Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3a21383
Like oxygen, women’s contributions to our history and culture are all around you. But researching women’s history, gender studies, or related topics, can be frustrating. The Libraries don’t offer any one database like Women’s Studies Completely Complete or Index to Gender Studies + Awesome Full Text. However, dip into many of our database subject areas and you’ll find a wealth of academic journal articles, statistical compendiums, government documents, and primary sources to support your research. Here are just a few examples:
Psychology and Communication
PsycINFO is the comprehensive index to published research on psychology. Published by the American Psychological Association and covering more than 125 years of journal articles, books, technical reports, dissertations, and other materials, PsycINFO is a great place to look for academic research on gender roles and attitudes, gender identity, family dynamics, mother-child relationships, and many other behavioral science topics.
Communication Source incorporates the content of Communication Abstracts (formerly published by Sage) and Ebsco’s Communication and Mass Media Complete database, along with numerous other journals in communication, rhetoric, linguistics, mass media, speech pathology, and other closely-related fields of study. Use Communication Source to find articles on on nonverbal communication, feminist rhetoric, and gender and media stereotypes.
Anthropology and Sociology
Anthropological Literature, produced by the Tozzer Library at Harvard, includes citations to essays, books, and articles from over 1,300 journals in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and related areas. Here you will find articles on gender roles in different cultures, on family and kinship structures, clothing and adornment as gender expression, female friendships, and social coming of age, sexual maturity, and childbirth.
eHRAF World Cultures is an unusual database that yields unexpected gems. Founded in 1949 at Yale University, The Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF) is an organization that collects, indexes, and organizes books, book chapters, dissertations, and other publications on all aspects of cultural anthropology. Search eHRAF by cultural area (from geographic region down to specific ethnic group) or by cultural practice (such as foodways and food production, life cycle, political behavior, and social relationships).
Sociological Abstracts indexes international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. This is a great source for researching topics such as the social construction of gender in different societies or the changing role of women in the workforce.
Literature and the Arts
The MLA International Bibliography, produced by the Modern Language Association, is a comprehensive index to journal articles, book chapters, and dissertations on authors and works of literature, film, folklore, and language. Check the MLA for articles about specific works of literature and authors as well as for broader themes such as feminist criticism, women and the Gothic, queer theory, and women filmmakers.
Project Muse is a full text collection of more than 600 scholarly journals. A complement to the popular JSTOR collections, Project Muse offers recent issues of many of the JSTOR archived titles. Project Muse offers an especially strong collection of more than 30 journals devoted to the topics of women’s studies, gender, and sexuality, including titles such as Black Women, Gender & Families, Early Modern Women, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, and WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly,
Black Women Writers offers more than 100,000 pages of poetry, prose, and essays by authors from more than 20 countries. Search for keyword in text, author, title, time period, ethnicity or region of author, religion of author, and more.
History and Political Science
America: History and Life and Historical Abstracts cover U.S. and world history, respectively. Look here for articles, books, book chapters, and dissertations on history, popular culture, and politics. Women’s rights, women–social conditions, women–legal status, feminism, and women’s suffrage are all subject terms in these databases.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts covers not only political science but also its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration / policy. Here you will find journal articles on women voters, women political figures, women’s political representation, and women in various social movements.
ProQuest Congressional and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set combined offer more than 200 years of Congressional documents, reports, and hearings. The U.S. Congressional Serial Set offers the full text of reports and documents through 1980, almost 14,000 documents issued “serially,’ or by congressional session. During the 19th and early century, the executive branch often sent reports to Congress which were then included in this massive compilation. Within the Serial Set, you will find the full text of important government investigations on topics such as women’s labor, women and farm production, childcare, and women in the armed forces. ProQuest Congressional indexes documents and hearings back to 1789, with the full text of most documents and hearings available from the 1980s on, as well as providing information on committee rosters, campaign finance, and legislative histories. Look here for documents related to the confirmation hearings of Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Notorious RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg), as well as topics such as reproductive rights, equal pay, or women in combat roles.
And So Much More
By their nature, the fields of Women’s Studies or Gender Studies are trans-disciplinary. So many other resources the Libraries offer could inform your research on women. For example, SportDiscus, a full-text database of articles and papers on all aspects of sports, sports medicine, coaching, and kinesiology, can be mined for information on upper body strength of women, or ACL injuries in female soccer players. World Development Indicators, an important data collection from the World Bank, offers statistics on poverty, health, child mortality, and other demographic topics for 200+ countries. And business resources such as Mintel provide reports on how consumer goods are marketed to women. Not sure where to start? Ask a Librarian or find your subject librarian or browse databases by subject for recommendations.