The Gender Pay Gap: an (Early) Modern Reality

This post on the value of household accounts as a source documenting the gender pay gap comes from Imogene Dudley, a current doctoral student at the University of Exeter and a member of the Women’s Work in Early Modern England project led by Professor Jane Whittle and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. She has a Master’s degree in Medieval History from St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Swansea University. You can follow her on Twitter: @imogene_dudley

Imogene Dudley (University of Exeter)

Recently, an Australian café made headline news around the world by charging men 18% more in order to reflect the gender pay gap. Whilst many supported this move to open up the conversation about wage inequality, the café and its owner also attracted widespread opposition, with people branding it divisive and illegal. The BBC has also come under fire in recent weeks as it was revealed that its female stars are paid significantly less than their male counterparts. These are just two examples of the gender pay gap which have hit the headlines lately; one would have to live under a rock to have missed the rising visibility of this issue across mainstream and social media in the last several years.

It would come as a surprise to no-one that the gender pay gap is rooted firmly in our historical past. Hopefully, by studying this issue in relation to the past, we can begin to understand its presence in our own times. My doctoral research focuses on women’s work in the south-west of England from 1500 to 1700, looking at household account books to explore the gender division of labour, the effect of the life-cycle on women’s work and (you guessed it) women’s wages.

Postdoctoral Research Associate Women, Property and Place in the World, 1500-1800

The School of Histories, Languages and Cultures at the University of Hull is looking to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Associate for the project of Women, Property and Place in the World, 1500-1800.  This is a fixed term post for two years.

The central aim of the project is to investigate the institutional and structural underpinnings of social and gender inequalities in the English past. The post involves joint research and publication on land records and family papers (correspondence, diaries, wills, accounts, maps/surveys, enclosure records and estate papers); early-modern printed political and religious pamphlets; court, finance and litigation records. Additionally, the post will involve management of the existing website and Twitter account and mentoring doctoral students in the research cluster. The successful candidate will join an existing and vibrant team of academic, early-career and postgraduate researchers working in the Gender, Place and Memory 1400-1900 interdisciplinary Research Cluster at the University of Hull. The successful candidate will have completed a PhD in a cognate area of research, to include social and economic history, cultural history, historical geography, early-modern political thought and/or literature. It is desirebale that candidates will have experience working on early-modern English archival and/or printed texts.

For more information on how to apply see here: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BDD084/postdoctoral-research-associate-women-property-and-place-in-the-world-1500-1800/

To find out more about the Gender, Place and Memory 1400-1900 Research Cluster, its workshops, conferences and blog, see: [https://genderplaceandmemory.wordpress.com/].

To discuss this role informally, please contact the Principle Investigators: Dr Amanda Capern [a.l.capern@hull.ac.uk] or Briony McDonagh,[b.mcdonagh@hull.ac.uk].