Historical Demography and the Evolution of Women's History

Population History and Historical Demography

Historical demography is essentially a quantitative history of population censuses. First sorted by modern states, these records have allowed us to know, with a good approximation, the number of inhabitants of different regions and periods of demographic growth or recession. Subsequently, the use of parish records for many areas has revealed the evolution of key variables such as natality, mortality, and nuptiality, allowing for the evaluation of life expectancy and the creation of population pyramids.

From here, historical demography has proposed a series of new items which have become classics, such as:

• Fertility rates
• Birth-control systems
• Age groups
• The relationship between ordinary and catastrophic mortality

A problem that has gained autonomy is spatial mobility—that is, the history of emigration, both forced and especially voluntary. In this area, counting immigrants gives way to their classification according to their origin, destination, sex, age, or social status, and other more complex issues.

The History of Women

Until very recently, history was essentially a story of men with a sprinkling of outstanding women. Facing this situation, the feminist movement that started in the 1960s has claimed the need for a specific history of women as an indispensable tool for overcoming their subordinate situation in a patriarchal society. In the words of a leading theoretician, Gerda Lerner, "the history of women is essential and basic to achieve women's emancipation."

From this moment, historiography has hosted a new object of study, which relies on some undeniable premises: the group of women has some common ties regardless of class divides, race, or the specific social formation. Supporting those foundations, Anglo-Saxon historiography first, and then French and Italian, began a series of investigations that greatly expanded the thematic field.

Gender History and Social Stratification

Joan Kelly coined the term gender history to define a cultural concept, rather than a biological one, which would involve a radical inequality of women in economic life, in political practice, and in social stratification. This would long predate other inequalities determined by ethnicity or social class. Subsequently, historiography has preferred an analysis that takes into consideration the dialectic of sex and gender on one hand, and ethnicity or social class on the other. Thus was born not just a story of women, but a history of women.

This field has addressed issues such as:

• Social division of labor at home
• Women's work in agriculture or industry
• Strictly feminine gender archetypes imposed on women
• Legal discrimination against women

Finally, one must refer to the influence of cultural and social history of women practiced by historian Natalie Zemon Davis, who has studied the image of women that is imposed on men.