Selection from the papers presented at the International Conference on Women's History held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands from 24-27 March 1986. At this conference over a hundred lectures and workshops were presented by women from about thirty different countries. The articles include: Politics, identification and the writing of women's history / Selma Leydesdorff : Maria Winkelmann: the clash between guild traditions and professional science / Londa Schiebinger : Female education and spiritual life: the case of ministers' daughters / Lucia Bergamasco : Brick stamps and women's economic opportunities in Imperial Rome / Päivi Setälä : Witchcraft in the Northern Netherlands / Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra : Emancipated integration or integrated emancipation: the case of post-revolutionary Yugoslavia / Lydia Sklevicky : Female culture, pacifism and feminism: women strike for peace / Amy Swerdlow : Gossipy letters in the context of international feminism / Mineke Bosch : The origins of feminism in Egypt / Margot Badran : Female aspiration and male ideology: school-teaching in nineteenth-century New England / Jo Anne Preston : 'Embittered, sexless or homosexual': attacks on spinster teachers 1918-39 / Alison Oram : Women's psychological disorders in seventeenth-century Britain / Anne Laurence : Pygmalion, or the image of women in mediaval literature / Annelies van Gijsen : Whores and gossips: sexual reputation in London 1770-1825 / Anna Clark : On the origins of Dutch women's historiography: three portraits (1840-1970) [Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint (1812-1886), Johanna Naber (1859-1941), Sini Greup-Roldanus (1893-1984)] / Maria Grever : A paradigm of androcentric historiography: [Jules] Michelet's 'Les femmes de la Révolution' / Helga Grubitzsch : Ethnocentrism in the study of Algerian women / Willy Jansen.
The essays in this collection explore new perspectives on the histories of bodies and sexualities, but also on issues that are allready the subject of major historiographical debates. The author emphasizes the historical distinctiveness of ideas about bodies, sex and desires and demonstrates the notable continuities that have existed over time. The essays draw attention to how ideas about sexuality, bodies and desires can be traced back through older knowledge and thinking.