This publication emerged out of the editor’s participation, along with several of the contributors to the volume, in the VIII Congresso della Società Italiana delle Storiche (SIS) – La storia di genere: percorsi, intrecci, prospettive – which was held online from June 9th to 12th, 2021 and organized in cooperation with the University of Verona.
The SIS was founded in 1989 by women’s movements for the purpose of “valorizzare la soggettività femminile e la presenza delle donne nella storia” as well as to promote the use of the category of gender in historical research and to disseminate the “patrimonio scientifico e culturale prodotto dalle storiche.”1 Through the regular meetings of the conference, the Society aims to provide an opportunity to view and compare ongoing research on women’s history and gender history. The first conference organized by the SIS was held in 1995 in Rimini. Later editions were hosted in Venice (2000), Florence (2003), Rome (2007), Naples (2010), Padua-Venice (2013), Pisa (2017), leading up to its first online meeting, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the University of Verona.
The VIII Conference of the SIS program had 44 panels led by 180 men and women from diverse Italian, European, and non-European colleges and research institutions. The papers covered a time frame spanning from antiquity to the present day. They dealt with different geographical and cultural contexts (Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas) and transnational and global perspectives. Many different topics were discussed during the sessions, which reflected the variety of historiographical interests and approaches and the importance of adopting a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach. It is impossible to give an account of all the topics discussed: these included, to mention a few, a critique of gender binarism, lesbian subjectivities, work, migration and mobility, movements for citizens’ rights and ecofeminism, various forms of individual and collective agency, women’s writing, autobiographies, emotions and representations of the feminine. The Conference was opened by a professor, Joanna De Groot, a specialist in Iranian studies at the University of York (United Kingdom), with the lectio magistralis entitled “The Space of Gender and the Gender of Space: Some Thoughts from a Historian of Nineteenth-Century Iran.” This choice was the Society’s homage to the memory of Anna Vanzan, a refined Iranologist, and translator who held various roles in the SIS and who passed away prematurely in December 2020.
Research data linking gender and education, both globally and nationally (I am referring to Italy), in many cases, are a source of concern and urge us to find solutions. Even though, in the world, there are more girls enrolled in primary school than ever before, overall, fewer girls than boys go to school (2015 data). While illiteracy rates have declined over the past three decades, of the 780 million illiterate adults worldwide, 520 million are women (data from 2013 to 2015). Girls are the first to be withdrawn from school by families in economic hardship.2
While over the past twenty years, increasing numbers of girls have enrolled at university so that the gender disparity in higher education has disappeared in many countries. We should also remember that it took centuries before many prestigious institutions worldwide admitted women or issued them a diploma. The University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom was founded in 1209, but it was not until 1948 that it offered degrees to women studying there. Moreover, there are still many countries in the world – in Africa, in central and south Asia, in central America, but also in the heart of Europe – where the share of women with a university education out of the total number of students is smaller than that of men (data beginning from 2012). If we look at these data by income and ethnicity, the percentages vary significantly: very clearly, the sons and daughters of the wealthiest families are the most likely to finish university; in 2016, in the United States, 25% of African-American women aged 25 to 29 had a three-year degree or higher, compared with 46% of white women of the same age.3
It is possible that these data changed significantly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but they illustrate well-established trends.
Concerning Italy, in June 2021 Save the Children published a survey on digital poverty from which it emerges that the incidence of digital educational
Since its foundation, the Società Italiana delle Storiche, has been firmly committed to the “promozione della storia delle donne e delle relazioni di genere all’interno dell’università” and to “divulgazione della storia delle donne e degli studi di genere all’interno della scuola, al fine di modificare le modalità di trasmissione e formazione del sapere e le gerarchie di genere a questi sottese,” to quote the Statute.8 In fact, as gender studies have advanced, feminist thinkers have discussed and continue to discuss the need to redesign educational paradigms. The main aim of these studies is to reexamine the presumed objectivity and neutrality of the canons, in order to promote knowledge constructed and elaborated socially by acting individuals. In view of this, it is vital to consider its dissemination in places of education as a way of combating inequalities and promoting equal opportunities.
To attain this objective, systemic intervention is required that includes adequate initial and ongoing training of teachers, a review of curricula, and a transformation of teaching materials and methods. A delegation of the Society recently had an opportunity to bring these issues to the attention of the Italian Parliament during a session which it was invited to by the Commissione parlamentare di inchiesta sul femminicidio, nonché su ogni forma di violenza di genere on January 20, 2022. Nonetheless, small steps taken over the years have also made a difference: interest in education and teaching history from a gender perspective has gradually translated into several initiatives. Various educational commissions, made up of researchers and teachers, have promoted and coordinated this activity since the first national conference held in Orvieto in 1991, Trasmissione della storia e tradizione delle donne.
