History 369 Society and Thought: War and Gender

Carol Hunter

carolh@earlham.edu

Spring 2002

History 369 is a course designed to explore the intersection of intellectual and cultural history. This semester we will be investigating the myriad ways in which cultural ideas about womanhood and manhood have been shaped by 20th century wars. Gail Bederman begins her study of manhood at the turn of the last century with the premise that gender is a "historical, ideological process." As such, ideas about gender are historically fluid, but she goes on to assert that "part of the way gender functions is to...camouflage the fact that gender is dynamic and always changing"(7). Thus, one of our goals will be to uncover the process by which gender ideologies are modified, amended, contested and renegotiated. Bederman also suggests that social constructions of manhood supported the ideology of white supremacy. So a second goal will be to understand the relationship between constructions of gender and race. Susan Jeffords, another of the authors we will be reading, argues, "It is crystallized formations of masculinity in warfare that enable gender relations in society to survive...(xv). This thesis gives the course its main focus. We will investigate and test this thesis through the crucibles of World War I, World War II and the war in Vietnam. How has war shaped what the culture accepts as "true" about men and women? Why and in what ways do these constructions of gender differ for the World Wars and Vietnam? To what extent did the challenges of the civil rights movement and the women's movement impact the generation of Cold War militarism? Does war result in increased sexual equality? What are the important similarities and differences between personal violence (rape, racism) and state organized violence (war and militarism)? What might we expect in a "war on terrorism" which includes a great deal of rhetoric about the treatment of women?

Required Readings

Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (U. Of Chicago, 1995).

Yvonne M. Klein, Beyond the Home Front: Women's Autobiographical Writing of the Two Wold Wars (New York University Press, 1997)

Susan Jeffords, Remasculinization of America: Gender and Vietnam (Indiana University Press, 1989) reprint

Cynthia Enloe, Maneuvers : The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives (U. Of California Press, 2000)

History 369 reader (available at bookstore)

William Chafe, "World War II as a Pivotal Experience for American Women"
Judith DeGew, "The Combat Exclusion and the Role of Women in the Military"
Sharon Hartline, "Intimate Danger: The case for Preemptive Self-Defense"
Alison Jaggar, Living with Contradictions: Controversies in Feminist Social Ethics Section A Militarism

Assignments

15% Group biography (Ida B. Wells, G. Stanley Hall, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Theodore Roosevelt)

20% Individual Primary Source Report: Vietnam novel or film from Jeffords, Remasculinization of America

15% Participation

20% Response to Readings on Women, Men and Militarism

30% Research Paper on topic generated by course

Syllabus of Readings

Jan 17 Introduction

Gender Race and World War I: 1880-1919

Jan 21 Bederman 1-44 and worksheet

Jan 24 Bederman 45-76 (Ida B. Wells)

Jan 28 Bederman 77-120 (G. Stanley Hall)

Jan 31 Bederman 121-169 (Charlotte Perkins Gilman)
Paper Topics due

Feb 4 (Day on activities) Bederman 170-240 (Theodore Roosevelt)

Feb 7 World War I Klein 1-126 autobiography esp Gertrude Stein, Vera Britain, Mary Borden, Elizabeth Seargeant

World War II as Pivotal 1930-1954

Feb 11 Klein 127-247 esp. Mary Meigs, Pauli Murray, Etty Hillesum, Agnes Keith, Joy Kogawa...

Feb 18 Chafe, "World War II as Pivotal"
Annotated Bibliography for Research Projects DUE

Feb 21 Midsemester break

Feb 25 Video: Rosie the Riveter

Civil Rights, Women's Movement and Vietnam: The Remasculinization of America? 1954-1990

Feb 28 Jeffords, 1-53 Writing about the War

Mar 4 Jeffords, 54-86 Masculine Bonding
Presentation

Mar 7 Jeffords 87-115 Compensatory Reproduction
Presentation

Mar 11 Jeffords, 116-143 Male Oppression and Regeneration of Self Respect Presentation

Mar 14 Jeffords, 144-167 Feminization of loss and the government
Presentation

Mar 25 Jeffords, 168-186 Remasculinization and Race
Presentation

Militarism and Controversies in Feminist Ethics

Mar 28 Judith DeGew, "The Combat Exclusion and the Role of Women in the Military"

Apr 1 Equality? Women as Soldiers Read Judith Hicks Stiehm, "The Protected, the Protector and the Defender" and Helen Michalowski, "The Army will Make a "Man" out of You"

Apr 4 Read: Enloe, "Some of the Best Soldiers Wear Lipstick" and begin Maneuvers pp ix-xix.

