Experience, Difference, Dominance and Voice in the Writing of Canadian Women’s History

Abstract

Despite our embattled position within the profession and our struggle to assert the right of and need for women’s history,² until recently feminist historians of women, with a few notable exceptions, have tended to undertheorise our work. Oflate, however, feminist women’s history seems to be enjoying a flurry of theorising as feminist historians come under the sway of French-derived deconstructivist literary theory³ and discourse analysis.⁴ Joan Wallach Scott’s effort to theorise the category of ‘gender’ is, undoubtedly, the most acclaimed example to date.⁵