Women of the Past, Issues for the Present

Nina Javette Koefoed and Rubina Raja Women of the Past, Issues for the Present Why, one might well ask, do we need a series on women, and even women of the past, after decades of gender studies? The answer is more obvious than one would think: while circumstances for women have continuously improved in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we have seen immense steps backwards on numerous fronts over the last years. Currently reproductive rights are challenged globally. The right to free abortion is just one of the basic women’s rights under pressure and withdrawn in several European countries as well as in the United States. An atrocious war is ongoing in Europe as well as armed conflicts in numerous other places across the world, and as we know wars make life insecure, not only for the ones fighting it on the front lines, but also for the ones, often women, who stay behind or flee. Right now millions are suffering from these conflicts, suffering from displacement, hunger, and the lack of basic daily essentials to upkeep life and safety for themselves and their families.1 The tough Covid-19 lockdowns and their repercussions across the world have exposed the fact — which we all had tried to forget or not to face — that women are still the primary housekeepers and child caretakers in most families across the world, the ones who spend their time — whether they also have a job or not — taking care of the family’s needs, even in First World countries. Covid-19 forced women, in a split second, across the globe to revert to taking even more care of their families, to the detriment of their careers and even the possibility of 1 <https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/womenrefugees-and-migrants> [accessed 10 September 2023]. earning a very basic income.2 The ways in which women have taken a hit in all aspects of life which pertain to financial security and independence will be felt for much longer than the years that the pandemic lasted. Pension payments have been impacted for many and will have a long-term effect, and employee productivity has dropped because focus was needed in other areas of life, and this will be evident from women’s CVs for years to come.3 There will be no way of closing the gap. The only thing we can do is to face the gap and try to be honest about it. While not being life threatening, for female academics at least, the situation has been and still is severe. Therefore, it is highly relevant to address women, academia, and the relationship between societal factors and women’s academic careers in the wake of Covid-19. While not the only problem, the pandemic has exposed and brought to the forefront existing tendencies and challenges. As academics we are measured on productivity, on creativity, on abilities to attract external funding, and on teaching skills — we are measured by a range of output. And we are measured on exactly the same parameters as our male colleagues. Tellingly, in the process of pulling together this volume, we have heard many stories about job losses — by women and men — increasing work pressure, increase in workload on the home front, and 2 Martucci 2023 argues that especially mothers who were academics did most of the childcare because of their flexible work hours, resulting in a negative experience with both family identity and work identity. 3 Yildirim and Eslen‐Ziya 2021. Nina Javette Koefoed ([email protected]) Aarhus University. Nina Javette Koefoed is Professor of History and Head of Department of History and Classical Studies. Koefoed has published widely on the history of marriage, sexuality, parenting, and households in early modern Denmark with a focus on gender and religion. She has further published on citizenship and suffrage in the nineteenth century. Rubina Raja ([email protected]) Aarhus University. Rubina Raja is Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art and centre director of the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for Urban Network Evolutions. Raja has published widely on the Mediterranean region and the Near East from the Hellenistic to the early medieval periods with a focus on urban societies, iconography, art, and religious life. Women of the Past, Issues for the Present, ed. by Nina Javette Koefoed and Rubina Raja, WoP, 1 (Turnhout, 2024), pp. 13–24. FHG DOI 10.1484/M.WOP-EB.5.137316