The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870

The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870.

Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. Paper $11.95. 395 pp.

Gerda Lerner has made another important contribution to "the search for women's history" with the publication of The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to 1870. It is the second of a two-volume work entitled Women and History. The book's interest to feminist teachers is twofold: it contains much information about the intertwined histories of teaching and of feminism, and it is valuable and versatile as a textbook.

The Creation of Feminist Consciousness begins where The Creation of Patriarchy concluded, with the idea that women and men have differing relationships to recorded History. Lerner differentiates between written History with a capital H (a social construction that has largely been produced by men and controlled by men's interests) and the lived history of events, including women's experiences. Like its companion volume, this book embraces a vast time frame, from the seventh century AD until the establishment of organized women's movements. At times it goes beyond these chronological boundaries. Geographically it covers western Europe and the (colonial) US.

The book's structure is more thematic than chronological. After an introduction, the chapters address "the educational disadvantaging of women" (ch. 2), women's efforts toward "self-authorization" (ch. 3) particularly through mysticism (ch. 4, 5) or through motherhood (ch. 6), "one thousand years of feminist Bible criticism" (ch. 7), authorization through creativity (ch. 8), women's right to learn, teach, and define (ch. 9), and the importance of women's networks and social spaces (ch. 10). The book concludes by discussing the search for women's History (ch. 11) and the importance of organized women's movements. It also includes extensive notes, a useful index, and a well-organized bibliography of works in English and in German.

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