Prof. Dr. Karin Hausen
Field of expertise: Interdisciplinary Women`s Studies
Short bio: Karin Hausen, born in 1938, is Professor emerita of the Technical University of Berlin, there she was 1978-1995 Professoir for Economic and Social History and 1995-2003 Professor for Interdisciplinary Women`s Studies and Founding Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies on Women and Gender. Most of her publications deal with Gender History and the impacts, which social, economic and institutional structures as well as cultural norms and images might have had on individuals and groups when they manage their daily life. Before she started to concentrate on Gender History she had worked on “Kamerun” as a German colony, on the History of Technology and on the Paris Commune.

Prof. Dr. Ursula Nienhaus
Field of expertise: Women`s and Feminist History
Short bio: Ursula Nienhaus, born in 1946, is apl. Professor for historical gender studies at Hannover University and head of FFBIZ, Berlin. She has been a cofounder of this women`s research, education and information center in 1978 and since 1995 is head of its archive. Her publications deal with sovietique history, women`s history since the 19th century, history of technology with regard to women, the history of different women´s occupations and (trade union) organisations.

Dr. Ilse Kokula
Field of expertise: Sociology and History of Lesbian Women
Short bio: born 1944; training and employment as social worker and pedagoguer; 1982 Dr. phil at the university of Bremen; 1984/85 chair of the Belle van Zuylen professorship at Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht; later first Berlin deputy for the embetterment of the social conditions of lesbians and gays; 2007 Order of Merit of the FRG for extraordinary commitment to the emancipation of homosexuals and contribution to a more tolerant society.

Selection

Report on the selection process by the German FRAGEN team

We were asked to choose very influential texts that have been very historically relevant and that fit three additional criteria. However: Very influential texts were very often principal texts which were not – in a later use of language – directly focusing on a diversity of approaches or multiple inequalities.

That is why we tried to include a little bit less influential texts in the longlist that were more relevant for these criteria; but they mostly stayed in the longlist as additional and not in the final list of the most relevant texts.

We also tried to cover the whole 40 years, which also has not matched the criteria of all of the most influential texts, understood as such that mobilized a lot of debate and activities as well as (not always) following policies by the govern-ment.

Also: There is the thick source-book by Ilse Lenz, to which FFBIZ-archive has contributed very many texts (Ilse Lenz has cofounded the FFBIZ in the 1970s); however: very many texts in that book are not easy to retrieve because they unfortunately lack proper bibliographical information, which is not due to FFBIZ-information on that sources.