I still manage to surprise a few scholars from other fields when they hear that there is such a thing as research of gender issues within the field of translation studies. It may seem as such a narrow niche – but only deceivingly so. It is language, linguistics, pragmatics, culture, history, literature, anthropology, gender metaphorics, communication, interpreting, cultural politics, social studies and politics, psychology and I can go on and on. History seems to be a very appropriate starting point for my presentation, so let me go back to 1654.