Gender and the "Great Divide": Public and Private in British Gender History

ritish women's history of the 1970s and 1980s was spearheaded by feminists with a deep commitment to the women's movement. We confronted a traditional and male-dominated historical profession whose view of history centered on high politics and diplomacy. By contrast, for many, our approach had been through labor history, particularly in the History Workshop movement, and focused on working-class, everyday lives in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Small wonder that women's oppression and exploitation figured large and that the exclusion of women from the work force and formal politics was especially sig- nificant. In particular, we recognized the power of marriage, family, and motherhood in determining women's past lives. Following nineteenth- century nomenclature, women's "separate sphere" became a dominant theme, particularly in relation to the nineteenth-century English middle class. 2 To an extent, this was to be expected: each generation looks at the past through its own lens and its history is "always informed by supposi- tions and judgements." 3 Since then, in both conceptual and empirical terms, the separate spheres paradigm has come under considerable criticism. 4 Among scholars, the main sources of contention have been its chronology, location, and actual practices. A new generation has now shifted their fo- cus from the nineteenth to the eighteenth century, to the world of politics and civil society and to the level of the aristocracy, gentry, and upper middle class. 5 "Racial" and national identity have extended or overtaken gender as a focus of historical analysis, issues where the separate spheres approach seems irrelevant—although, in fact, the division between public and pri- vate, as a central part of Western culture, has been a key factor in the im- position—and attraction—of colonial encounters. 6