I want to share my journey with you as I explore/trace/analyse/critique/get angry over the nexus between gender, activism, emotions and memory.
While doing this, I want to keep my eye on women’s agency (ie not just victims of patriarchy and history) – can I and my feminist peers and you contribute a deeper historical understanding of women’s agency – from activists to archivists?
historian ~ gender, activism, emotion, memory
researching , blogging, photographing & linking to digital resources
‘This site’ ~ What’s it all about?
I am passionate about how we remember, misremember, don’t remember women’s and gender history.
Add to this an intense interest in the ongoing activisms and legacies of imperialism, colonialism, nationalism, and this is my work.
Let’s think about it…
Image: Mobilus In Mobili - Women's March on Washington, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55796823
Throughout modernity women have led movements for reform.
Often these have been spectacularly visible, as evidenced, for example, by the long history and colourful pageantry of the Women’s Marches: from the 40,000 suffragists marching in London’s 1911 Women’s Coronation Procession to the five million people participating in 673 Women’s Marches globally to protest misogyny in 2017.
Yet, women activists are less well remembered than their male counterparts in the historical record and collective memory. Their memory has fallen victim to a male-dominated public agenda.
Current efforts are underway to correct that omission, from feminist recovery histories to grassroots campaigns for public monuments.
This is great. Let’s correct that oversight.
‘When Anthony Met Stanton’ sculpture, Seneca Falls, July 2015, photograph by Sharon Crozier-De Rosa
However, even where and when women activists ¬ feminist, anti-colonial nationalist, labour and more ¬ are remembered, the form of memorialisation that is offered to them may not align with how they saw themselves and their legacy (for example, the many examples of male politicians ‘domesticating’ the memory of potent women…read blog etc for further info!).
This all makes for emotional histories and histories of emotions!
Links to digital resources - make women’s history happen!
As more women’s records are being digitised & more born-digital archives are being created from scratch, there are more opportunities than ever for us to encourage researchers & students to use these resources to expand our knowledge of women’s & gender history.
Got to ‘learning resources’ for links to digital resources on gender & history & get researching!