Women's History: Getting Started

Discover the experience of women in history and understand gender as a powerful idea that shapes the world. You will examine the significant disparities that exist in women’s domestic roles, economic status, legal rights, and access to education. Of the many questions you may ask about women in world history, you will focus on the following: What are women’s roles in the world, and how did we get here? Have women had common experiences, despite differences of place, time, religion, class, ethnicity, and race? What are the qualities of history’s “great women” vs. the social histories of the majority of women? Who were some of the important women writers, thinkers, and artists, and why are they not in the history books? How has reform taken place throughout the world? What does it mean to be a feminist, and to whom

Print out and use this handout from the University of Virginia Library to help you with brainstorming about a topic and choosing search terms.