How does the history of the United States of America (U.S.) change when we use a women’s studies lens? The version of U.S. history we are probably used to hearing has focused on a few wealthy, white men, such as the framers of the Constitution or the Generals in the Civil War. Early women’s studies scholars sought to add women to U.S. history by highlighting the stories of notable women such as suffragist Susan B. Anthony, or the abolitionist Grimké sisters. Increasingly, however, feminist thinkers and activists have questioned what counts as important in U.S. history. Rather than emphasize only a few notable “heroes,” feminist historians also tell the stories of everyday people caught up in historical events. Instead of recreating the standard timeline of important events (usually the big wars), feminist historians ask us to examine how every day structures of domination have been built, maintained, and challenged throughout U.S. history.
Meanwhile, feminists of color have critiqued some forms of women’s studies for only telling the stories of elite and middle-class white women. Through a framework of analysis called intersectional feminism, historians have shown how the experiences of women are different based on their geographic locations in the U.S. (northeast versus southwest, mainland versus island), race (white, Black, indigenous, Chicana/latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander), class (elite, middle-class, working-class, poor), and religion/spirituality (Christian versus indigenous worldviews). Rather than assume a shared, universal experience of all women, this class will compare how different experiences give different women unique perspectives of U.S. history. As intersectional feminist historians we will also attend to the lives of gender diverse people who do not fit into the Western categories of “man” or “woman.”
The fall semester part of this two-part course focuses on U.S. history from colonization through the nineteenth century post-Civil War period called Reconstruction. First, we will study the history of Europeans settling and colonizing the place we call the U.S., from an indigenous feminist perspective. We will also examine how indigenous women and gender diverse people (some who use the term “Two Spirit” to describe themselves) have resisted and demanded decolonization. Second, we will study the history of kidnapping Black people from Africa through the Transatlantic slave trade, the slave economy in the U.S., and the rise of the prison industrial complex after slavery was abolished from a Black feminist perspective. We will also examine how Black feminists fought for the abolition of slavery and demand reparations.
By the end of this this course you will be able to identify some of the trends and patterns in U.S. history that feminist historians have argued are significant, and you will have familiarity with some specific events that feminist historians have used to support their arguments. Perhaps more importantly, you will have a set of tools to evaluate narratives about U.S. history:
· History as interpretive: Identify the sources of historical evidence, and recognize the differences between primary sources and historical interpretations. Identify the differences between dominant interpretations of U.S. history, and versions of history told from the perspective of feminists of color.
· Intersectional feminist analysis: Compare gendered experiences in U.S. history as they intersect with race, class, and geographic location. Evaluate the significance of centering the perspectives of those who are multiply marginalized by gender, race, class, and other forms of social difference.
· Structural analysis: Identify the structures of power, privilege, and oppression that have historically distributed rights and resources unequally across gender and race. Describe how economic conditions affect social and political phenomena in U.S. history.
· Transnational analysis: Understand that the borders of the U.S. were created and changed over time, and are still contested. Understand the U.S. as a transnational space (for example, because of immigration and outmigration, and because of the existence of indigenous sovereign nations). Explain how the actions of people based in the U.S. affect people beyond the official borders.
Digital technologies have changed the ways that historians do their work. Many primary documents have been digitized and been loaded onto online archives, and new archives have been created out of digital texts. Digital technologies have also changed how historians communicate their interpretations of history. While in the past historians mainly wrote books and journal articles, today historians can create complex visual and audio displays of information that are accessed through computers – such as timelines, podcasts, and nonlinear presentations. Digital formats can make history more accessible to a wider variety of people than those who would normally read history books. Yet digital formats also present new challenges around accuracy, plagiarism, and representation.
In the final project for this class, students experimented with communicating information digitally. Each student created a web page that is part of our class web site. This was an opportunity to practice conveying information digitally that might be different from on paper.
Essay question
In the essay “Stolen From Our Bodies,” Qwo-Li Driskill argues that through European colonization of the Americas, indigenous people were stolen from their homes AND stolen from their bodies. Using examples from indigenous feminist readings, videos, and podcasts, explain what Driskill means by this.
Land acknowledgment
We opened our class this semester with the SDSU land acknowledgment, recognizing that the land on which SDSU sits is the ancestral homeland of the Kumeyaay, land which was not given willingly by the Kumeyaay people. Although a land acknowledgement is not in and of itself an act of decolonization, recognizing that the land we live on belongs to indigenous people is a first step toward decolonization.
For this part of the exam you will write your own land acknowledgment for the specific group of indigenous people you have been learning about since week 2 of this class. It is okay, and in fact encouraged, to also acknowledge the ways in which your knowledge is limited, and the areas you can commit to learning more.
Essay question
Angela Davis’ and Harriet Jacobs’ books suggest that enslaved black women had more in common with enslaved black men than they did with white women. Using examples from Black feminist readings, videos, and podcasts, explain why.
Reparations
At the end of the documentary Traces of the Trade, the main character gives a speech in front of her church calling on the congregation to take responsibility for the ways their church and many of their ancestors profited from slavery. The necessity of this is because although enslaved people were freed through the Thirteenth Amendment, they were freed without any access to land or money from which they could start a new life, creating a system of wealth inequality that continues to affect us today. Additionally, there was another 100+ years of racial discrimination after the end of slavery that prevent many Black descendants of slaves from building economic wealth. In short, we have yet to address as a nation the racial inequality that slavery introduced. As a result, many argue that we still need a process for making “reparations” for the harm of slavery and the racial inequality that followed. Taking personal responsibility, as the character in Traces of the Trade does, is one step towards making “reparations” for slavery.
For this part of the exam, please reflect on your own understanding of what it would require to repair the harm of U.S. slavery, and consider what your personal role in reparations might be. Please write from YOUR perspective -- some of us might have ancestors who lived under slavery, while others of us might have ancestors who owned slaves. Because of our different positions, our relationship to reparations will be very different. It is okay, and in fact encouraged, to acknowledge the ways in which your knowledge is limited, and the areas you commit to learning more.