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6. Women in World History
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chapter six Women in World History / This chapter is based on a paper I gave at a conference on World History.* I was asked specifically to speak on how women might be included in the World History survey. It was a question I had encountered in various forms wherever I spoke on Women’s History. The traditional training historians had received and their years of practice had led to the development of a canon, which seemed immutable and of eternal validity. Gradually during the development of Demographic and Social History, this canon had to be expanded to allow for the inclusion in the traditional narrative of masses of ordinary people, who had hitherto been left out of the historical account.Throughout the twentieth century, new groups of such people—AfricanAmericans,Hispanics,women,NativeAmericans—raisedtheirclaimsfor inclusion,whicheventuallyledtotheexpansionandenrichmentofthetraditionalhistorical narrative. In each case, traditionalists bemoaned the “splintering” of history and glumly predicted a lowering of standards.They raised the specter of having to exclude “important” people on account of these newcomers. But history is no straitjacket and no zero-sum game. Its narrative has always been altered to fit new constituencies and new concepts. From the late 1960s on, when I had become a spokeswoman for Women’s History, I had endlessly to respond to the same questions and objections. I replied as simplyas I could. From its inception what we call history had been concerned only with the activities of half the human race. It should properly be called the history of men. To correct that profound errorof omission, it was time to question the criteria of selection by which historians defined historical significance. The development of Women’s History and the history of oppressed minority groups began in the 1980s to call attention to the social construction of identities and with it to entirely new fields of inquiry: Gender History, Gay and Lesbian History, the history of sexualities.Challenges to the predominance of European-centered historyand the realities of globalization led to a growing interest in developingWorld Historycourses.Conferences and institutes were organized to better train teachers for the demands of the new field. I was often invited to speak at such conferences on the subject of how to include women inWorld History courses. *Presented on the panel “Gender in World History” at the World History Association Meeting, Boston, June 23, 2000. 104 DOING HISTORY In a pamphlet written for the American Historical Association series on teaching history —Teaching Women’s History—I outlined how to broaden our historical understanding by the use of fifteen analytical questions that would bring women into view (see the Introduction for more about myapproach towriting this pamphlet). Since many teachers found it very useful in developing Women’s History courses, I decided to use twelve of these analytical questions, applying them to World History. The problem of how to integrate women into courses in World History is similar to that faced in all other fields, such as U.S. History, Medieval History, Social History. The fields have already been defined in such a way that they exclude and marginalize women; the courses have a finite number of weeks assigned to them, and there already exists a body of material to be learned. Material on women is available in abundance—the prospective teacher shudders at the thought of somehow having to make room for it. And the first question that arises is “What do I have to leave out in order to put women in?” We have all been through that stage, which leads to token representation , frustration, and a general sense of unease, both in teachers and students . A favorite strategy is to identify one or two topics in which women have been recognized as historical actors, such as “woman’s suffrage” or “women and the family” and to spend one or two class hours on these special topics, and be done with it. One certainly can usefully discuss the struggle for woman’s suffrage or the impact of demographic changes in the family upon women and their lives, but these topics encompass only a small part of women’s role in societies.To make such units stand alone or to combine them with the inclusion of a few famous women, usually queens or women noted for scandalous or deviant behavior, only reinforces the marginalization of women in the totality of the history course. Another favorite teaching strategy is to treat women as we often treat “minorities” and include in the course only stories of...