Most American academics start their careers researching something small and obscure, and then—if they’re lucky—work their way up to topics of larger import and scope. Only at the pinnacle of their profession are they permitted to muse on sweeping themes.
The midwife kept a record of a regular life filled with such “women’s work” as delivering babies, bartering goods, and doing laundry. But women who “made history” in the standard sense were different: To attain anything recognizable to historians as status or influence, women have had to “misbehave.” And misbehavior brought danger and, frequently, oblivion. We remember only those who successfully “negotiated the boundary between invisibility and scandal.”
