WAS THERE A WOMEN'S RENAISSANCE? We ask four historians whether the great advances of the Renaissance were extended to women.

RENAISSANCE women's history; ECONOMIC conditions of women; HISTORY of women & politics; GENDER inequality; POETRY writing; WOMEN authors; HISTORIANS

This section presents views of several historians on whether the Renaissance period in European history had acknowledged women. Topics discussed include the regulation of the economic and political roles of women during the Renaissance described by Dale Kent, the observed lack of gender equality despite belonging to the same social class noted by Elizabeth S. Cohen, and the authorship of prose and poetry by Italian women in the 15th and 16th centuries according to Catherine Fletcher.