Shifting Perspectives in History: Women's History. Gender History. Intersectional History

For a long time, history has been male-centered and gender-blind. As a consequence, women were largely invisible and appeared at best at the margins of history. Women’s History emerged in response to it, recentering women in the discipline of history and shedding new light on them as participants of history. Now, Gender History is mostly preferred to Women’s History. For a few years now, some scholars have been criticising Gender History and pleading for making history intersectional. What is at stake in these shifts? Is it only a matter of wording and following new trends? Obviously not.
In this talk, I will recontextualise the emergence of new historical approaches in relation to the criticism of the discipline and of feminist theories, but also in relation to the background of social movements. Women’s History . Gender History . Intersectional History : step by step, I want to show what is theoretically at stake with these new concepts and how we can contribute to make our society more equitable in using these thinking tools.