Women in World History:  Where to start? 

John Maunu

     Merry Weisner Hanks' newest Gender in History:  A Global Perspective, 2nd edition (Oxford:  Blackwell, 2010) is about to hit the market joining Bonnie Smith's (ed.) four volume Women's History in Global Perspective (American History Society: 2005) and her Oxford Women in World History, five volumes (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008) as outstanding works in womens' and gender history.  Peter Stearns' Gender in World History, 2nd edition (Routledge, 2006) along with Judith Zinsser works, and Ulrike Strasser and Heidi Tinsman at UC-Irvine provide other outstanding research on this important and still new area of history.

     Classroom texts that are important are Pamela McVay's Envisioning Women in World History, Pt. 2, 1500-Present teamed with Pt. 1, by Catherine Clay, et. al (McGraw Hill, 2008), Jane Slaughter, et. al, Sharing the World Stage:  Biography and Gender in World
History (Cengage, 2007) and Stearn's Sexuality in World History (London and New York: Routledge, 2009) These are a few samples of great research on Women's history.  Some have concluded that there still is much to do with lower class women histories.

     Below are many links divided into categories of links, websites and articles, followed by
regional women history links and concluding with lesson plans to help classroom teachers.

Women's Studies articles, links, and websites:

http://www.teacheroz.com/women.htm
Outstanding Women in World History site with many different links.  Great!!!

http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=286628
"A Woman's World"  I am woman hear me roar......Matriarchal societies.

http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/3.3/wiesner-hanks.html
Merry Weisner-Hanks' roaring about "Christine Columbus" in World History Connected
magazine.

http://www.oxford-womenworldhistory.com/LOGIN?sessionid=83871deffd94dfce5184ba4751eeeb77&authstatuscode=400
Bonnie Smith's edited Oxford Women and World History-5 Vols.- information on that work.

http://www.tntech.edu/history/gender.html
Women Studies sites

http://www.h-net.org/~women/
H-Net/Women listserv

http://www.h-net.org/~women/bibs/com.html
Example of H-net/Women listserve discussion as to 100 Famous women with examples and bibliography.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage/a/intl_timeline.htm
Women's history and voting.

http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/
http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/essay-06.html
Women suffrage in World History.  Was New Zealand 1893, the first country to allow women's vote?

http://www.crystalinks.com/matriarchal.html
Matriarchal societies: return to divine balance?

http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/sites.html
Many Women sites

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13849.htm
Emma Goldman's Declaration of Independence, published in Mother Earth magazine, 1909.

http://www.intute.ac.uk/womensstudies/
Many good sites...give this a chance....graze.

http://womenst.library.wisc.edu/
University of Wisconsin Library system on Women's Studies.

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/eresources/refsubject-results.asp?subj=57
University of Iowa Women's Study resource site.

http://vlib.org/History
Virtual Library of World History-Scroll down to Women's studies.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/
George Mason University Women and World History website including lesson plans using primary sources.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/wwh/casestudies.php
George Mason website case studies.

http://www.worldhistorycenter.org/WHC/home/APUnits/D1_WOMEN.DOC 
Economics and Women

Biographies Of Women:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/biographies/a/top_100_world.htm
Top 100 women in world history biographies.

http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/4.3/gilbert.html
Marc Gilbert's World History Connected article, "When Heroism is Not Enough: Three Women Warriors of Vietnam, Their Historians and World History."

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/famous-women-scientists.html
Famous Women Scientists

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/medrenqueens/Medieval_and_Renaissance_Queens_Rulers.htm
Euro-centric Women rulers, etc. al..

http://www.britannica.com/women
World History biographies of women.

http://www.biographyonline.net/people/women-who-changed-world.html
Biographies of Women who changed the world.

http://www.distinguishedwomen.com/
Distinguished women in world history.

Geographic regions and Women's History:

http://www.library.ucsb.edu/subjects/women/women.html
Many different women's Study sites—ALL cultures included.

Oceania:

http://www.angellpro.com.au/women.htm
Site dedicated to the Brave Women of the Pacific region.

Middle East:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/women/index.html
Global Connections—Woman in modern Middle East with many links, resources, teacher sources, just a great site.

http://www.jannah.org/sisters/famous.html
Middle East/Muslim women website

http://homepages.udayton.edu/~fleiscel/
Dr. Fleiscel webpage-note two links on Women in Middle East history.

http://www.feminist.com/askamy/inter/in67.html
Short question/answer on famous Middle East women.

Europe:

http://www.stoa.org/diotima/
Stoa.org women in ancient world—Materials for study of Women and Gender-euro-centric.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/BLUWOX.html?show=contents
Women in Ancient Greece—book

http://www.luc.edu/faculty/pgraha1/womeninantiquity/goals.htm
Examples of Women in antiquity—3 Classical Greek excerpts...

http://www.womenintheancientworld.com/
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/history/king/MLKCV.Curr.htm
Mothers and Sons in European history-Margaret King.

http://history.searchbeat.com/women.htm
Many great links and short video clips (Voting theme).  American and Euro-centric with World links parsed throughout.

http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/chap5a.html
Women and French Revolution

http://www.rememberwomen.org/Library/BkReviews/main.html
"Holocaust Women Remembered"

http://jewishhistory.huji.ac.il/Internetresources/womens_studies.htm
Jewish Women's Studies

http://www.religioustolerance.org/lfe_bibl.htm
Role of Women in Christianity from religioustolerance.org.

***********************
Following are European Women and Gender Histories thanks to Rebecca Blankenship, MA Women and Russia. (Comments are Rebecca Blankenship's)

Anderson, Bonnie S. and Judith P. Zinsser, A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present, vol. 2.

