‘Uneven Developments’: Women’s History, Feminist History and Gender History in Great Britain

Abstract

The development of women’s history over the last twenty years has been uneven, marked by significant differences in the pace of change and in national experience, yet also simultaneously inspired by outstanding and creative growth, notably in the United States. The title of this article has been most recently used in a study of contested and unevenly growing ideologies of gender in nineteenth century England; but its original coiner, Marx, offered it as a means of analysing differential rates of international economic change, which incorporated the specific historical context of each nation’s economic growth, yet also explained the interaction between different national patterns of development.1 By analogy — however imperfect — we may reflect upon the dilemmas which now face those who write and read women’s history within national contexts, contexts which themselves contain great variations, yet are also within an international framework.KeywordsUneven DevelopmentSeparate SphereFeminist HistorianSpecific Historical ContextGender HistoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.