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Myth and Materiality in a Woman's World: Shetland 1800-2000

Hardback

Main Details

Title Myth and Materiality in a Woman's World: Shetland 1800-2000
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Lynn Abrams
SeriesGender in History
Physical Properties
Format:Hardback
Pages:264
Dimensions(mm): Height 216,Width 138
Category/GenreBritish and Irish History
ISBN/Barcode 9780719065927
ClassificationsDewey:941.1081
Audience
Tertiary Education (US: College)
Professional & Vocational

Publishing Details

Publisher Manchester University Press
Imprint Manchester University Press
Publication Date 10 November 2005
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Shetland has a history unique in Europe, for over the past two centuries it was a place where women dominated the family, economy, and the cultural imagination. Women ran households and crofts without men. They maintained families and communities because men were absent. And they constructed in their minds an identity of themselves as 'liberated' long before organised feminism was invented. And yet, Shetland is a place which was made by the most masculine of societies - those of the Picts, Scots and above all the Vikings - and its contemporary identity still draws on the heroic exploits and sagas of medieval Norsemen. This book examines how against this tradition Shetland became a female place, and offers answers as to how, in this most isolated island community, the inhabitants transgressed and reversed their traditional gender roles. Reconstructing this 'woman's world' from fragments of cultural experience captured in written and oral sources, this book will appeal to scholars in the fields of social and cultural history, social anthropology, gender and women's studies. -- .

Author Biography

Lynn Abrams is Professor of Gender History at the University of Glasgow