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Nuova DWF. Donna Woman Femme
Quaderni di studi internazionali sulla donna
Roma, Coines Edizioni, then Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1976-1985
Woman and Historical Research, 1977, n. 3
EDITORIAL, pp. 3-6
ZEMON DAVIS Natalie
Women History in Transition - The European Case, pp. 7-33
STIEFELMEIER R. Dora
Sacred and Profane - Notes on Prostitution in Medieval Germany,
pp. 34-50
BUTTAFUOCO Annarita
Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, pp. 51-92
GITTINGS G. Diana
Married life and Birth Control in England between the Wars,
pp. 93-114
ULIVIERI Simonetta
Italian Women in Education - From Unity to the Present Day:
Laws, Struggles and Perspectives, (Part 2), pp. 115-140
MOLINARI Sergio
The Woman Question in the Masculine Culture of 18th century
in Russia, pp. 141-170
The relationship between the sexes are socially constructed, not biologically determined; thus, the main lines of women's history can be retraced within a history of the varying forms taken by the relationship between the sexes, according to the different forms of social organisation. However, it must be taken into account that the man-woman relationship entails both a physical element and an affective component, which constitute a field of analysis quite different from any other area of historical research.
This is the case also of the socio-cultural "dimension" of sexuality, which can even become the basis of a different historical periodization. This issue aims at presenting different methodological approaches, towards a definition on the part of women historians of new theoretical tools, in order to retrace women's history.
ZEMON DAVIS Natalie, Women History in Transition - The European Case,
pp. 7-33
Modern historical research on women, which is largely carried out by women, has turned away from the study of "famous women" and has begun to look at the material conditions of all women from all social classes. The study of sex roles not only brings into history new content and new themes (especially themes linked with sexuality) but also call into question even the theoretical foundations of history.
It necessitates re-thinking on such concepts as power, social structures, property, symbols and historical periods. The study of women's condition - not apart from men, but in relation with them - necessitates a questioning of the traditional use of such terms as "culture", "nature", "public" and "private", and means the invention of more appropriate concepts. The article ends with a long and useful bibliography.
STIEFELMEIER R. Dora, Sacred and Profane - Notes on Prostitution in Medieval
Germany, pp. 34-50
Prostitution, unknown - at least to any significant
degree - in the ancient Germanic world, was brought there by the Romans. It
was introduced largely by means of a vast wandering population, which was typical
of Greco-Roman antiquity, and which was composed of men as well as women who
made a living as entertainers. They were soon joined by Germanic members who
brought with them their new enriching cultures.
The prostitution, which is to be found in all Germanic towns from the 12th century on, was publicly organised in response to an explosive social situation, and is closely linked to the cultural world of the earlier nomads. We have only to look at the beliefs and customs surrounding prostitution, the legal provisions, popular usages, proverbs, superstitions etc. etc.
The prostitute, indeed, appears in an ambiguous,
equivocal role. She transgresses the behaviour and the comportment laid down
by the Christian and corporate institutions of the time, and, along with the
witches, she represents a remnant from the pre-Christian cultural heritage.
She is a subversive and she elicits both fear and veneration at one and the
same time.
BUTTAFUOCO Annarita, Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, pp. 51-92
Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel was the first woman Italian political journalist. She contributed to the 1799 Jacobiti revolution in Naples with her paper the "Monitore Napoletano" which still remains one of the most interesting of the documents from those dramatic days. Historiography has ignored this woman revolutionary, or when it has given her mention has described her as the "virile" comrade of these Neapolitan Jacobins.
The finding of the legal papers on the dissolution of her marriage has given us precious information on her personal life. She was married to a captain in the Bourbon army, and was subject to incredible violence by her gross and uncultured husband who could not tolerate her studying and her political activity. Tragic episodes - at one point he nearly threw her out of the window - punctuated Eleonora's married life, and finally forced her to apply for a separation.
The second part of the article deals with Eleonora's part in the Revolution. Her concern for the people - not shared by the Jacobin - and her burning desire for liberty and for reforms, made of her a revolutionary who was acutely aware of all the economic and spiritual aspects of revolution. Her campaign for a republic based on popular demand remains chief witness to her activity. She campaigned for the use of the neapolitan dialect in place of a "foreign" language such as Tuscan or French. She was persecuted with especial hatred by reaction and, on August 20th 1799, was hanged in the market place in Naples.
GITTINGS G. Diana, Married life and Birth Control in England between the
Wars, pp. 93-114
The author, through a series of interviews with pregnant women and women of childbearing age, attempts an explanation for the reduction of the number of children per family registered in England in the thirties.
She emphasises the attitude of the women to family size, and analyses her findings by social classes. She finds that the women were influenced by how much sexual information they had, by their familiarity with contraceptive methods, by the standard of living they aimed at and by their educational ideals for the children. Diana Gittings, on the basis of her empirical findings, concludes that the women's attitudes are determined principally by their pre-matrimonial life and work.
The husband's social and economic status is secondary. And, in spite of the conclusions of classical demographic enquiry, and as distinct from the situation in the nineteenth century, she concludes that the changes which have taken place within the working class are not the result of middle class pressures - in fact, the middle classes withheld useful information on family planning - but the result of their own maturing.
ULIVIERI Simonetta, Italian Women in Education - From Unity to the Present
Day: Laws, Struggles and Perspectives, (Part 2), pp. 115-140
In part two of her analysis of women in the teaching profession the author looks at the fascist years, and the Resistance. The fascist period was noteworthy for the dismissal of women from teaching in history and philosophy, for their exclusion from all rectorships, and for its generally unfavourable attitude towards working women. In the Resistance, on the other hand, women took part in the armed struggle and in the reconstruction of the country.
MOLINARI Sergio, The Woman Question in the Masculine Culture of 18th century
in Russia, pp. 141-170
Byronic realism, rapidly assimilated by Russian culture, takes on an ethic-political dimension there. The ethic - a denial of self - becomes an integral part of politics, which in turn are conceived of as an affirmation of "the other". In a social and historical context which precludes all open political activity the confrontation between classes is thus reduced to a denial of self. Revolution becomes self punishment.
If we examine Russian literature with this in mind, we see it approach the woman problem with the aim of making reparation for the age-long oppression of women. In the fifties the woman question flares into open polemics and spreads throughout Russian democratic culture. Russian "feminism" with its superficial and imprecise progressivism, masks in fact a "machismo" which is both deep and irrational. With an effort and by historicising all is explained and justified, but nothing gets changed, and all individual responsibility evaporates.
Add to this that in l8th century Russian culture woman has a role as literary adjudicator, and this role is closely linked to the conception of woman as "the other", where man, the artist, reflects and justifies himself. And with this the complete masculine hegemony, at both the cultural and ideological level, becomes understandable.