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January 4, 2013

Pioneering Feminist Historian Gerda Lerner Dies at 92 
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The pioneering feminist historian Gerda Lerner has died at the age of
92. Lerner published multiple books on women and feminism over a
decades-long academic career. She is widely credited with having earned
recognition for women's history as a valid academic pursuit. In an
interview with the author Elizabeth Debold, Lerner discussed her early
days at Sarah Lawrence College, where she established the first women's
history graduate program in the early 1970s.

Gerda Lerner: "When I proposed to teach a course in women's history,
they said, 'Who needs it? We're a women's college. Everything we do is
women's history.' And I said, 'Not at all, because you're always telling
it from the male point of view, from the male gaze at women.' And the
real story is that despite these hundreds of years of discrimination and
oblivion, women persisted that they have a story. And we had to win
every step of the way. We had to win the right to tell this. So, rule
number one, nobody gave us anything."

Lerner died Wednesday in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

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