Background
Lerner, Gerda was born on April 30, 1920 in Vienna, Austria. Daughter of Robert and Ilona (Neumann) Kronstein. came to the United States, 1939, naturalized, 1943.
(A pioneer in women's studies and long-term activist for w...)
A pioneer in women's studies and long-term activist for women's issues, and a past president of the Organization of American Historians, Gerda Lerner is one of the founders and foremost scholars of Women's History. The Creation of Patriarchy, the first book in her two-volume magnum opus Women and History (1986) received wide review attention and much acclaim, winning the prestigious Joan Kelly Prize of the American Historical Association for the best work on Women's History that year. Ms hailed the book for providing "a grand historical framework that was impossible even to imagine before the enlightenment about women's place in the world provided by her earlier work and that of other feminist scholars." New Directions for Women said it "may well be the most important work in feminist theory to appear in our generation." Patriarchy traced the development of the ideas, symbols, and metaphors by which men institutionalized their domination of women. Now, in The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, the eagerly awaited concluding volume of Women and History, Lerner documents the twelve-hundred-year struggle of women to free their minds from patriarchal thought, to create Women's History, and to achieve a feminist consciousness. In a richly documented narrative filled with inspiring portraits of women, Lerner ranges from the Middle Ages to the late 19th century, tracing several important ways by which women strove for autonomy and equality. One of the most remarkable sections examines over twelve hundred years of feminist Bible criticism. Since objections to women's thinking, teaching, and speaking in public were based on biblical authority-most notably, passages from Genesis and the writings of St. Paul-women returned again and again to these texts, in an attempt to subvert patriarchal dominance and establish their equality with men. This survey of biblical criticism allows Lerner to illustrate her most important insight-
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(Lauded for its contribution to the theory and conceptuali...)
Lauded for its contribution to the theory and conceptualization of the field of women's history and for its sensitivity to the differences of class, ethnicity, race, and culture among women, The Majority Finds Its Past became a classic volume in women's history following its publication in 1979. This edition includes a foreword by Linda K. Kerber, introducing a new generation of readers to Gerda Lerner's considerable body of work and highlighting the importance of the essays in this collection to the development of the field that Lerner helped establish.
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(Sarah Grimké, feminist activist and abolitionist, was one...)
Sarah Grimké, feminist activist and abolitionist, was one of the nineteenth century's most important feminist thinkers. She was the first American woman to write a coherent feminist argument, and her writings and work championing the emancipation of woman still carry a powerful message for contemporary women. In the view of historians, Sarah Grimké has long been overshadowed by her sister, Angelina. In The Feminist Thought of Sarah Grimké, Gerda Lerner corrects this appraisal by placing Sarah's work in the context of the long history of feminist thought and Biblical criticism, showing that she was indeed a major figure and a pioneer. Based on her meticulous study of primary sources--Sarah's writings, letters, and journal entries--Lerner at last gives full credit to Sarah Grimke's contribution to the women's rights movement. As Lerner explains, "That Sarah's work came to us in snippets and fragments, handwritten on paper cut out of a notebook, embedded in the manuscript collection of her brother-in-law, unnoticed and forgotten for over a hundred years is typical of what happened to the intellectual work of women," but it is not indicative of her accomplishments as a major thinker. The Feminist Thought of Sarah Grimké not only revises our appreciation of Sarah Grimké's thought and life, but it represents some of Gerda Lerner's most significant work in documenting women's role in history.
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(A major new work by a leading historian and pioneer in wo...)
A major new work by a leading historian and pioneer in women's studies, The Creation of Patriarchy is a radical reconceptualization of Western civilization that makes gender central to its analysis. Gerda Lerner argues that male dominance over women is not "natural" or biological, but the product of an historical development begun in the second millennium B.C. in the Ancient Near East. As patriarchy as a system of organizing society was established historically, she contends, it can also be ended by the historical process. Focusing on the contradiction between women's central role in creating society and their marginality in the meaning-giving process of definition and interpretation, Lerner explores such fascinating questions as: What can account for women's exclusion from the historical process? What could explain the long delay--more than 3,500 years--in women's coming to consciousness of their own subordinate position? She goes back to the cultures of the earliest known civilizations--those of the ancient Near East--to discover the origins of the major gender metaphors of Western civilization. Using historical, literary, archaeological, and artistic evidence, she then traces the development of these ideas, symbols, and metaphors and their incorporation into Western civilization as the basis of patriarchal gender relations.
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Lerner, Gerda was born on April 30, 1920 in Vienna, Austria. Daughter of Robert and Ilona (Neumann) Kronstein. came to the United States, 1939, naturalized, 1943.
Bachelor of Arts, New School Social Research, 1963; Master of Arts (faculty scholar), Columbia University, 1965; Doctor of Philosophy, Columbia University, 1966.
Lecturer, New School Social Research, New York City, 1963-1965;
assistant professor, Long Island U., 1965-1967;
associate professor, Long Island U., 1967-1968;
member of faculty, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York, 1968-1980. Director Master's Program in Women's History, 1972-1980. Educational director Summer Institute in Women's History, 1976, 79.
Scholar-in-residence Rockefeller Foundation Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy, 1975, 91. Robinson-Edwards professor of history University of Wisconsin, Madison, since 1980, professor emeritus, since 1991. Senior distinguished research professor Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, 1984-1991.
Co-director Fund Improvement Post-Secondary Education grant for Promoting Black Women's History, 1980-1983.
(Lauded for its contribution to the theory and conceptuali...)
(A pioneer in women's studies and long-term activist for w...)
(A major new work by a leading historian and pioneer in wo...)
(Sarah Grimké, feminist activist and abolitionist, was one...)
Fellow Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. Member American Academy Arts., American History Association (Scholarly Distinction award 1992), Organization American Historians (president 1981-1982), American Association of University Professors, Authors League, American Studies Association, Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association.
Married Carl Lerner, October 6, 1941 (deceased). Children: Stephanie, Daniel.