Gender and World History

Simon Purdue's picture

Hi all,

As a PhD student in a World History program and a historian of gender, it is becoming increasingly clear that merging the two fields has presented some major difficulties in the past- whether through animosity between the respective academies or through conflicts in method and methodology. The examples of 'women's world history' or gendered world histories that I have encountered so far have all seemed somewhat thrown together, either being guilty of the 'add and stir' method of women's history or barely qualifying as world history. The best attempt that I have seen is probably Women, Chocolate and Empire by Emma Robertson, but even that borders on a comparative gender history rather than a strict world history within the definition that I have come to accept. This seems to reflect a bigger issue- which is that world history as a discipline is difficult to socialize or personalize. It seems to be by its very nature a top-down, birds-eye view on history, and although I know many recent publications have attempted to shake this trend, it still seems to be difficult to produce a truly social world history that explores the interconnections and trends of a global system but also gives names and voices to the people who these trends affect on a daily basis. Until this issue is addressed it seems women are destined to be under-represented in world historiography. Add on to this the issue of the archival silence of women in many parts of the globe and it seems that writing a truly comprehensive world history from a gender perspective presents a daunting and possibly insurmountable task.

As an early-career academic seeking to integrate gender history and world history on this social scale, I was wondering if anyone in the world history community has ideas on how we can more adequately give voice to women in world history, and more broadly on how we can further socialize world history in a way that explores the global patterns that define the field but also represents the normal, 'unexceptional' people that our field often negelcts. 

Even if your definition of world history is restricted to the idea of a top-down approach, I don’t see this as being necessarily unconducive to doing gender history. Gender history at its core is about power, much like most world history, and history in general. Therefore, looking at governmental policies, institutional organizations, laws (de jure and de facto), commodities, travel accounts, or other sources that reflect the top of the hierarchy are still rich with historical information for gender historians, the issue may be is that world historians are obscuring the discussion of gender in favor of other lenses. These kinds of sources, while they may not be produced by women, no doubt contain highly gendered language or are indoctrinated with gender norms and prescriptions, and are a way to work around sources not produced by women. These sources, like any, are inherently biased and therefore need careful examination and contextualization and must not speak for those at the bottom of the "hierarchy," but they are plentiful and accessible to historians seeking to explore the gendered construction of power.

However, I think a blending of social and world history is extremely doable. To me, world history can be situated in a single region as long as the study is not arbitrarily restricted by national boundaries and can be made a social history. The important thing to make a study a world history is to situate your argument in the context of global currents; to show how whatever was happening where your focus is was not happening in a vacuum, but rather reflective and contributing to a larger circulation of events, ideas, or social practices. I think this social world history would again go back to how one reads sources- I would think sources that are typically used for social histories could be read with a world history lens to understand how people en masse saw themselves in the global context they were a part of. This even goes for sources that are typically used for social histories within a national framework since identity is constructed in relation to the “other,” plenty of sources about national/racial/gender identities could be done in a world history framework (see Drawing the Global Colour Line by Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds). While looking at a single region may not seem like a world history because it does not have a broad geographic scope being tracked, these social world histories contribute to the world history historiography by either contesting or confirming larger, general narratives provided by broad world histories.

Of course the issue of silence in the archives is one that needs to be acknowledged. Having a minimal amount of sources regarding underrepresented people runs the risk of marginalizing them for a second time- the first being their lived experience and the second time in the historical record. However, this is not a unique problem to world historians and historians of all different interests have found creative ways to circumvent this roadblock or “read between the lines” in sources. For example, archaeological evidence has been an alternative route for historians explore the beliefs and culture of enslaved persons in America who did not leave a rich written record behind- I am thinking specifically of the work done at the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts. While not always practical, when available, archaeological evidence and material culture in general removes the need for a written account. This gives a voice and agency to people who were not able to provide or preserve a written presence in the historical record. As a public history student, I have seen plentiful examples of material culture and archaeological evidence used to construct narratives for exhibits in the absence of the written record. I believe historical articles or monographs that seek to do the same would enrich the world history historiography.

I think the current literature and varying methods in world history show the expansive definition this field has come to take on in order to give more agency to historical actors. Archival silences are nothing new to historians, but may be even more fit to be explained by world historians who can contextualize these silences with an understanding of universally-shared beliefs that have marginalized specific voices. It’s all just a matter of how you read the sources you have. I don’t necessarily see an incompatibility between social or gender history and world history, I just think until recently world historians have focused on the big picture with broad generalizations. Therefore, just because the historiography of world history may not be full of examples of a social/gendered world history, that does not mean it is not doable.

I agree with what Kara has said already, and would like to expand on a few of her points. First, though, I think that perhaps because gender is constructed contextually, specific to the societies and cultures in which norms develop, it has been difficult for some to see how gender history could be done as world history. However, as Kara has pointed out, prioritizing gender as a lens, as opposed to needing its construction to be the same across the globe, is a way forward.

