| Most scholars agree that women have been short-changed in United States history textbooks. |
| Because a woman has never been a US president or a commander, |
| a major commander, anyway, in a war, |
| these scholars argue that historians have overlooked or ignored the contributions women have made to US history. |
| In recent years, though, a new view of women's history has emerged. |
| It's called "women-centered history" |
| and it's forcing historians to re-interpret traditional pictures of key historical events. |
| Now they're looking at ways women contributed to history "behind the scenes" if you will. |
| For instance, though they didn't fight in wars or occupy the political stage, |
| women formed organizations in places such as churches and clubs, |
| where they discussed ideas and learned skills |
| that would later lead to their emergence in the historical spotlight. |
| Um, Jane Addams is one good example of this. |
| She founded houses for poor people in Chicago, |
| and was an original member of the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU. |
| She lobbied government for the rights of workers and women, |
| which paid off in 1920 when women received the right to vote. |
| In 19... 1931, |
| she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. |
| Women-centered history starts with the premise that females played an important part in shaping US history, |
| and that the gender is a worthy historical distinction. |
| This perspective is different from past models of studying women in US history. |
| One of the first models is called the contribution approach, |
| which concedes that men played the leading historical roles |
| but demonstrates that women were vital "supporting actresses" |
| at every landmark historical event. |
| While this was certainly true, the contribution approach has been criticized |
| because it highlights only the bravest and brightest women, |
| and it also neglects the social role of women in everyday family life. |
| Another... a second historical model is called the victim approach, |
| which emphasizes how men have oppressed women throughout history. |
| Um, although obviously true, it tells only part of the story. |
| It also tends toward emotionalism, overly dramatizing the women's plight. |
| Critics charge that under the victim approach, |
| the only women who stand out are the unusual ones, |
| such as the famous Salem "witches" of the seventeenth century. |
| The rest are weak, helpless victims of a male-dominated world. |
| Women-centered history tends to balance the contribution and victim approaches. |
| Instead of asking, "How have women helped men?" or "how have men oppressed women?", |
| it asks simply, "What have women done?" |
| Now, in one sense it still gives only a partial picture, |
| because it examines history from only one perspective, |
| but in another sense it gives a fairer and more complete portrait of US women's past than the previous two models. |
| One historian, named Gerda Lerner, |
| says women-centered history tells how women have survived |
| and contributed in a male world "on their own terms". |
| Ms.Lerner claims that women-centered history best portrays the balance |
| of interaction between women's oppression and women's power. |
| I'm not sure about that, but I do know one thing. |
| It has compelled historians to see certain historical processes in a new light, |
| such as the, eight, or, nineteenth century temperance movement, |
| and the prohibition movement of the twentieth century. |
| As feminist scholars keep studying the history of US women, |
| more new approaches are likely to develop. |
| For example, there are still several sub-categories of women's history to consider, |
| such as labor history, social status, the history of women in minority cultures, and so on. |
| There are also class divisions, race divisions, ethnic divisions and religious divisions. |
| Finally, there is the history of women's interactions with other women, not just with men. |