Nancy Janovicek

The Dangers of Complacency: women’s history/gender history in Canada in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACT Our contribution will focus on some of the intellectual developments occurring in gender history/women’s history in Canada in the twenty-first century, while also drawing attention to the decline of women’s history outside of the university environment. In the mid-1990s there was a vigorous debate over the merits of gender history vs. women’s history. Over the past decade, these debates have quieted along with a growing recognition that gender history and women’s history have many common goals. Today, biography and recent history (post 1945) figure among the strong trends in Canadian women’s and gender historiography. But the impact of government funding cuts under the previous decade-long Conservative government has seriously handicapped federal institutions such as museums and archives. So far, the current Liberal administration is moving in a more positive direction.