Comments on: And the wieners are. . .

By: Gender Matters: My Lesson for Women’s History Month : Kelly J Baker

Gender Matters: My Lesson for Women’s History Month : Kelly J Baker — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:54:28 +0000

[...] I think President Obama had it covered. (Historiann, the better blogger, already commented on the sausage fest that is the National Endowment Humanities Medal winners.) Timely, I am [...]

By: Perpetua

Perpetua — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:47:15 +0000

Joan Cadden. Amen, Bardiac- Caroline Walker Bynum. Natalie Davis. Mary Ryan. Judith Walkowitz. Olivia Remie Constable.

(sorry if this double-posts – my computer is malfunctioning this morning)

By: Bardiac

Bardiac — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 13:12:45 +0000

Carolyn Walker Bynum.

By: Nikki

Nikki — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:59:27 +0000

Barbara Weinstein. Mary Kay Vaughan. Asuncion Lavrin.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:37:34 +0000

I think there’s one: Annette Gordon-Reed, who was the lone female honoree last year. There are a lot of other historians on the list, especially in the Bush years, but they’re all conservative historians like Gertrude Himmelfarb, Mary Lefkowitz Horowitz, and Elizabeth Fox Genovese.

Upon reflection, I would put EFG in with AGR, although I think their politics were probably quite divergent. Still: both do/did women’s history! (Although, guess which one wrote a book called–seriously–Feminism is Not the Story of My Life?)

And, how could I have neglected to mention Lynn Hunt and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, two important mentors of mine at Penn?

By: shaz

shaz — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 04:08:11 +0000

Thanks for the h/t, Historiann BFF. Anyone up for tallying how many of those winners do feminist history and/or women’s history?

What a lovely start to Women’s History month.

By: Tony Grafton

Tony Grafton — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 03:08:46 +0000

In addition to those already mentioned, who included a number of the people I admire most in the world, there’s Wendy Doniger, Hanna Holborn Gray (my undergraduate mentor, before she rose to glory), Lynn Hunt, Barbara Metcalf, Pauline Maier, Svetlana Alpers–and the beat could go for days.

Oy.

By: Historiann

Historiann — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:36:09 +0000

Drew Faust! Jill Lepore! Jacqueline Jones! Debra Gray White! Joan Scott! Linda Gordon! Judith Bennett! Vicki Ruiz! Estelle Freedman!

Jeezus frack. It’s not even hard to extend the lists the rest of you have started.

A number of you have already listed folks I would have listed, too. You commenters are awesome. I love all of your suggestions.

(I have to giggle at Tony Grafton’s second comment. I think we’d know which he found “pathetic,” my comments or the list of NEH honorees! But I appreciate attention to detail, as always.)

This announcement of the 2010 honorees comes at an interesting moment, when Susan (above) and I have just come away from this conference in Texas in which bossy, opinionated women historians completely dominated the discussions. It’s so interesting when the world outside actually starts to resemble the world I inhabit in my head . . . and such a rude remembrance when we are instructed about the way the world still works.

As we at the Centering Families in the Atlantic World conference became fond of saying this week, “patriarchal equilibrium, everyone?”

By: HistoryMaven

HistoryMaven — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 02:13:36 +0000

Oy. I’m reading this after (1) being really upset about my home state of Ohio (&^%$ Kasich and SB5), and (2) a day of updating and revising encyclopedia entries on a bunch of male historians. I may have to defend my decision to check out the archives to see what their wives left behind, but I went ahead and did it. No surprise–scholars in their own right, working in preservation, Progressive reforms, etc.–one even wrote a script on American history for a film in 1924!

So I guess I’m wondering what it means to keep awarding the individual when it’s a lot more complicated. When one of the winners on this list retired, his long-time research assistant (ABD) lost her job.

What would happen if universities could win humanities medals?

But I’ll surrender and offer my list: if she were still alive, Caroline Ware; Linda Kerber; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich; Natalie Zemon Davis; Gerda Lerner. …

By: Janice

Janice — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 01:45:48 +0000

I second/third/seventh Natalie Davis who is an amazing, world-renowned scholar. But to add to that, there are hundreds more of absolutely outstanding women scholars who I’m sure are just not seen when these lists are drawn up. The invisible status of women of a certain age probably helps in that, doesn’t it?

Just off the top of my head and focusing on hitorians, why not Linda Colley, Ruth Mazo Karras, Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Susan Karant-Nunn, Claire Potter, Linda Levy Peck, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Erika Rappaport. . . ?

There are so many amazing women out there whose names don’t ever come up for awards and recognition, not because they lack anything in terms of quality, but because women’s names don’t come up!