Forgotten Wives: How Women Get Written Out of History

The pervasive assumption of male dominance has led to the loss of records of women's lives and work, with wives often being forgotten as supporters of their husbands' achievements. Ann Oakley's book Forgotten Wives examines how the institution and status of marriage have contributed to this, using the case studies of four women married to well-known men to question conventions of history and biography-writing and contribute a fresh vision of how the welfare state developed in the early 20th century.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 06 July 2021
Publisher: Bristol University Press

Throughout history, records of women's lives and work have been lost due to the pervasive assumption of male dominance. Wives, especially, disappear as supporters of their husbands' work, as unpaid and often unacknowledged secretaries and research assistants, and as managers of men's domestic domains; even intellectual collaboration tends to be portrayed as normative wifely behavior rather than as joint work. Forgotten Wives examines the ways in which the institution and status of marriage have contributed to the active 'disremembering of women's achievements. Drawing on archives, biographies, autobiographies, and historical accounts, best-selling author and academic Ann Oakley interrogates conventions of history and biography-writing using the case studies of four women married to well-known men: Charlotte Shaw, Mary Booth, Jeannette Tawney, and Janet Beveridge. Asking critical questions about the mechanisms that maintain gender inequality, despite thriving feminist and other equal rights movements, she contributes a fresh vision of how the welfare state developed in the early 20th century.

Weight: 388g
Dimension: 233 x 156 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781447355847