Waving goodbye to history? A response to Keith Jenkins

In response to Purvis and Weatherill, Penelope Corfield reiterates her cont ention that some women's history is broadening fruitfully into gender histo ry. It is ironic that some feminists should express disapproval of the tren d and the nomenclature, when modern feminism itself pioneered the identific ation of 'gender' as a social construct. But, whatever the polemics, the qu est for a separate 'herstory' has been quietly abandoned. Feminist though i s now notably multi-faceted and the definition of who is or is not a femini st is highly subjective. Hence it is not plausible to subdivide the field i nto Purvis and Weatherill's putative categories of feminist history (best), women's history (generally good) and gender history (contaminated). Furthe rmore, knowledge in general is too pluralistic and interactive to be split into a separate malestream (bad) and femalestream (good). Hence and ecumeni cal gender history now analyses both women's history and/or men's history, and the changing relationship between them.