Carolina QuotesMen have been writing the history of the world from their point of view, and according to their sets of values, for over 2000 years. In fact, 4000 years, if you want to be strict about it. Because when writing was invented, it was 4000 years ago and ever since then we have history.” I say, “Well, women have begun to reclaim their history about 150 years ago, and the modern women’s history movement is about 35 years old.” I say, “You give us 4000 years, and we’ll mainstream. I think we need to get a perspective that is larger than our time, larger than our memory, larger than our lifetime.
Gerda Lerner Connected to the Carolinas
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- Speech (1998)
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- 1998
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“Men have been writing the history of the world from their po…” Gerda Lerner. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-DBAADB67AA. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/dbaadb67aa
More from Gerda Lerner
In the final analysis, after a lifetime spent as a writer and as a historian, I must take a stand in my own right. History matters to me, for the many and complex reasons that are documented in this volume, and I feel the need to find a proper form for expressing why it does.
As I began to work on my research priorities, the absence of black women from history appeared to me as an urgent problem to be considered.
Feminist consciousness begins with self-consciousness, an awareness of our separate needs as women; then comes the awareness of female collectivity-the reaching out toward other women, first for mutual support and then to improve our condition. Out of the recognition of communality, there emerges feminist group consciousness a set of ideas by which women autonomously define ourselves in a male-dominated world and seek to substitute our vision and values for those of the patriarchy. The two aspects of my own consciousness, that of the citizen and that of the woman scholar, had finally fused: I am a feminist scholar.