Introduction: The Doctrine of the Separate Spheres

The history of women’s emancipation is the history of how women gained their access to public sphere after being traditionally relegated to the domestic sphere, according to gender categories, which are a set of cultural roles that define appropriate behavior for the sexes. It is the story of the ‘quiet revolutionQuiet revolution’, as described by Nobel laureate and Harvard economist Claudia GoldinGoldin, Claudia, that transformed the condition of women “from agents who work because they and their families ‘need the money’ to those who are employed, at least in part, because occupation and employment define one’s fundamental identity and societal worth” (Goldin in American Economic Review 96:1, 2006).