Women's History and Genealogy

Following the discussion I began earlier on academia and Family History
etc now if I ask for comments on the subject of "what Family History and
Genealogy can tell us about Women's History" and "do women research
Family history in a different way to men" what would you say please!!??

Lesley Robertson...

How can you tell whether the difference in approach to the research between
two people is due to their gender rather than their previous education,
fields of interest, character or anything else? For example, take a
scottish scientist and an english journalist - and then try and tell me that
the differences in their approach to genealogy are due to the fact that one
is female and the other is male.
It's too subjective.
Lesley Robertson

Jeff...

Agreed. Just on the experience of this NG it would be easy
to identify obviously excellent female researchers.

Equally easy to do the reverse! (esp if one includes the
classic case, thankfully no longer posting here)

Fenny...

I can't speak for anyone else, but my father's & maternal grandmother's
family names are not common, while my mother's side is made up of names
that are found all over the country. The research required for each
circumstance is completely different.

Whether I am going about things in a "male" or "female" way is something I
have no idea about. I just follow the leads I find as they come up.

Discussing my findings with each of my parents is also different, but that
is mostly down to what they know, or believe, or have been told about
their family histories.

myths...

My most closely related cousin doing research into family history is
male. I haven't noticed much intrinsic difference between his methods
and mine - though we look at different records, it's mostly because we
trust each other's work and don't repeat it.

I doubt it is significant that he does not read this group/list