The History that has been explained to us does not contain the whole truth. Because it would be far from the current one if women had been taken into account from the beginning. Because they not only deserve their space, but to make a new story. The place of women in history. Displacing the limits of the representation of the world (PUV, 2023) is a very complete work that reviews the role of women in our society from the beginning of time to the present, as well as offering numerous reflections on them.
Directed by Isabel Morant, emeritus professor at the University of Valencia, the historian Rosa Elena Ríos and the researcher Rafael Valls, this work has been written by teachers of all educational levels from a didactic and informative conception. “Readers will find new knowledge about women that allows us to broaden our representation of the world. It is our History, written in capital letters”, affirms Isabel Morant, also the author of numerous works on the construction of the history of women in Europe and Latin America.
“This work is the necessary consequence of a project that began between the late seventies and the eighties of the 20th century, with the emergence of feminism that demanded to make a memory of women”, argues Morant. The objective then is similar to the current one: to achieve “a history that understood them, that explained what their lives, their relationships and social functions had been like, and also the reason for the differences and inequalities between the sexes, persistent throughout the years”. of history”, highlights the professor.
In the book, women are not shown as passive objects, but as conscious and active subjects. “It was necessary to rewrite their history, to elaborate a story that entered into dialogue and interaction with the General History in order to be able to inscribe them in it in a more complete and real way”, Morant remarks. And it is that this story, led by women, also includes men and the representations of femininity and masculinity. Because, for researchers, both identities and social relationships have been built in a reciprocal way.
Readers will find a work divided into seven parts with thirty-nine chapters that revolve around the societies of Prehistory, the Ancient and Medieval World, the universe of religions, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, with their lights and shadows. , revolutions and political ruptures, modernization, dictatorships and democracy, as well as feminisms. Thus, the text, also reflective, addresses, from a
universal and global perspective, the cultural and historical character of differences and inequalities.
“The work analyzes the influence of social and political changes on women, but also their influence on them”, comments Morant. Were women able to actively participate in the course of history? Were their lives significantly affected by the various events? Was there progress for women? These are some of the questions that they try to answer throughout its pages.
The public will also approach the female conception from another point of view. “Readers will find biographies of women who, far from following the norms that diminished them, restricting their liberties, discover themselves as active subjects, exceeding the socially established limits; intervening in the spaces of knowledge, creativity or politics”, explains Morant, who admits to having been captivated by the voice of some of the protagonists and clearly vindicative historical texts.
"The book thus demonstrates that being a woman was not an unavoidable destiny of a sex marked by biological differences, by motherhood, but the result of the will of the actions, cultural and political, carried out by the men who detected power absolutely. Even in the times of democracy”, says Morant. This premise is added to a claim. Although this type of research is "also knowledge demanded by our students, especially by women, it is far from being widespread knowledge and present in general history programs."
Together with an outstanding bibliography, the work is completed with a practical dossier —with more texts, images and didactic proposals—, the index of which can be consulted in an appendix at the end of the book and is available on the publisher's website to be purchased at paper or electronic format, either for consultation or download by chapters. The authors hope that the dossier will meet the needs of students and satisfy the interest of a broader and curious audience.
Because, as the authors of The place of women in history suggest. Displacing the limits of the representation of the world, "the history of women constitutes a new knowledge to think about ourselves, to understand and build the life and the world that we want". Because, as the philosopher and thinker Simone de Beauvoir would say, “knowing is always better than not knowing”.
