HIST 2310 - American Women’s History

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This course examines the relation between gender dynamics - particularly as they involve the distribution of power - and major social, cultural, and political developments in United States history. Its fundamental assumptions are 1) that gender is a useful category of historical analysis; 2) that since gender dynamics relate so closely to the distribution of political, social, and economic power in American society, they are central to U.S. history; 3) that experiences and constructions of masculinity and femininity are necessarily interrelated; and 4) that those experiences and constructions have varied across lines of race and class. Major areas in which gender has been constructed, and which will be the foci of this course, include work, economics, family, sexuality, and politics.