Les femmes ont une histoire

Résumé 0

The enterprise of the Histoire des femmes en Occident has been the intellectual adventure of an informal group of historians, anthropologists, sociologists that, in the 1970s’, gathered together to discuss women’s history, feminism and social sciences, but it has been possible only thanks to the foresight of the Italian publisher Laterza, who had the idea to propose to Georges Duby, who had directed, with Philippe Ariès, the Histoire de la vie privée, to write the history of “the woman”. This article looks back to the origins of women’s history in France and more generally in Europe, its exchanges with the American historiography, and the debates around the category of ‘gender’, after the publication of the famous article by Joan Scott. It highlights the evolution of this field of study in relation, on one hand, with the feminist movement in France and with the ‘école des Annales’ and the French ‘nouvelle histoire’. The work started in 1987 and in 1990 the Storia delle donne in Occidente was published by Laterza in Italy, while the French edition, by Plon, was published in 1991. It has been an immediate success, it was published in ten languages and discussed, and also criticized, in several international conferences and reviews. Would the same enterprise be possible today, in a world that has become more complicated and less safe for women?