Feminism and Political History

Abstract

Political historians traditionally privileged the political activities of men and masculine political institutions. This vision of political history was revised from the early 1970s, first by “women's history” and later due to the influence of the “gender turn”. The latter encompassed a recognition that conceptions of masculinity and femininity contribute to the shaping of political power. Both developments challenged but ultimately reinvigorated political history. However, as this article will argue, political history and feminist history remain to an extent quarantined from one another, despite the radical potential for feminist scholarship to change the way politics is conceived.