G.18. Women’s Work and Emancipatory Pathways

Although women in the twentieth century gained greater access to education in many parts of the world, their pathways toward autonomy and emancipation remain fragile. Women’s work has taken shape across multiple disciplinary fields: in political and social action, in scientific progress within all STEM fields, in literature, in the expressive arts, in educational institutions, and within the family.

This panel aims to highlight the forms of women’s work that, across different historical periods and regions of the world, have contributed to their emancipation, autonomy, and participation in social life, while also fostering democracy.

We encourage contributions that:

1. explore intersectionality as a lens through which to address the persistent inequalities that have shaped educational contexts, examining how educational institutions may operate as democratic spaces fostering feminist awareness or, conversely, as sites of oppression; analyse models of femininity and masculinity conveyed through school curricula; investigate how guidance systems have contributed to overcoming – or reproducing – inequality.

2. explore the relationship between women’s work and pathways to democratic citizenship and emancipation, drawing on the biographies of both well-known and lesser-known figures; examine how women have articulated care work, as well as the extent to which institutions have recognized – or dismissed – its value.

Contributions should adopt historical or theoretical perspectives and may draw on interdisciplinary and international approaches. They should foreground how women’s work – although often shaped by power relations, political pressures, and forms of exploitation – has nonetheless generated pathways to autonomy, agency, and professional development.