Two recent annual meeting panels (at NCSS and AHA) engaged colleagues in a robust discussion of the new world history (TNWH) and questioned their relevance to different education sectors. Only the NCSS
panel centered gender. What if these sectors of the history profession were in the same room? Centering gender disrupts historians’ focus on events, traditional periodization, and the nation, but it can do even more to advance the conversations around diversity and inclusion.

This proposed roundtable is a continuation and merging of those conversations with a different slate of conversants and perspectives, including those of us who teach/have taught at public undergraduate institutions and high schools. Crucially, we are also actively engaged in feminist collaboration and community building as authors in Routledge’s book series, “Gendering World History.” We claim that the practice of world history both enables and needs collaborations such as ours. We cite the continuing debates about our sources, methods, scale and scope.

What is the root cause of neglect of women and gender? Why has that neglect persisted for decades? Perhaps the place to begin is at the level of synthesis rather than microhistory, where abundant evidence of biographical histories exist to support forgotten and invisible threads of the past that require reweaving into a new cloth with new patterns. When gender is centered, unexpected themes and radical revisions of periodization emerge. We share what we’ve learned along the way and invite the audience to participate in a robust discussion of why centering gender is imperative.