ABSTRACT
In spite of the great differences in the ways in which women’s history is made and studied, there nevertheless appears to be a great deal of common ground. Time and again there is that moment of recognition, that feeling that all women are involved in the same things. Great women leaders from the past make us feel proud; we admire their fight for equal rights and we feel that we recognise something in their struggle with the contradictions in their lives. Do we not all feel ambivalent about the conflict between what is expected of us as women and what we really want in society? Feelings of identity, however, depend on whom it is that we study, for we are also quite capable of feeling appalled by women in whom we do not recognise anything of ourselves, women with whom we cannot possibly identify and whom we do not really understand at all. Apart from the identification with great women another kind of identification is possible. Many of us feel great involvement with unknown women, women who have disappeared nameless in history. No matter how quantitative our approach to them may be, there are moments at which all those anonymous women emerge from obscurity. This may be when we study an old manuscript, when we hold an old garment or when we read a statement from a contemporary author. Almost all women historians involved in studying women from the past are familiar with these moments of identification, disapproval or pride. Their research can be seen as a passionate exploration and a desire to increase knowledge.
