Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:01:46.492Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Never Mind Patriarchy, But Do Mention the War! Reflections on the Absence of Gender History from the House of European History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2020

Ann Ighe
Ann Ighe*
Affiliation:
Department of Economy and Society, University of Gothenburg, Box 625, 405 30Gothenburg, Sweden. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the absence of a consistent longer historical narrative about gender relations in European history, as the latter is presented in the recently opened House of European History in Brussels and, to some extent, in the European Parliament’s visitor centre, Parlamentarium. It is argued that gender equality is presented as part of a modern European identity, but that it is a phenomenon that isn’t given such a problematic history as many other phenomena – gender inequality is not construed as a part of European history in the way that, for example, totalitarianism and colonialism are. Gender inequality isn’t seen and constructed as a previous challenge to European unification and integration, and therefore gender equality can’t be perceived as a solution to a relevant problem in the narratives at hand.

Type
Focus: Thinking Beyond Europe’s Cultural Borders
Information
European Review , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , June 2020 , pp. 365 - 377
Copyright
© 2020 Academia Europaea

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Guest Editor: Mats Andrén

References

Delanty, G (1995) Inventing Europe. Idea, Identity, Reality. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Earles, K (2014) Gender equality identity in Europe: the role of the EU. In MacDonald, DB and DeCoste, M (eds) Europe in its Own Eyes, Europe in the Eyes of the Other. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.Google Scholar
Elman, A (2007) Sexual Equality in an Integrated Europe: Virtual Equality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
European Parliament (2008) Conceptual Basis for a House of European History. www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/dv/745/745721/745721_en.pdf (accessed last 13 September 2019).Google Scholar
Jareš, J (2017) The House of European History: In search of a common history and its future. In Cultures of History Forum (12 October 2017), URL: www.culture-of-history.uni-jena.de//exhibitions/european-union/the-house-of-european-history-in-search-of-a-common-history-and-its-future/ (accessed last 13 September 2019).Google Scholar
Guerot, U (2017) Det nya inbördeskriget. Ett öppet Europa och dess fiender. Göteborg: Daidalos.Google Scholar
Kaiser, W, Krankenhagen, S and Poehls, K (2014) Exhibiting Europe in Museums. New York: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Lähdesmäki, T (2017) Narrativity and intertextuality in the making of a shared European memory. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 25(1), 57–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDonald, DB and DeCoste, M (eds) (2014) Europe in its Own Eyes, Europe in the Eyes of the Other. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.Google Scholar
Pakier, M and Stråth, B (2010) A European Memory? Contested Histories and Politics of Remembrance. New York: Berghahn.Google Scholar
Pearson, C (2013) EUtopia? The European Union and the Parlamentarium in Brussels. City 17(5), 636–653.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Platform of European Memory and Conscience (2017) The House of European History. Report on the Permanent Exhibition. Retrieved from: http://mnemosyne.ee/en/a-critical-report-on-the-house-of-european-history-in-brussels/ (accessed last 13 September 2019).Google Scholar
Settele, V (2015) Including exclusion in European memory? Politics of remembrance at the House of European History. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 23(3), 405–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Economic Forum (2017) The Global Gender Gap Report 2017. World Economic Forum. www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-gender-gap-report-2017 (accessed last 13 September 2019).Google Scholar