Going to Kara’s example of Lake and Reynolds’ Drawing the Global Colour Line, I also want to point out that the book places race in a world historical framework, another area that seems difficult to include in world history, probably for similar reasons as gender. In that text, Lake and Reynolds utilize connections to show how the global circulation of ideas – specifically about “whiteness” – led to the development of the concept of “white men’s countries.” Although they argue that whiteness was constructed in national contexts, they also demonstrate that particular strategies for exclusion in one country inspired the use of similar strategies in another; for example (referring to chapter five of the book), South Africa’s adoption of a US tool for limiting immigration, the literacy test. It seems (to me anyway) unlikely that similar borrowings would be nonexistent in gender history. I would also consider Michael Goebel’s Anti-Imperial Metropolis as an example of a similar method for bringing global networks to light, though he did so based on connections made in one place.

Perhaps intersectionality could also be useful for tackling gender in a global context; e.g. white people define their gender differently in a global context compared to non-white people. I am thinking specifically of empires and colonies here, as colonized men were often feminized in colonial rhetoric, and white women’s gender identities were structured very differently than the identities of non-white women.

Referring to Kara’s examples about material culture as a way of getting around source problems, I thought of another possibility: sartorial history. Clothing and fashion are gendered, and reflect societal norms and expectations. And, not to say that this would only be useful for thinking about women’s history – since clothing has been just as important for people of other gender identities – I have seen women’s clothing (more so than any other, aside from military uniforms) used in several museum exhibits, including the Smithsonian, and the MFA in Boston. This could also be looked at as a commodity, which may lend itself to world history, since commodities traverse the globe.

Allison hits the nail on the head when she says that doing gender in world history becomes especially complicated because gender is constructed contextually, which truly does make it difficult to see how historians can do a world history of gender. Methodologies around doing gender in world history obviously will vary depending on the time period, it seems that one of the most powerful ways of doing gender in modern world history is to incorporate study of empire. Ultimately, the study of empire is about power relations around the world, frequently with colonized peoples being reduced to subjects without any say in states that may otherwise be liberal.

In doing this sort of work, the history becomes intersectional with deep ties between race and gender. It becomes important to look at colonial administrators and the “wives” they took, European women’s place in society upon arrival in colonies, racialized caricatures of indigenous men, and more. In doing this sort of history, gender relations appear much more stark than if racial lenses were withdrawn. It may also be useful to look at the place of colonized peoples in European society. For example, Margaret Darrow does a great job of looking at the relationship between French men and colonial soldiers during World War I in her book, French Women and the First World War. Although we can look at this as a gender history of France, we cannot remove the imperial or global context from view.

Another way to do gender in world history would be through comparison. Although comparative history is not fundamentally world history, it can be illuminating to look at different regions of the world to examine how gender relations differ from other places. This becomes particularly interesting in moments of rising globalization, where gender relations shift depending on which societies are in contact with one another. This type of research may be very well presented as a work of anthrohistory, rather than traditional documentary history, in order to tap into more deeply rooted (and thus mundane for those leaving records) cultural traditions and behaviors.

Kara makes a convincing argument in response to Simon’s first comments about the “add and stir” method of women in history. While sources that recount the presence and achievements of men are aplenty, finding ways to uncover the contributions of women to history requires a different reading/approach to primary sources. Material culture and records of observed cultural practices (lady’s handbooks written by women, cookbooks etc.) have the potential to produce the same caliber of work. Though it might be an unorthodox way of observing colonial life, the information in the Frugal Housewife, published in 1772 by Susannah Carter, has the potential to illustrate a great deal about the lives of English colonial women and their involvement in colonization. In the same ways that historians have written convincing histories about other “unexceptional” populations, women’s history might require an alternative mode of research. In this regard, it is understandable that information pertaining to women and people of non-white races has been deemed “too difficult” to find, because it challenges the traditional methods of academic research.

Allison also makes an important distinction about gender and its relationship to power. In my opinion, the larger challenge to be faced at the intersection of world history and gender is the question of agency. Rather than crediting men for shaping women’s lives (in terms of marriage and financial support), historians should challenge themselves to recount the lives of women without claiming it was all product of male intervention. Even when there is a lack of sources that come from women there are ways to still hear their voices. As evidenced Tonio Andrade’s “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory”, microhistory is an effective way to highlight a crucial moment in a person’s history even when they have no surviving/written records of their own. Following Andrade’s method, the life of an individual or group can a jumping off point which a historian might connect one person to a larger world event. The method that Andrade uses to describes the protagonist and his involvement of the siege of Taiwan brings the voice and life of a farmer to the forefront, when writing from the Dutch perspective might have been easier given the sources available. Though the story focuses on male perspective, this same type of microhistory approach would lend itself well to writing the history of “unexceptional” people.