Starting from this first initiative, many training courses have been organized. Because of this commitment, the Società Italiana delle Storiche was accredited by the Ministry of Education for teacher training (ex DM 177/2000) and has obtained a renewal following MIUR Directive No. 170 of 2016. Between
Along with the training courses, the SIS also promotes the planning of valuable teaching materials because of the paucity of women’s and gender history textbooks. The collaboration of the publisher Settenove9 has led to the creation of a new edition of illustrated album Storie nella storia. The series aims to look at history from a different perspective, tell new stories to boys and girls, and relate women’s history to the history of men while valuing subjectivity.
The edition comprises a series of volumes that, in keeping with suggestions from the ministry, are aimed at the last six years of the first education cycle, from grade three of primary school to the third class of the junior secondary school. The project also includes thematic volumes on citizenship, families, and work. The first four albums have already appeared with the subtitle Altri sguardi, nuovi racconti and were written by Elisabetta Serafini (Preistoria), Francesca Minen (Le civiltà dei fiumi), Anna Chiaiese (L’Antichità greca e romana), Isabelle Chabot and Paola Guglielmotti (Medioevo) respectively, and are all illustrated by Caterina Di Paolo.10 All the books have been designed for use in teaching activities as well as in extra-curricular settings and are accompanied by a set of online resources for teachers.
In 2019 Biblink published the volume I secoli delle donne. Fonti e materiali per la didattica della storia, edited by Franca Bellucci, Alessandra F. Celi, and Liviana Gazzetta, aimed at teachers who wish to adopt a gender perspective in teaching history. The editors describe the volume as a sort of “interactive map” composed of thematic essays, sources – primarily written and iconographic – bibliographies, filmographies, and a self-assessment questionnaire.
In addition to these specific interventions in the area of education, the SIS organizes many initiatives every year – conferences, seminars, webinars, and presentations – and an annual summer school that started in 1990 and is currently being coordinated Enrica Asquer. The Society also uses the biannual journal Genesis with the publishing house Viella and the popular science series Storia delle donne e di genere for an educated readership.
This long introduction is intended to highlight how important the topic of education is for the Society in general terms and the complexity of the actions
This rich volume, edited by Maria Lucenti, contributes to raising this awareness and looks at women in formal and informal educational situations through various geographical contexts (western Europe, Canada, and North Africa) also from a comparative perspective as well as at materials (textbooks, children’s literature, and comic books). It also proposes using the past as a compass for present and future choices.
Notes
“Valorizing female subjectivity and the presence of women in history”; “scholarly and cultural patrimony of women historians” (author’s translation). See the statute of the SIS, available at http://www.societadellestoriche.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=804&Itemid=111, last visited on 25/03/2022
For data provided thus far, see Seager (2020, pp. 146–168).
Ibid.
Available at URL https://www.savethechildren.it/cosa-facciamo/pubblicazioni/una-rilevazione-sulla-poverta-educativa-digitale, last visited 25 March 2022.
This was not always the case: in the United States women were pioneers in the field of computing but the trend reversed in the 1980s. Cf. Seager, op. cit.
See the report L’istruzione nei censimenti generali della popolazione, available at URL https://www.istat.it/it/files//2019/03/cap_7.pdf, last visited on 25/03/2022.
Videos of the panel discussion are available on the Società Italiana delle Storiche’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYv5wXGxBT0gvQ_lWlLg_GQ, last visited 25 March 2022.
“Promotion of the history of women and gender relations inside the university”; “disseminating women’s history and gender studies in schools with a view to changing the ways in which knowledge is transmitted and formed and the gender hierarchies underpinning them” (author’s translation). See the SIS statute, cf. supra, n. 1.
The publishing house was founded in 2013 and is the first publishing project in Italy that is entirely devoted to preventing gender discrimination and violence. Its name refers to the year 1979 which was very eventful for the history of women in combating violence against women: the adoption of the UN Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW); the broadcasting on the RAI of the film Processo per stupro; the election of the first Italian woman, Nilde Iotti, to the post of President of the Chamber of Deputies.
The albums came out in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022, respectively.
OECD. (2017). Gender imbalances in the teaching profession. Education Indicators in Focus, 49. Retrieved March 25, 2022, from https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/deliver/54f0ef95-en.pdf?itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fpaper%2F54f0ef95-en&mimeType=pdf
Seager, J. (2020). L’atlante delle donne, Add editore.