Gender and the Politics of Exceptionalism in the Writing of British Women’s History
Gender and the Politics of Exceptionalism in the Writing of British Women’s History
This chapter examines the political nature of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historical production on British women by focusing on a genre of women's history called “women worthies.” After discussing the range of motives and objectives underlying the “woman worthy” genre as it developed in Britain in the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, the chapter considers how histories of British “women worthies” became instrumental for advancing the debate over woman's capacity to learn and to exercise civic and political rights. In particular, it explains how the “woman worthy” enabled writers to formulate alternative and often inspirational models of womanhood, think more broadly and critically about the status and rights of women, and evaluate the politics of “Britishness” more generally. Finally, it assesses the implications and legacies of women worthies for approaches to the contemporary writing of women's and gender history.
Keywords: women worthies, British women, women's history, Britain, womanhood, politics, Britishness, gender history, gender
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