Gendered DomainsFor over two centuries the notion that societies have been sharply divided into women's (private) and men's (public) spheres has been used both to describe and to prescribe social life. More recently, it has been applied and critiqued by feminist scholars as an explanation for women's oppression. Spanning a rich array of historical contextsfrom medieval nunneries to Ottoman harems to Paris communes to electronics firms in today's Silicon Valleythe