AN33004 Ethnic and Minority Culture in the United States

1

“Well-behaved women seldom make history”

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

AN33004 Ethnic and Minority Culture in the United States

Against the Odds: History of American Women

for 3rd-year BA American track students

Time: Friday, 12.00-11.40

Venue: Studio 111

Tutor: Éva Mathey (); Room 116/1. (: 512-900 /Ext. 22152)

Office hours: Tuesday 13-14, Wednesday 9-10 and by appointment.

Course synopsis

Inspired by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s statement: “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” the course aims to study the role women played in American history and will address the diverse ways some outstanding American women, against the odds of the rigid political, social and intellectual environment, could contribute to change and shape women’s life in America from the 18th-century on to the present. In a historical perspective the course will address a variety of topics including the struggle to gain civil rights and legal/constitutional recognition, the changing notion of gender roles in the public and private spheres, the evolution of feminism in the US, the impact of race and socio-economic status on women’s experience, the turning points and successes of women’s emancipation, and the politics of the representation of the American woman. While Weeks 2-9 follow a chronological pattern, Week 10 and 11 propose to study three important engendered social realms including sports, education and advertising to analyze how women could challenge the establishment, break down barriers and gain momentum in these spheres.

Applying a variety of the methods and approaches students will read and analyze miscellaneous study materials. Besides primary and secondary sources, other forms of historical documentation, films, documentaries, etc. will also be used to enhance students’ understanding of America women’s history and facilitate their critical oversight and appreciation for the contribution of women who made America.

Course requirements

Students will be assessed based on the strength of their performance in various activities including their classroom participation (including the in-class debate) (20%), an individual presentation (15%), a group project (20%), a 750-800-wordresponse paper (10%), and an endterm examination (35%).

Individual presentations: Each student is required to choose a presentation topic from the issues indicated under the weekly discussion topics. Presentations should be about 10 minutes in length and should be interactive (with thought-provoking questions to the class or various activities). The outline of the presentation should be discussed in advance with the instructor ONE WEEK before the presentation is due. Only handouts approved by the instructor can be presented. The handout should be only a guideline to the presentation and not a word-by-word transcript. You must not read out your presentation. The content of your talk, your performance and presentation skills as well as your pronunciation will be evaluated. Students are kindly advised to prepare a Power Point slide show along with the printed handout. The PPT is subject to the same rules as above.

Response paper: Students are required to hand in a 750-800-word long response paper (Times New Roma, 12) on Mona Lisa Smile due to be watched for Week 6. The paper should not be a plot summary, but should rather offer the opinion and personal reflections of the student relative to any issues the film addresses.

Group Projects: small groups of three will have to present the final product (short film, poster cartoon, etc.) of their group project for Week 12 on a pre-approved topic of their choice related to topics discussed during the seminars. While this assignment will facilitate students’ ability to work cooperatively, delegate work, implement, and share responsibility, it aims to inspire them to draw on their creative energies, and communicate ideas through rather unconventional means. Topics for the projects are to be discussed and approved before the consultation week on Week 6.

Further rules

Academic dishonesty or Plagiarism (failure to acknowledge and note the use of another writer’s words and ideas) is both unethical and illegal and will result in a failure of the course.

Tardiness and early departures are not allowable. They are offensive to your fellow students and to the instructor because they disrupt class work. If you have a compelling reason for arriving late or leaving early, speak with your instructor about the problem. If you regularly cut the beginning and/or the end of class sessions, it can add up to unexcused full-class-time absences.

Classroom etiquette

During the class please DO refrain from using your electronic devices including tabs, mobile phones, etc. Please DO NOT answer phone calls and text messages during the class!!! It is disturbing and impolite in the first degree!!!!

Readings

Reading materials will all be available electronically from the instructor, and will be distributed on the orientation class.

Films:

Adam’s Rib, dir. George Cukor (1949)

Fried Green Tomatoes, dir. Jon Avnet (1991)

Makers: Women Who Make America Season 1, 2, dir. Barak Goodman (2013, 2014)

Mona Lisa Smile, dir. Mike Newell (2003)

The Color Purple, dir. Steven Spielberg (1985)

Select Bibliography

Chafe, William Henry, The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles,

1920-1970 (London: Oxford University Press, 1980)

Chafe, William Henry, Women and Equality: Changing Patterns in American Culture (New York:

Oxford UP, 1978)

Collins, Gail. The Amazing Journey of American Women from the 1960s to the Present. New York:

Back Bay Books, 2009

DuBois, Ellen and Vicki L. Ruiz, eds. Unequal Sisters: a Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's

History (New York: Routledge, 1994)

Ellen DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in

America, 1848-1869 (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1978)

Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty, A History of Women in America (New York: Free Press Paperbacks,

1997)

Ginsberg, Alice E. The Evolution of American Women’s Studies: Reflections on Triumphs,

Controversies and Change (New York: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2008)

Gourley, Cathrine, Flappers, and the New American Woman: Perceptions of Women from 1918

through the 1920s (Minneapolis, MN : Twenty-First Century Books, 2008)

Gourley, Cathrine, Rosie and Mrs. America: Perceptions of Women in the 1930s and 1940s

(Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books, 2008

Miller, Page Putnam, Landmarks of American Women’s History (New York: Oxford UP, 2003)

Norton, Mary Beth and Ruth M. Alexander, eds. Major Problems in American Women’s History.

