Modern narratives of time focus on the nation-state and its predecessors, such as colonies, cities, and empires. This narrative of the nation-state as anchored in deep time carefully constructed by scholars legitimizes that particular political entity. It has been important to feminists that the deep time of the nation-state is composed almost exclusively of the deeds of men. Historical existence over long stretches of time has thus produced believable and gendered societies, constructing men as its actors and women as its invisible supporting cast, or simply as invisible. The gendering of historical time provides temporal depth to this very young political institution, making it look inevitable and part of a liberal history of progressive improvement. ... In the masculine time out of which history is constructed, the movement is toward political modernity. The movement from tradition to political modernity can lead to the comparison of repetitive household time with the forward thrust of national and industrial time
Bonnie G. Smith, “Temporality,” in Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, ed. Disch and Hawkesworth, p. 984-85
