Free summaries
Gender & Sexuality Studies — page 2
136 public-domain gender & sexuality studies books, summarised. Page 2 of 3.
Women of Modern France (Illustrated): Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 7 (of 10)
Hugo P. (Hugo Paul) Thieme
French women have historically balanced intense emotionality with a calculating, mathematical approach to life, using both to exert a profound and often underestimated influence on the nation’s social and political trajectory.
Women of the Romance Countries
John R. (John Robert) Effinger
The influence of women on history is an elusive, powerful force that defies simple categorization. This survey explores the multifaceted roles—both heroic and scandalous—played by women across the evolving tapestry of Italy and Spain.
Girls and Women
Harriet E. (Harriet Eliza) Paine
This guide for young women balances the pursuit of individual ambition with the demands of domestic duty, offering a steady, thoughtful compass for navigating the transitions of nineteenth-century life.
Sex in Education
Edward H. (Edward Hammond) Clarke
This investigation into nineteenth-century school life argues that forcing girls to follow a masculine educational regimen ignores fundamental biological differences, resulting in permanent physical and mental injury. It serves as a stark historical artifact of the debates surrounding women’s intellectual and…
Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women: On the Various Duties of Life, Physical, Intellectual, And
G. S. (George Sumner) Weaver
A broadside against mid-nineteenth-century social expectations, this treatise calls upon young women to reject superficial fashion, embrace physical vitality, and cultivate an active, self-directed moral and intellectual life.
The Modern Woman's Rights Movement: A Historical Survey
Käthe Schirmacher
The struggle for female emancipation is a global conflict against the ancient law of might, driven by the enduring truth that human nature fundamentally resists oppression.
Sex and Society: Studies in the Social Psychology of Sex
William Isaac Thomas
Differences in physical constitution and movement between men and women shape every layer of human culture, driving social structure, economic roles, and mental life.
Sex-Love, and Its Place in a Free Society
Edward Carpenter
A vision of personal liberation and cultural renewal that seeks to rescue human passion from legalism, shame, and commercial degradation.
The Man-Made World
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A century of history has been mistaken for human nature because half the race was forbidden to shape it.
Woman's Life in Colonial Days
Carl Holliday
This collection captures the everyday pulse of early American life, offering an intimate, ground-level view of the women who sustained the colonial home through hardship, labor, and evolving societal expectations.
Fenelon's Treatise on the Education of Daughters: Translated from the French, and Adapted to English Readers
François de Salignac de La Mothe- Fénelon
True education is not merely a matter of academic rigor, but the gentle, deliberate cultivation of a child's soul toward virtue, practicality, and lasting independence.
Woman and Labour
Olive Schreiner
The labor of women defines the history of civilization, yet modernity has stripped away her productive roles, leaving a crisis of dependency that threatens both the future of the race and the character of men.
Motherhood and the Relationships of the Sexes
C. Gasquoine (Catherine Gasquoine) Hartley
Safeguarding the next generation requires honoring the physical realities of reproduction and placing the responsibilities of motherhood at the very center of human society.
Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: With Reflections on Female Conduct, in the More Important Duties of Life
Mary Wollstonecraft
A rational heart must govern the instincts of youth, or vanity and affectation will inevitably poison the mind.
The Woman Who Toils: Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls
Van Vorst, John, Mrs.
Under disguises and behind heavy factory doors, two upper-class sisters step directly onto the assembly lines of Gilded Age America to witness the human price of industrial progress.
The Nervous Housewife
Abraham Myerson
Behind the closed doors of early twentieth-century domestic life lies a quiet epidemic of physical and emotional exhaustion, where the daily grind of homemaking slowly dismantles a woman's vitality and sense of self.
Increasing Personal Efficiency
Russell H. Conwell
To unlock the fullest potential of your mind and character, you must learn to rely on your own disciplined efforts rather than waiting for external opportunities to arrive.
The women of the Caesars
Guglielmo Ferrero
The lives of the Roman empresses were not merely tales of intrigue, but a series of tragedies shaped by the collision of ancient tradition and the seductive, destabilizing power of imperial wealth.
Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"
William Worthington Fowler
The history of the American frontier is often written as a masculine saga of statecraft and conquest, but the true foundations of the republic were laid by the hands, hearts, and endurance of its pioneer mothers.
The Living Present
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
This firsthand account chronicles how the crucible of the First World War shattered the rigid, sheltered lives of French women, forcing them into a new, independent reality that permanently altered their role in society.
Woman
Anthony M. (Anthony Mario) Ludovici
This polemic argues that modern industrial society has profoundly damaged the natural instincts of women, leading to a state of widespread cultural and biological decay. It seeks to re-evaluate femininity by challenging contemporary progressive ideals.
Priests, Women, and Families
Jules Michelet
The quiet sanctity of the domestic hearth is a battleground, where the intimate influence of the priest clashes with the natural bonds of the family.
Woman in Modern Society
Earl Barnes
Evolution drives human development toward specialized, complementary halves, making the search for biological and personal unity the core shaping force of civilization.
Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century
Alice Clark
Centuries of English economic transformation trace a profound shift: as home-centered industries yielded to modern capitalism, women were systematically excluded from productive enterprise and financial independence.
