COMMUNICATION AND GENDER IDENTITY IN THE HISTORY OF WOMEN: FEMALE CONTRIBUTIONS AS A SIGN OF EMANCIPATION
COMMUNICATION AND GENDER IDENTITY IN THE HISTORY OF WOMEN: FEMALE CONTRIBUTIONS AS A SIGN OF EMANCIPATION

Summary/Abstract: Since ancient times, except in rare cases, women have never had social, political or economical relevant roles. They gradually started to improve their self-awareness by taking actively part in public life, till to the feminist movement in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century and then finally to all gender studies called “women's studies”. After these first studies, new researches proliferate as they were a communication source about both private and public women history. This branch has been fully improved: in England this topic has been rapidly spread since it has been heavily influenced by a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach; in France the historiography school of the “Annales” magazine gave a great contribution, in Germany and Austria Gisela Bock started many researches cooperating with “Man” magazine. This is the origin of gender history, the history of both genders which identify themselves by relating each other. Through contemporary historiography it has been possible to start new studies and think about the communication-relationship in combination with the diversity of genders. My research is focused in Italy, where there were many lines of collection research. We talk about collection such as: “History of Women” conducted by Antonella Cagnolati, “Social history of education” directed by Carmela Hatched and Simonetta Ulivieri. These publications offer pedagogical insights about women's stories in the field of Social History, the History of Pedagogy and the History of Education. These researches didn’t show any more a static image of women, but highlight a great improvement: women are active both in private and in public life. Furthermore they acknowledge evident historical changes in the status of women and in the relationship between women and men. These issues - in ancient time as well as medieval, modern and contemporary era – are significant indicators of more general changes in “culture” from a figurative and anthropology point of view and about concept and value systems.

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