WMST 227 Women in American History: 1880 to the Present

This course examines the lives of women in the modern world, from the end of the nineteenth century through the twenty-first, with particular attention to women’s creative choices in navigating an oppressive gender system. Focus will be on the applicability of the standard periodization of American History to the lives of American women as they experienced the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and sexuality and as they responded with innovative strategies for living lives of meaning. During this time period, women have gained political, economic, social, and legal rights; yet they retain primary domestic responsibility. This course considers the roots of gendered inequalities and explores creative and humanistic ways of addressing them.

Credits

3

Prerequisite

Eligible to enroll in ENGL 121

Hours Weekly

3

Course Objectives

1. Identify the responses of American women to an oppressive gender system and organize understanding around the creative strategies they invented to navigate systems of race, class, gender, and sexuality, while pursuing meaningful lives for themselves, their families, and communities.
2. Consider the applicability of the standard periodization of American History to the lives of American women and explore alternative ways of understanding women’s history through analyzing variations in the sexual division of labor as well as new roles in wartime, during the Industrial Revolution, through social change, and the emergence of feminism in the 1960s.
3. Apply ideas to an analysis of fictional portrayals, in print and film, of women and their families during this period, comparing the portrayals with what we know about actual women and their families.

Course Objectives

1. Identify the responses of American women to an oppressive gender system and organize understanding around the creative strategies they invented to navigate systems of race, class, gender, and sexuality, while pursuing meaningful lives for themselves, their families, and communities.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Research assignment

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT1
2. Consider the applicability of the standard periodization of American History to the lives of American women and explore alternative ways of understanding women’s history through analyzing variations in the sexual division of labor as well as new roles in wartime, during the Industrial Revolution, through social change, and the emergence of feminism in the 1960s.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Other (please fill out box below)
   • Unit tests

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT2
   • CT3
3. Apply ideas to an analysis of fictional portrayals, in print and film, of women and their families during this period, comparing the portrayals with what we know about actual women and their families.

   Learning Activity Artifact

   • Writing Assignments

   Procedure for Assessing Student Learning

   • Critical and Creative Thinking Rubric

   Critical Thinking

   • CT4