The Homosexual Neurosis
Wilhelm Stekel
Early psychoanalytic practice meets the clinical study of sexual variance in this ambitious work, which attempts to map the human psyche through detailed case histories of compulsion, family conflict, and repressed desires.
The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental Women
Elizabeth Cooper
A secluded world of domestic tradition, religious devotion, and quiet strength yields its secrets as an observant Western traveller steps past the veiled thresholds of early twentieth-century Eastern homes.
Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates
Helen Kendrick Johnson
A conservative critique of the nineteenth-century suffrage movement, this work argues that the preservation of the American Republic depends upon maintaining distinct, non-overlapping roles for men and women within the home and the state.
Women of India
Otto Rothfield
Women of India explores the diverse social landscapes, domestic traditions, and evolving roles of women across the Indian subcontinent at the turn of the twentieth century. It offers a detailed, observational study of how cultural identity shapes the lives of women from varied castes and classes.
Love and Marriage
Ellen Key
Love is the moral ground of human connection, yet centuries of rigid tradition have stifled its potential. This work argues that society must abandon outdated legal constraints to foster an era of genuine, elective intimacy.
Mobilizing Woman-Power
Harriot Stanton Blatch
Women served as the unswerving second line of defense during the Great War, proving that the mobilization of their labor and intellect was essential to the survival of civilization itself.
The Women of the Arabs
Henry Harris Jessup
The threshold of a home weeps forty days when a girl is born, a proverb reflecting the heavy burdens and societal indifference that define the lives of women in nineteenth-century Syria.
Women of England
Bartlett Burleigh James
This historical survey traces the evolving status, labor, and domestic lives of British women from prehistoric times to the dawn of the twentieth century. It examines how shifting social, religious, and economic structures redefined the feminine experience.
Vocational Guidance for Girls
Marguerite Dickson
Vocational guidance is framed here as a vital, necessary bridge between a girl’s formal schooling and her ultimate, inevitable role as a homemaker. It argues that modern life requires domestic labor to be elevated through scientific study.
Women in English Life from Mediæval to Modern Times, Vol. I
Georgiana Hill
This historical survey traces the evolving roles of English women from the Saxon era through the eighteenth century, examining how social, religious, and political forces shaped their domestic and public lives.
A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil
Jane Addams
A profound awakening to the systemic exploitation of young women, this work examines how urban industrial life creates the traps that ensnare the vulnerable. It remains a foundational text in the history of social reform.
Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, and As It Should Be: A Plea for Reform
Annie Besant
A sharp, unyielding legal critique exposes marriage in Victorian Britain as a system of institutionalized servitude, urging legislative reform and voluntary partnerships grounded in strict equality.
Women and War Work
Helen Miller Moyes
The total mobilization of a nation requires more than armies; it demands the full, deliberate participation of every citizen. This account captures the transformation of British society through the lens of women's wartime service.
Women of America: Woman: In all ages and in all countries Vol. 10 (of 10)
John Ruse Larus
The history of a nation is, at its core, the history of its women. This sweeping survey examines the shifting status of women across the Americas, tracing their evolution from the original inhabitants through the colonial era and into the dawn of the twentieth century.
Women's Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement
Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, Dame
This chronicle traces the arduous, decades-long progression of the British movement to secure the parliamentary vote for women. It serves as both a historical record and a reasoned defense of democratic inclusion.
Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America
Jane M. (Jane Marie) Bancroft
This historical study advocates for the revival of a formal female diaconate within the American church, drawing inspiration from European models of organized, compassionate service to the urban poor.
Female Warriors, Vol. 2 (of 2): Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era
Ellen C. (Ellen Creathorne) Clayton
From eighteenth-century European battlefields to the French Revolution and Asian sieges, women have repeatedly donned uniform, wielded sabres, and commanded armies across global history.
The Sexes in Science and History: An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man
Eliza Burt Gamble
A rigorous re-examination of evolutionary theory and human history reveals that the belief in woman’s natural inferiority is a cultural myth forged by male dominance rather than a fact of biology.
Treatise on the Diseases of Women
Lydia Estes Pinkham
A straightforward guide to Victorian women’s health turns direct physiological instruction into a passionate pitch for proprietary patent medicines.
The True Woman: A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. Ballot
Justin D. (Justin Dewey) Fulton
A woman’s primary destiny lies within the sanctuary of the Christian home, where her natural graces offer spiritual balance to man’s public toil.
The Galaxy, March, 1877: Vol. XXIII, No. 3
Various
A lively slice of Victorian public discourse, this mid-1870s periodical issue pairs sharp political and social commentary with serialized fiction, literary criticism, and scientific oddities.
The Fraud of Feminism
Ernest Belfort Bax
The modern age is defined by a deep-seated, systemic bias in favor of women, a reality obscured by a pervasive movement that thrives on logical contradiction and the tactical use of manufactured sentiment.
Marriage in Free Society
Edward Carpenter
Marriage in Free Society investigates the profound disconnect between the "real Marriage" of the soul and the rigid, property-based legal institution of Victorian life. It argues that true intimacy requires equality, freedom, and the dismantling of the patriarchal "oak-and-ivy" dynamic.
Gardening for women
Wolseley, Frances Garnet, Viscountess
A practical visionary outlines the blueprints, practical challenges, and global training networks for turning horticulture into a respected, self-sustaining career for early twentieth-century women.