Scott, Joan Wallach. Gender and the Politics of History

I believe the Scott has a really good overview of historiography of women's history, but both are Western based. 

Russia's Women: Accommodation, Resistance, Transformation, ed with Barbara Evans Clements and Barbara Alpern Engel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)

Sheila Fitzpatrick and Yuri Slezkine, eds. In the Shadow of the Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

There are many more really wonderful works, but the Clement is a collection highlighting much of the work on women and the patriarchy in late Imperial/Early Soviet and the Fitzpatrick is a fabulous collection of short memiors from various periods in Soviet history.

***********************

Asia:

http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/tps/1450.htm#economy
Asia for educators with many, many links, lessons, DBQ's and units on women in each time period.

http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/lesson3.html (lesson plan)
Confucianism and women

http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/cot/t3w24womenchinap2kk.htm
Women in China from Hyperlink World history with Biblical perspective—CCOT essay sample and some multiple choice.

http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/world-history/teaching/mongol/women.html
Women and the Mongol court

Southeast Asia:

http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/4.3/gilbert.html
Three Women Warriors of Vietnam and Their Historians and World History, article by Marc Gilbert in World History Connected.

http://east-asian-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/womens_status_in_southeast_asia
http://east-asian-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/womens_status_in_medieval_vietnam
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/GlobalGender/seasiapage.html
Bibliographies for women studies in southeast Asia.

Hinduism and Women:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/hinduismandwomen/Hinduism_and_Women.htm
American history and women:

http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm
Women's History in America from Women's International Center.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womensfirsts1.html
Firsts for American women timeline-two parts, 1587-1900 and 1900-Present.

http://edsitement.neh.gov/tab_lesson.asp?subjectArea=3&subcategory=27 http://www.nwhm.org/LessonPlans/progressive.htmlhttp://www.washingtonwomenshistory.org/themes/collections/uw_pioneerlife.aspx
Pacific NW

Native American and women:

http://www.nyhumanities.org/speakers/adult_audiences/lecture.php?lecture_id=1016
Were some Native American cultures matriarchal, like the Iroquois tribes who's women decided when to go to war, when to move the tribe, and controlled the gardens?

http://unauthorised.org/anthropology/anthro-l/february-1996/0036.html
Iroquois link to early feminists.

http://www.pitt.edu/~pittanth/grad/research/williamsshukerphd.html
Cayuga gender study at time of White encounter.

Gender Studies

http://womenst.library.wisc.edu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_history
What is gender history, note Joan Scott comments.

http://www.stoa.org/diotima/
Materials, etc. al for study of Women and Gender in Ancient World.

http://www.filmakers.com/ASIAN.html
http://peoplesculturescourse.blogspot.com/2007/09/judith-k-browns-iroquois-women.html
Judith K. Brown and gender study

http://books.google.com/books?id=YoG7VqjozlYC&dq=Women+Studies+in+World+
History&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=SmE1S9vZFtL5nAfT9Ij7CA&sa=
X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=13&ved=0CC4Q6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=
Women%20Studies%20in%20World%20History&f=false
Google book, Peter Stearns, Gender in World History

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14146
Blackwell's Gender history...a review by Merry Weisner Hanks

http://www.worldwidelearn.com/online-education-guide/social-science/womens-studies-major.htm
Women's Study Major..How to get prepared?

Women and Slavery
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0309/feature1/
National Geographic story, "21st Century Slavery," note many links below story as to Women and slavery...
 
http://books.google.com/books?id=tHTECm_g6xoC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=Cynthia+Enloe,+The+
Morning+After&source=bl&ots=MTmIz28PI9&sig=jmof-l_Rk3d6gQCrmJ4Ie42daZg&hl=en&ei=HX
pGS4r6DZO6NtKuzfUC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CAkQ6AEwAQ#v=
onepage&q=&f=false
Cynthia Enloe book, The Morning After, Berkley 1993 on women after Cold War and in 1992 Gulf War.  Sexual assaults of Filipino, Kuwaiti woman and American servicewomen
 
Lesson Plans
http://store.collegeboard.com/sto/productdetail.do;jsessionid=nYhPKxcdCKvHT86MvHdgXKNs9Q
2SVW62Wv8X0XpJngslXrwNt9hp!690144089?Itemkey=040761110
Collegeboard AP World Teaching Unit-$8.00:  Economic Role of Women in world history.

www.worldhistorycenter.org/WHC/home/APUnits/D1_WOMEN.DOC
Abstract of Lessons from Patrick Manning and Deborah Smith Johnston World History Center.  This one from Linda Black.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/educators/women/lesson2.html
PBS Global Connections' Lesson Plan on Mideast women.

http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/lesson.html 
Various Women in World History Lessons

http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/womenRightsHome.html
Women Lessons throughout world history focusing on women's rights.

http://www.nwhp.org/resourcecenter/linkshistory.php
National Women's History Project

http://search.eb.com/women 
300 Women Who Changed the World 

http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/genesis/sources/centres.cfm
British centered "Genesis"  or index listing educational institutions, research "centres," and courses which focus on Women's History. 

http://www.cloudnet.com/~edrbsass/edhist.htm#women
Numerous Women History lessons for all grades and note many lessons for other topics.

http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/cot/t3w24womenchinap2kk.htm
Hyperlinked World History with Biblical perspective—example of a China CCOT essay question and a few multiple choice questions.

John Maunu is a Collegeboard/AP World History consultant and Reader/Table Leader veteran of AP World History Reading currently teaching AP World and AP European history at Grosse Ile High School, Michigan.