Women's History Joan Scott Analysis

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In her essay, entitled “Women’s History,” American historian Joan W. Scott wrote, “it need hardly be said that feminists’ attempts to expose ‘male biases’ or ‘masculine ideology’ embedded in historical writing have often met with ridicule or rebuttal of as expressions of ‘ideology.’” Scott’s essay discusses the efforts of female historians to both integrate themselves into the history disciples and their struggle to add and assimilate female perspectives, influences, and undertakings into the overall story of history. She also talks about the obstacles and potentially biased criticism that female historians have received and faced upon establishing themselves as accredited members of the historical academic community. One of these historians is Natalie …show more content…

When Finlay claims that Davis has no evidence to support aspect of her account, Davis responds by describing in detail how she came to the conclusions she did by providing her list of sources in the last pages of The Return of Martin Guerre and an extensive explanation in her essay, “On the Lame.” With the emergence of new methods and understandings of history within the past century, many traditionalist historians have chosen to ignore the new developments of new historians concerning the lives of women and other commoners that have been overshadowed in the past by history only focusing on the main events of the time period or event. By refusing to consider Davis’s claim that Bertrande de Rols played an active role in the Martin Guerre story and dismissing Davis’s findings as mere ideology, Robert Finlay becomes a prime example of how traditional, often times male historians resist any new information that could alter what has already been established as true and respond to these new discoveries and ideas by criticizing them and discrediting the

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