In this fascinating blog, our committee chair, Professor Maggie Andrews reflects on what women’s history means to her. March is Women’s History Month a chance for those in WHN and beyond to share their passion, curiosity and enthusiasm about the…
Category: Blog
The Women’s History Network blog
Queering recognition: Exploring ‘corrective rape’ and black lesbian sexuality in a local and transnational context, By Dr. Nadine Lake
The post-apartheid political and social landscape has provided researchers, scholars and readers with an opportunity to reconceptualise the LGBTQ+ category in public culture. My PhD titled ‘Corrective rape and black lesbian sexualities in contemporary South African cultural texts’ (2017) explored…
Elite Women and the Agricultural Landscape, 1700-1830 By Dr Briony McDonagh Winner of the 2018 Women’s History Network Book Prize
In this post we hear from the 2018 WHN book prize winner, Dr. Briony McDonagh about her monograph: Elite Women and the Agricultural Landscape, 1700-1830. The book and the related research project emerged out of a realisation that there was…
Unreported History: the National Convention for the Defence of the Civic Rights of Women, October 1903, By Dr. Maureen Wright.
Unreported History: the National Convention for the Defence of the Civic Rights of Women, October 1903 ©Dr. Maureen Wright, University of Chichester, founder and lead of Women’s Political Rights, www.womenspoliticalrights.uk It might be fair to say that for many women’s…
Blitzmädels an die Front: A Lesser Known Female War Film
‘Women, Oberführerin,belong in the kitchen and in bed.’[1]Oberleutnant Wagner’s scathing dismissal of women at war epitomises the gender challenges faced by Oberführerin Hanna Helmke and her female air signals assistants in “Blitzmädels an die Front” (‘Lightning Girls on the Front’). Released on…
Research in Progress Postgraduate Workshop – Histories of Gender, University of Reading, 24 October 2018
A report from the post-graduates students who were awarded a grant by the WHN in 2018. The University of Reading’s History Department hosted its inaugural postgraduate workshop under the recently launched Gender and Sexuality Research Cluster. The theme of the…
‘There is a good deal of uncertainty as to how the women will vote’: The 1918 General Election in Birmingham
100 years ago, on 14 December 1918, women in Britain went to the polls to vote in a General Election for the first time. Just ten months after the Representation of the People Act had awarded the franchise to some…
The Enigma of Ellen Terry (1847-1928) – Dr. Veronica Isaac
Ellen Terry (1847-1928) ‘Of Ellen Terry, the actress, Our Lady of the Lyceum as Oscar Wilde used to style her, what a series of wonderful pictures live in the memory”[i] A leading late nineteenth century actress, Dame Ellen Terry’s lifestyle…
War Widows and the controversy over Remembrance Sunday services at the Cenotaph (1972-1982), by Dr Janis Lomas
Remembrance Sunday has a particular significance this year as it marks the centenary of the First World War armistice, yet few remember the First and Second World War widows who following the foundation of the War Widows’ Association (WWA) in…