"Women's history is developing into a new research area at a particular exciting time. It has been stimulated by two related but essentially independent developments: the maturation of social history and the appearance of a new women's movement...The fourteen papers in this collection represent a sampling of this recent research in the history of women...Although the essays range quite widely in the times, places, and subject matter covered, they relate to one another in several ways that indicate the direction that the new research is taking. First, each paper deals with a group of women who for the most part were not figures of outstanding public prominence or achievement, but who shared a set of common experiences...Second, all the papers are concerned not to 'extract' women from history, but rather to place them within their social context....A third quality that unites these essays is a curiosity about myths and received opinions concerning women's nature and roles...A final aspect of all these essays is that they reflect current concerns about women and women's roles." -- vii-viii (Preface).

“妇女的历史正处于一个特殊的激动人心的时刻发展到一个新的研究领域。它受到两个相关但本质上独立的发展的刺激：社会历史的成熟和一种新的妇女运动的出现……该系列中的十四篇论文代表了妇女历史上这项最新研究的样本...虽然论文在所涉及的时间，地点和主题方面范围很广，但它们以多种方式相互关联，表明新研究正在采取的方向首先，每篇论文都针对一组女性，这些女性在很大程度上不是杰出的公众知名度或成就的代表，但她们分享了一系列共同的经验……其次，所有论文都关注不要“提取”女性从历史来看，而是将它们置于他们的社会环境中。...使这些论文合为一体的第三种特质是对神话的好奇心，并获得了关于女性的性格和角色的看法...所有这些论文的最后一个方面是，它们反映了当前对女性的关注妇女和妇女的角色。”-vii-viii（前言）。