Apr 8 Difference? Women as Nonviolent Read Gwyn Kirk, "Our Greenham common: Feminism and Nonviolence and Sara Ruddick, "Notes toward a Feminist Maternal Peace Politics" Dugenia, "They Won't Take Me Alive and Omolade, "we Speak for the Planet"

Apr 11 The Global Reach of Militarism: Enloe, 1-34 "How Do they Militarize a Can of Soup?

Apr 15 Enloe, 35-48 "The Laundress, the Soldier and the State"

Apr 18 Enloe, 49-107 "The Prostitute, the Colonel and the Nationalist"
Due: Response Papers on Women, Men and Militarism

Apr 22 Enloe, 108-152 "When Soldiers Rape" and Sharon Hartline "Intimate Danger"

Apr 25 Enloe, 235-287 "Filling the Ranks: Militarizing Women as Mothers, Soldiers, Feminists and Fashion Designers"

Apr 29 Discussion of Enloe's questions: pp 288-300 and other questions raised in the readings in light of War on Terrorism

May 2 Summary and conclusions
Final Research Papers Due

Assignments

Group Biography
Gail Bederman's text focuses on the work of four influential turn of the century figures: Ida B. Wells, G. Stanley Hall, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Theodore Roosevelt. Dividing the class into four groups, we will deepen our understanding of her text by the following.
1) Present to the class a contextual biographical overview of the person's life. What were the biggest influences in their thought and life choices? Help us fill in relevant and/or interesting details missing from Bederman's chapter.
2) Evaluate Bederman's thesis in light of your reading of the primary sources available to you. Our reference librarian for this course is Janet Wagner, who has made sources readily available. These evaluations should be 3-5 pages with a complete bibliography of references used.

Primary Source Assignment
Susan Jeffords argues that the novels, texts, movies and oral history about the Vietnam War have "remasculinized" social relations. Since it is not expected that you are familiar with all of the material she cites, we will cooperatively expand our knowledge of her most interesting sources. Your assignment will be to examine either one movie or one text from the list below with two purposes in mind: 1) to review that source for the benefit of the class in a 15 minute presentation and 2) to evaluate the source in light of Jeffords' thesis in a 3-5 page paper.

Books

Baritz, Loren. Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and Made us Fight the Way We Did. Ballantine 1985

Broyles, William. "Why Men Love War" and Brothers in Arms: A Journey from War to Peace (Knopf, 1986)

Caputo, Philip. A Rumor of War. Ballantine, 1977

Del Vecchio, John. The 13th Valley. Bantam, 1982

Eastlake, William. The Bamboo Bed Avon, 1969

Herr, Michael, Dispatches, Avon, 1978

Mailer, Norman. The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History. Signet, 1968

Mason, Bobbie Ann. In Country, Harper and Row, 1985

Mayer, Tom, "A Birth in the Delta" In the Weary Falcon, pp. 149-75 Houghton Mifflin, 1971

Nixon, Richard. No More Vietnams. Arbor House, 1985

Wheeler, John. Touched with Fire: The Future of the Vietnam Generation. Avon 1984.

Films

Platoon
The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino)
Missing in Action
Rambo: First Blood Full
Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrik)
Uncommon Valor
Garden of Stone

Response to Readings on women, men and militarism
This response paper is to give you the opportunity to integrate the readings with your own thinking on some very controversial issues. Choose an area of focus that is of particular interest to you, and bring in thoughts from at least three or four of the readings. Papers should be 6 -10 pages long with a bibliography. (No outside sources required). Some questions you might want to think about for starters: To what extent is Jefford's assertion that "crystallized formations of masculinity in warfare enable gender relations ...to survive" accurate? Does war result in increased sexual equality? Is the culture as "militarized" as Enloe suggests and if so, what are the ramifications and who, if anyone, is resisting it? Is there a sense in which violence is distinctively male? What do masculinity, patriarchy, and violence have to do with each other? Do women have distinctive interests or capacities for peacekeeping? Does talk about women's special interests endanger efforts to break down gender stereotypes? Papers should reflect your careful, reasoned thinking and engagement with the texts.

Research Project
Choose a question related to the course and research it, using 10-15 sources. You might like to do a comparative paper with some other country than the US, examine in more depth some of the questions raised by the texts, investigate a particular group or a particular period of time regarding effects of war on changing social constructions of gender. Topics are due Jan 31. Set aside regular time throughout the semester to work on this paper. Last minute research is never satisfactory. Papers should be 10 -15 pages with complete endnotes and bibliography, and reflect a thoughtful review of literature written on the topic, including positions you may disagree with, and a carefully developed thesis about your topic with well- argued support. Choose something you will enjoy learning more about! Check with me--I like to work with creative and unusual ideas!