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Close Relations? Bringing Together Gender and Family in English History
Author(s) -
Doolittle Megan
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
gender and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-0424
pISSN - 0953-5233
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0424.00162
Subject(s) - historiography , narrative , context (archaeology) , modernization theory , sociology , convergence (economics) , gender history , life history , gender studies , epistemology , history , literature , political science , law , art , philosophy , archaeology , economics , economic growth , ecology , biology
There have been surprisingly few historical interpretations of English history which knit together both family and gender. Family history remains dominated by empirical, local or comparative approaches, rooted in paradigms of modernisation, struggling to respond to longstanding feminist critiques. Gender history, while deeply concerned with questioning history's grand narratives and methodological assumptions, seems to have avoided much exploration of family life. It is this gulf and the ways it is being bridged which are explored in this article, in the context of English historiography of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, firstly by seeking explanations for each approach's reluctance to engage with the other, and secondly by tracing their points of convergence and cross‐fertilisation.