Kara makes a convincing argument in response to Simon’s first comments about the “add and stir” method of women in history. While sources that recount the presence and achievements of men are aplenty, finding ways to uncover the contributions of women to history requires a different reading/approach to primary sources. Material culture and records of observed cultural practices (lady’s handbooks written by women, cookbooks etc.) have the potential to produce the same caliber of work. Though it might be an unorthodox way of observing colonial life, the information in the Frugal Housewife, published in 1772 by Susannah Carter, has the potential to illustrate a great deal about the lives of English colonial women and their involvement in colonization. In the same ways that historians have written convincing histories about other “unexceptional” populations, women’s history might require an alternative mode of research. In this regard, it is understandable that information pertaining to women and people of non-white races has been deemed “too difficult” to find, because it challenges the traditional methods of academic research.

Allison also makes an important distinction about gender and its relationship to power. In my opinion, the larger challenge to be faced at the intersection of world history and gender is the question of agency. Rather than crediting men for shaping women’s lives (in terms of marriage and financial support), historians should challenge themselves to recount the lives of women without claiming it was all product of male intervention. Even when there is a lack of sources that come from women there are ways to still hear their voices. As evidenced Tonio Andrade’s “A Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory”, microhistory is an effective way to highlight a crucial moment in a person’s history even when they have no surviving/written records of their own. Following Andrade’s method, the life of an individual or group can a jumping off point which a historian might connect one person to a larger world event. The method that Andrade uses to describes the protagonist and his involvement of the siege of Taiwan brings the voice and life of a farmer to the forefront, when writing from the Dutch perspective might have been easier given the sources available. Though the story focuses on male perspective, this same type of microhistory approach would lend itself well to writing the history of “unexceptional” people.

Re: Simon's Original Post: I think you’re right that a lot of “early” world history seemed to neglect human agency. And while gender history is now accepted as a methodology of its own, it struggled for a time to gain widespread acceptance. World history has had a similar path to gender history in that way; it has been critiqued as “synthesis history”; not deep enough to count as its own legitimate discipline. However, the field is growing and critics are realizing that their concerns are not valid. Good world history can use archival research, and it can produce new knowledge. I think World History’s struggle for legitimacy is, at least somewhat, a reason for the general lack of gender history in the field until recently. I think world historians early on were trying to stick to “traditional” methods of history, those that often focus (too) heavily on “the West” and “great man” history since the world scale approach itself was particularly revolutionary. In the same way that an interior decorator may balance out bold paint color choices with neutral furnishings, world historians were playing a balancing game with their new focus and traditional historical focuses.
Now that we are accepting world history as a methodology, it is time to have conversations about socializing it, adding human agency, and, of course, women. While these approaches may have contributed to better world history in its early stages, they were largely neglected, leaving current world historians to battle with how to integrate these stories and approaches. One example of a world historian successfully addressing the issue of human agency is Prasannan Parthasarathi’s work Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence 1600-1850. In this work, Parthasarathi considers the state policies that contributed to the Great Divergence, arguing that humans, acting within the structures created by these policies, were there reasons for the paths of their respective countries or regions. This is a very basic acknowledgement of human agency, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Michael Adas’ Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance is a successful integration of human agency into the larger picture of colonial relationships. In this work, he shows how the biases, attitudes, and perceptions of Westerners who interacted with non-Westerners impacted the relationships between Western and non-Western governments, and Western and non-Western peoples at large. While the story is unfortunate, it led to racism, prejudice, and social inequality, it does demonstrate that the opinions of individuals had a significant impact on the development of global history.
Personally, I have not had much experience reading world histories of gender. As you found, most that I have encountered, in my limited experience, have not quite been world histories by my definition. But this is without good cause. Women’s history lends itself wonderfully to world history, as women make up roughly half the world’s population. If I was going to write a world history of gender and focus on women, I would try to identify common experiences of women across the globe (ex: motherhood, women's health issues, etc). This kind of history can also consider “masculinity” and “femininity” and the ways these concepts and terms have impacted human behavior across the globe. It could trace how these terms, and what they entail, differs throughout the world’s regions, and show the lengths men and women have gone to in the past to show they are sufficiently masculine or feminine by their region’s standards.
On the surface, it can seem difficult to get the stories of individuals incorporated into world histories, since the scale of world history is just so large. However, I think one of the keys in doing this well is to always keep in mind that humans are moving history forward; their decisions, opinions, and actions are the results of the global context in which they lived to a certain extent, but cannot be predicted by these factors. As world historians increasingly incorporate archival sources into their works, I think this will be easier. While not intended to be a world history Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms could easily be revisited as a world history. The books that Menocchio had access to reflect global trading patterns and widespread ideologies of the 16th century world. Approaches like this, focused on an individual but then scaled out to the world scale to explain how their circumstances came to be, are good methods of adding human agency in world history.