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Women's History Network

For anyone with a passion for women’s history

Women’s History Network is an inclusive organisation that celebrates diversity

Author: Amy Swainston

Gaiti Hasan, Indian molecular biologist, in her office at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, November 2023. Photograph: Nilakshi Das.
Blog, Blog and News

Scientific Aspirations and Normative Gender Roles: Indian Women in Science – Nilakshi Das

Amy Swainston / February 23, 2026

Women’s participation in Indian science since the mid-twentieth century is often framed through celebratory narratives of progress, characterised by increased educational access, rising numbers of women pursuing STEM degrees and gradual inclusion in scientific institutions. Such unequivocal narratives of success,…

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A Rainbow girl, Calcutta, India © Gianluigi Nocco
Blog, Blog and News

Empire Religiosity: Convent Habits in Colonial and Postcolonial India – Tim Allender

Amy Swainston / September 15, 2025

Some years ago, during a break from an academic workshop in Calcutta, I found an inner cityscape that was a mix of overbuilt and rather shabby looking shops, oddly punctuated by the occasional Western-looking skyscraper. As a historian my eye…

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The all-female creative team behind 'When Two of Us Meet'
Blog, Blog and News

When Women Champion Women: The Female Team Behind ‘When Two of Us Meet’ Musical – Emily Simonian, Alena Kutumian and Rebecka Webb

Amy Swainston / April 7, 2025

Honouring Women’s History Through Musical Theatre In the world of musical theatre, where women are still underrepresented in leadership roles, When Two of Us Meet stands out as a project created, led, and supported by women. We are incredibly proud…

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Nineteenth-century hustings in Covent Garden. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Blog, Blog and News

Emotion and Space in the Mid-Victorian Women’s Suffrage Movement – Lucy McCormick

Amy Swainston / March 24, 2025

Separate Spheres The doctrine of the ‘separate spheres’ – women’s confinement in the home while men freely roamed the public world – is entrenched in popular imaginings of Victorian life. Historians have long debated the usefulness and accuracy of this…

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Image of Harriet Newell, in Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1855) 'domain Woman's Record, Or, Sketches of All Distinguished Women: From the Creation to A.D. 1854 : Arranged in Four Eras : with Selections from Female Writers of Every Age', Harper & Bros., p. 453. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Blog, Blog and News

Navigating “Female” Identity: The Role of 19th-Century Missionary Wives – Katherine Hsu

Amy Swainston / December 9, 2024

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, American Protestant churches prohibited women from preaching or becoming ordained ministers. However, the religious revivalism of the Awakenings – a series of Protestant religious movements in the United States – created new,…

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Blog, Blog and News

Health, Death and Trauma in Middling Sort Women’s Letters during the Eighteenth Century – Isabella Smith

Amy Swainston / November 18, 2024

Sources taken from Karen Harvey’s Social Bodes project which contains transcribed letters between c.1680-1820 categorised by state, emotion and body part.[1] Why do we study old letters? What is it about them? Or as historian Susan Whyman asks, ‘filled with…

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See our latest posts below or visit https://bsky.app/profile/womenshistnet.bsky.social and https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-s-history-network/posts/

Recent Posts

WHN Book Prize 2025

March 9, 2026
Cover for Female Servants

Women’s History Network Book Prize for 2023 and 2024

March 9, 2026

March 2, 2026
Gaiti Hasan, Indian molecular biologist, in her office at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, November 2023. Photograph: Nilakshi Das.

Scientific Aspirations and Normative Gender Roles: Indian Women in Science – Nilakshi Das

February 23, 2026
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About

The Women’s History Network is a national association and charity for the promotion of women’s history and the encouragement of everyone interested in women’s history. Following our establishment in 1991 we have grown year by year and today we are a UK national charity with members including working historians, researchers, independent scholars, teachers, librarians, and many other individuals both within academia and beyond. Indeed, the network reaches out to anyone...

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  • CFP: Women’s Broadcasting Histories Conference 25-26th June 2026

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