareness. The question to be addressed is no longer whether there is such a thing as women's history, but rather how historians should go about writing this history. In this volume, a team of distinguished contributors set out to `measure the difficulties, extrinsic and above all intrinsic' in writing a history of women. They consider a variety of issues, such as that of sources - the caution needed with respect to written sources and their interpretation, and the importance of oral sources to our understanding of women's culture. They stress the need not simply to find out what has not been reported, but to ask why so much relating to women has been `forgotten'. A further important and controversial issue is the question of whether any history of women must begin with their bodies, and with the traditional roles attributed to women. The contributors express a desire to avoid portraying women as victims, but is the answer to concentrate on exceptional women who have acted alongside men in history, or to take a fresh look at the lives of the mass of women? The book concludes that we must look at the relationship between the sexes, the differences between them and see this as a force in history.
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