Today, I began my first attempt at International Academic Writing Month (see here for more info). As you can see by the newly empty counter, I've resolved to write 8,000 words this month. I'm including footnotes in that. Brand new article project. I have a few documents that didn't make it into the book that are pretty interesting, but I'm not sure if there's enough to make an article. But I'm going to find out this month.
My first task was to compile a bibliography on the subject of women doing violence to men. Two hours of searching turned up pretty much what I'd suspected: that there was plenty of work on men doing violence to women, but little the other way around,** especially wives physically attacking their husbands. This is both good (mineminemine!) and bad (dear god, will I have enough to go on here?).
In any case, I managed to compile a bibliography that is about 300 words long. It's not going into my word count, but it's a start.
**If you know different, please let me know!
6 comments:
Dammit! I wrote most of an article... on the last two days of October. I should have saved it :-) It was old rehash stuff anyway. Good luck with yours; it sounds as if you have some good veins to mine.
Early in my career, I published an article on women accused of violence against men in 17th C New England. It was a vehicle for exploring why men's violence against women remained largely invisible in court records, whereas the extraordinary cases of women hitting men were immediately seized upon and both the female aggressor and the weak male victim were disciplined by the courts. It's available in a collection of essays called _Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American History_, ed. Michael Bellesiles, and is called "'Shee Would Bump his Mouldy Britch'..."
As of 1997, when I put that article to bed, there wasn't much literature on domestic violence of any kind, but it has exploded in the past decade in American history. I don't think there's much more out there on female-on-male domestic violence, however.
you've looked at Sara Butler's book on England, yes? (I think we've had this conversation before...) There isn't much, mind you.
Thanks for the suggestions, all! Historiann, I'll look for that article -- I don't think I can limit myself to medieval sources, since the topic is so little-explored. NK, I've looked at Butler. It's a really good book, I think, but I'll have to go back and read more closely for exactly what I need. I don't work on England, but that seems to be where most of the work is -- due to the same factors that make work on English women in general so much more prevalent.
8,000 words. Are there 8 days in November now?
ID
I don't know much early modern evidence of women beating men, aside from the charivari stuff that Underdown talks about in the "Taming of the Scold" article. . . it's obviously the women beating men that makes people anxious.
Can't wait for the article.
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