(D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington, MA, 1996)

Rossi, Alice S. The Feminist Papers: From Adams to Beauvoir (New York: Columbia UP, 1973)

WEEK-BY-WEEK SCHEDULE OF CLASSES

Week 1 (September 23): Orientation and introduction

Week 2 (September 30): “Remember the Ladies!” Against the Cult of Domesticity; Women in Antebellum America (the Founding Mothers, early feminists; women’s emancipation and the abolitionist cause, the woman’s proper place: family, law and tradition; Abigail Adams, the Grimké sister, Margaret Fuller)

Readings: Jane Adams to John Quincy Adams, a Correspondence, “Letters” by the Grimké sisters, and “Separate Spheres, Law, Faith, Tradition,” in Sally G. McMillen, Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Woman’s Rights Movement (New York: Oxford UP, 2008), 20-45.

Presentation topics: Margaret Fuller, Woman of the 19th –century

Week 3 (October 7): Stepping Stones toward Empowerment: a Social Revolution (against gendered practices: social reform and women, political representation and women’s parties, advocacy for suffrage: the Seneca Falls Convention and the Anthony Amendment, living with Jim Crow: Afro-American women in the segregated South; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Jane Addams, Margaret Sanger)

Readings: Declaration of Sentiments (June 1848) in Sally G. McMillen, Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Woman’s Rights Movement (New York: Oxford UP, 2008), 237-241; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Solitude of Self,” (January 18, 1892) in Sally G. McMillen, Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Woman’s Rights Movement (New York: Oxford UP, 2008), 242-250; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Presentation topics: Jane Addams, the radical; “What Every Girl Should Know:” Margaret Sanger’s crusade for women’s health education; 19th-century women in education

Week 4 (October 14): The New Woman of the 1920s: Reform or Revolution? (the 19th Amendment, the debate over the Equal Rights Amendment, the Gibson girls vs. the flappers, consumerism and women as commodity; the “It” girl: Louise Brooks; Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul)

Readings: Estelle B. Freedman, “The New Woman: Changing Views of Women in the 1920s,” Journal of American History Vol. 61, No.2 (September 1974), 372-393.

Presentation topics: flappers in the popular culture of the 1920s; the ERA

Week 5 (October 21): The Changing Ideal of the American Woman in the 1930s and the 1940s (the New Deal and its impact on women, the photography of Dorothea Lange; Eleanor Roosevelt; Rosie, the Riveter and the rising of American female work force)

Readings: Frances M. Seeber, “Eleanor Roosevelt and Women in the New Deal: A Network of Friends,” Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. 20, No. 4, Modern First Ladies White House Organization (FALL 1990), pp. 707-717.

Presentation topics: women and World War II propaganda

Week 6 (October 28): The Perfect AmericanHousewife of the 1950s (the complacent “good old days” of the 1950s and the ideal American homemaker,the myth of Pleasantville; the media and the ideology of the perfect American family: the Donna Reed Show and I Love Lucy)

Readings: “Women’s Roles in the 1950s,” American Decades Vol. 6. 2001: 278-280; “A Good Wife’s Guide,” Housekeeping Monthly (13 May, 1955); selected interviews from Makers: Women Who Make America (Season 1, 2013) AND Mona Lisa Smiledir. Mike Newell (2003).

Presentation topics: Sylvia Plath’s poetry; Lynn White, Jr. Educating Our Daughters, a debate

RESPONSE PAPER IS DUE!

Week 7 (October 31-November 4): CONSULTATION WEEK

Week 8 (November 11): The “Problem That Has No Name:” Women’s Liberation and Second Wave Feminists (the awakening: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, Gloria Steinem and Ms. magazine, the Redstockings, NOW, the debate over reproductive rights; civil rights legislation; double oppression: Afro-American women and women’s lib)

Readings: Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (excerpts); Makers: Women Who Make America (Season 1, 2013).

Presentation topics: the Redstockings; pro-life vs. pro-choice

Week 9 (November 18): Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Gender Equity beyond the 1970s in America

(the Equal Rights Amendment, Affirmative Action, Political Correctness; women in business; Sandra Day O’Connor, )

Reading: to be announced later (depending on the selected debate topics)

Presentation topics: Affirmative Action; “legitimate rape”???????; gender and US Elections

IN-CLASS DEBATE

Week 10 (November 25): Shaping the American Woman: the Changing Ideal of Beauty in Advertising and the Politics of Representation

Readings: Gloria Steinem, “Sex, Lies and Advertising” Ms., July/August 1990: 18-28.

Presentation topics: gender socialization and advertising for girls

Week 11 (December 2): “Getting in the Game:” Title IX and Gender Equity in Women’s Education and Sports: a Breakthrough?!

Readings: “Introduction: The Feminism of Title IX,” in Deborah Brake, Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women’s Sports Revolution (2011), 1-13.

Presentation topics: the battle of the sexes: Riggs vs. Court; K. Switzer and the Boston Marathon; the Ginny Baker story; women in higher education

Week 12 (December 9): Students’ Project Presentations

Week 13 (December 16): Endterm examination

Week 14 (December 23): Closing andEvaluation