History 3751
Women, Gender, & Sexuality in Postwar America
Fall 2014
Andrea Friedman
123 Busch Hall
5-4339;
Office Hours: Wednesday 1-3, or by appointment
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Joanne Meyerowitz, ed., Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America (NJC)
Annelise Orleck, Storming Caesar’s Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty
(SCP)
Nancy MacLean, The American Women’s Movement, 1945-2000 (AWM)
Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle
Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman
All other required readings can be accessed through the course Blackboard page ( Those designated with an “X” on the syllabus are available through Course Reserves; those only available on the Blackboard Course Documents tab are designated “BB.” I expect that you will have access to all readings during class so that you can refer to them during discussion. PLEASE DO NOT BRING TO CLASS ELECTRONIC DEVICES THAT CAN BE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. Please print readings and bring them with you. If this policy creates a hardship for you please talk to me.
Course Description
This course explores the history of the United States since 1945 through a focus on women, gender, and sexuality. Many Americans have viewed women’s lives as marginal to the important events of history (wars, politics, economics); see “sexuality” as a purely private matter; and confuse “gender” with biological sex. We will place these topics at the center of recent U.S. history in order to better understand both the past and the world that we live in today. Topics will include cold war politics, the social movements and political transformations of the 1950s and 1960s, the restructuring of political economy and the emergence of the new right in the 1970s and 1980s, and state policy and neoliberalism from the 1990s into the 21st century. Throughout we will endeavor to grapple with how gender and sexuality intersect with other social positions/hierarchies such as race and class to shape U.S. history.
Requirements
1. Class participation. Class meetings will consist of a blend of lecture and discussion. Therefore, it is absolutely crucial that you do all assigned reading, and think about what you’ve read, before class. Participation in class (as an attentive listener and a speaker who engages in respectful and productive dialogue) is part of your grade. Please note that more than three absences will affect your class participation grade. I may also require in-class assignments (eg, participation in small discussion groups, debates, in-class writing, etc) that will be assessed as part of your participation grade.
2. Papers.
Paper #1: Secondary source analysis, drawing upon one assigned secondary source and one supplemental secondary source from weeks 1-4. Approx. 5 pages. DUE 9/23
Paper #2: Primary source analysis, drawing upon 3-4 primary sources from weeks 6-9. Approx. 5 pages. DUE 10/28.
Paper #3: “Towards Equality in the 21st Century” Speech, drawing on course materials from Weeks 10-14, as well as other relevant materials. Approx. 7 pages. DUE 12/4.
Your grade for the course will be assessed as follows:
Participation:15%
Paper #1:25%
Paper #2:25%
Paper #3:35%
All course requirements must be met for a passing grade. If you are taking this class pass/fail or credit/no credit, a C- is required to receive credit.
Inclusive Classrooms
Washington University provides accommodations and/or services to students with documented disabilities. Students should seek appropriate documentation through the Disability Resource Center which will approve and arrange any accommodations. Please feel free to speak to me about your individual learning needs.
Language or behavior that makes other students feel unwelcome in this classroom will not be tolerated. Examples range from simply interrupting or ignoring others while they are talking to overt harassment or intimidation with reference to race, sex, gender identity, sexual identity, religion, ethnicity, nationality, ability or political belief. Washington University’s Policy on Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment can be found at
Academic Integrity
Plagiarism or other violations of academic integrity will result in a failing grade on the assignment, and may result in a failing grade for the course. Please review Washington University’s academic integrity policy at A helpful guide to understanding plagiarism can be found at
Miscellaneous
All students are strongly encouraged to participate in the online course evaluation system at the end of the semester, by visiting
This syllabus is a work-in-progress. I reserve the right to change it at any time.
SCHEDULE:
Week 1
8/26TIntroduction
8/28ThDomestic containment and its discontents
Read: NJC Intro & ch. 10; AWM, doc. 2
Supplemental Reading: NJC, ch. 11
Week 2
9/2TWomen and wage labor in the 1950s
Read: NJC chs. 3, 4; AWM doc 3
Supplemental Reading: NJC, Ch. 2, 5
9/4Red Scare politics
Read: NJC, Ch. 8, AWM, doc. 1; “Julius is the Slave…” (BB)
Supplemental Reading: NJC, ch. 7
Week 3
9/9TSexual containment
Read: “Waking Sleeping Beauty” (X); ““Employment of Homosexuals” (X)
Supplemental Reading: NJC, ch. 14
9/11ThSexual revolutions
Read: NJC chs. 16; AWM, doc 4; “Butch-Femme Relationships” (X)
Supplemental Reading: NJC, 15
Week 4
9/16TRethinking civil rights: placing gender & sexuality at the center
Read: “It Was Like All of Us Had Been Raped” (X)
Supplemental Reading: Gore, “Reframing Civil Rights Activism during the Cold War” (X)
9/18ThThe politics of the black family
Read: NJC ch. 13; “Untangling Pathology” (X); The Moynihan Report, ch 1 (BB)
Supplemental Reading: NJC, ch 12
Week 5
9/23TSecond-Wave Feminism: an overview
View: “Step by Step” (in class)
PAPER #1 DUE
9/25ThNO CLASS
Week 6
9/30 TThe women’s movement resurfaces
Read: AWM, pp. 1-33, docs 7, 8, 9, 12
10/2ThGendering the anti-war movement & the new left
Read: AWM, doc. 6, “The Jeanette Rankin Brigade” (BB); “Funeral Oration” (BB) “Goodbye to All That” (X); “The Look is You” (X)
Week 7
10/7TThe women’s liberation movement
Read: AWM, docs 10, 14, 15, 17, 19, 23
10/9ThGender & racial liberation movements
Read: AWM, doc. 16; “Engendering the Black Freedom Struggle” (X)
Week 8
10/14TGender & racial liberation movements II
Discuss Lakota Woman
10/16ThWomen of color feminism
Read: AWM, docs. 21, 26, 30, 32
Week 9
10/21TGay liberation and lesbian-feminism I
AWM, doc. 20; begin reading Rubyfruit Jungle
10/23ThDiscuss Rubyfruit Jungle
Week 10
10/28TConservative women and the ERA
Read: AWM, pp. 33-43, docs 24, 27, 31
PAPER #2 DUE
10/30ThRise of the Christian Right
Read: “We Support Equal Rights” (X); “ AWM, doc 33; “Good Husbands Are Good Leaders” (X); “Rescuing the Nation”
Week 11
11/4TWelfare Rights and the War on Poverty
Read: SCP, pp. 1-167
11/6ThWelfare Rights and the War on Poverty, cont’d.
Read SCP,pp. 168-310
Week 12
11/11TWorking for a living in the 1970s and 1980s
View in class: “Fast Food Women”
Read: AWM docs 25, 29, 35
11/13ThThe Hill-Thomas hearings
Read: “Statements of Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas” (X); “A Righteous Rage” (X); “Making Sense of Our Differences” (X); “Hill, Thomas, and the Use of Racial Stereotype” (X)
Week 13
11/18TSex in the Clinton Years
Read: to be determined
11/20Th9/11 and its aftermath
Read: “Cowboy of the World?” (X); “Feminism and Security Rhetoric” (X)
Week 14 – THANKSGIVING BREAK – NO CLASS
11/25 & 11/27
Week 15
12/2ThGender, Race, and the Carceral State
Read: “Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex” (X)
12/4TConclusion
PAPER #3 DUE