gender

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/23/2021
  

  When Men Started to Obsess Over Six-Packs

  by Conor Heffernan

  Today's culture of Instagrammed abdominal muscles traces back to the time when nineteenth-century physical culture movements converged with the archaeological discovery of ancient Greek statuary (bodybuilders then used the new technology of photography in ways we'd recognize). 

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  2/12/2021
  

  The Fantasy that Changed Female Friendship Forever

  by Nicole Hemmer

  If the 1980s phenomenon of the male Chippendales show benefitted women's empowerment, it was not (only) by making men the objects of lust, but by normalizing rituals of female friendship. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/17/2021
  

  The Lockdown Showed How the Economy Exploits Women. She Already Knew

  Silvia Federici's critique of the exploitatitve nature of domestic labor as the backbone of capitalist economies is beginning to gain traction as homes are converted to schools and (paid) workplaces, compounding gendered burdens borne mostly by women in America. 

• 
• SOURCE: Public Seminar
  2/10/2021
  

  Collars, Cuffs, and History Collaborations

  Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young are the producers of the "Past/Present" podcast. Their new project "Welcome to Your Fantasy" looks at feminism and the sexual revolution through the cultural phenomenon of the Chippendales Dancers. Claire Potter interviews the trio about it.

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  1/22/2021
  

  White Americans have Weaponized the Idea of Girlhood

  by Crystal Webster

  The concept of childhood has elastic boundaries; in a racist society, those boundaries stretch to portray whites as innocents deserving protection and Black youth as dangerous and susceptible to punishment. 

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  12/15/2020
  

  Working With Death: The Experience of Feeling in the Archive

  by Ruth Lawlor

  A researcher of sexual assault against women by American troops in World War II confronted the problem that the archive captures only a traumatic event and leaves the human being affected in the shadows. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/9/2020
  

  Jill Biden Is a Teacher. And She’s Not About to Change That

  Cultural historians Stephanie Coontz, Betty Boyd Caroli and Katherine Jellison discuss the historical roles occupied by First Ladies and the ways the position has and will change. 

• 
• SOURCE: War on The Rocks
  11/30/2020
  

  Musing on Gender Integration in the Military with Simone de Beauvoir

  by Bill Bray

  For those engaged in the military gender integration debate today, de Beauvoir’s writing offers an additional reminder — those arguing against more integration may be no less intelligent and sincere than those championing change. But they still may be wrong.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/17/2020
  

  When Schools Closed, Americans Turned to Their Usual Backup Plan: Mothers

  "Mothers are the fallback plan in the United States in part because of persistent beliefs that they are ultimately responsible for homemaking and child rearing, and because of the lack of policies to help parents manage the load."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/13/2020
  

  ‘Women’s Work’ Can No Longer Be Taken for Granted

  New Zealand is pursuing a century-old idea to close the gender pay gap: not equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value.

• 
• 10/25/2020
  

  The Queen's Two Bodies

  by Ed Simon

  Queen Elizabeth's speech to English soliders in anticipation of the Spanish invasion of 1588 rallied the troops for a battle that never happened. But it anticipated today's cultural battle over the stability of gender categories. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  10/15/2020
  

  Trump, Biden and Masculinity in the Age of Coronavirus

  Trump and Biden both seek to embody a masculine ideal on the campaign trail, but the differences in each candidate's vision of what manliness is show that the idea is changing. 

• 
• 10/11/2020
  

  Fear of the "Pussification" of America: A Short Cultural History

  by Gregory A. Daddis

  The bizarre idea that COVID-19 can be defeated through manliness is one of the stranger cultural themes of our time, but it connects to a long history of anxiety about masculinity in a changing America that encourages violent and even self-destructive actions in the name of proving virility.

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  9/4/2020
  

  A Forgotten Campaign To Support ‘Displaced Homemakers’ May Help Women Today

  by Suzanne Kahn

  A 1970s initiative by feminist Tish Sommers for legislation to help women who had worked at home as caregivers to more easily reenter the paid workforce. Her preferred term "displaced homemaker" emphasized the economic importance of domestic care work most often performed by women and women's vulnerability to economic disruption and provides a useful way to think about solutions to the problems caused by COVID today.

• 
• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  9/8/2020
  

  “All the World’s a Harem”: Perceptions of Masked Women during the 1918–1919 Flu Pandemic

  by Jessica Brabble, Ariel Ludwig and E. Thomas Ewing

  Contemporary sources show that women's mask-wearing practices during the 1918 flu pandemic could be viewed through a sexist lens, but women adapted the practice to claim independence and found examples in popular culture.

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  8/28/2020
  

  Whose Anger Counts?

  by Whitney Phillips

  Many complaints about "cancel culture" depend on a false equivalency between left and right forms of internet argument that ignores the nature of far-right online harassment as a tool of power. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  8/17/2020
  

  The ‘Rage Moms’ Democrats Are Counting On

  “Women are mobilized on a bigger scale than we’ve seen in a generation at least,” said historian Annelise Orleck.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/5/2020
  

  The Revealing and Disturbing Story of America, Told Through 20 Years of Reality Dating Shows

  Reality dating shows, for better or worse, have focused a lens on the state of love, sex and relationships in American society. Here is a list of shows that define each of the 20 years of the genre (and might be historical documents someday?)

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/17/2020
  

  History Shows That We Can Solve The Child-Care Crisis — If We Want To

  by Lisa Levenstein

  Today, in nearly two-thirds of households with children, the parents are employed. In 3 out of 5 states, the cost of day care for one infant is more than tuition and fees at four-year public universities.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  6/26/2020
  

  With Schools and Daycare Closed, the Coronavirus is Worsening Women’s Inequality

  by Lisa Levenstein

  The paucity of policy support for childbirth and care work are the result of a system that still envisions the ideal worker as a man.