NORMAL WOMEN

The bestselling, prolific historical novelist presents “a huge book about women.”

Gregory brings her extensive knowledge of women in society over the centuries to a vast sociological study of the lives of “regular” women throughout the past 900 years. A tour de force of research, the book chronicles the role of women in British society by era, starting with William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book, commissioned in 1086, up until 1994. In each period, the author presents sections on women’s health, marriage, work, crime, punishment, immigration, rape, and “women loving women.” The overall sense reading this dense social history is that “normal” women, in spite of men’s belittling characterizations, made indelible contributions to the British Empire while rarely reaping the benefits. The author keenly delineates the different lives of women by class, such as the arduous life of working women versus aristocratic women, who, though rich in material possessions, were still affected by inadequate diet, constrictive clothing, poor ventilation, and mental strain from severe societal oppression. A familiar, depressing refrain over the centuries is the meager material compensation for women’s work and their deliberate exclusion from “profitable work, from education, from training, from the guilds and trades, and from the professions and from authority.” Particularly enlightening is Gregory’s exploration of Victorian society, from mining strikes, to campaigns for women’s suffrage, to the outrageous hypocrisy of Queen Victoria serving as both a steely emperor and docile wife opposed to women’s rights. Gregory also examines “Sapphism,” “Female Husbands,” and other similar topics suggesting that sexual transitioning was more frequent to women seeking greater roles and autonomy in society than previously regarded by historians. The author concludes in 1994, when the Church of England finally ordained women as priests.

A highly instructive, exhaustive study that reveals the realities behind “ideal” or “inferior” designations of women.