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Early Irish ‘Feminism’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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There is a tendency among critics of ‘patriarchal’ culture or religion to point to the high status of women in early Irish or other Celtic societies as a model for change, suggesting that these societies displayed what one might call ‘actually existing feminism’. The assumption appears in otherwise scholarly works. Thus Dillon and Chadwick:
It is indeed impossible to have any true understanding of either Celtic history or Celtic literature without realizing the high status of Celtic women.
Elsewhere we are invited to ‘think of the superior place of women in early Celtic society’2. But what is the evidence for these claims?
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- Copyright © 1992 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
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