Customer Reviews

Communities of Women: Historical Perspectives

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Communities of Women is a suprising book. A myriad group of authors from all fields of history explore a range of communities from the medieval past to the Australasian present. I highly recommend it for courses in Gender Studies or Women's History, since its broad outlook will allow students to think about the complex questions of defining "community" and whether there are commonalities among women throughout the ages.

Community is such an important and overused word. Here, the authors study it, limited to small groups of women that have rarely been studied on a comparative basis. The groups are very varied, in time and space. From a 13th century European nunnery to groups in Britain and Australasia in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Antipodean readers may turn with interest to the latter examples. These were colonial societies, sparsely settled. But also, on a global basis, quite favourable to women's rights. Possibly because the newness of frontier settlements and the shortage of labour meant that women had to fulfill necessary economic roles, quite aside from the traditional homemaking.