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History Notes Approaches to History Notes

Approaches Gender Religion Notes

Updated Approaches Gender Religion Notes

Approaches to History Notes

Approaches to History

Approximately 45 pages

These notes provide comprehensive cover of the Approaches to History topics of Gender and Sociology. They were the sole resource that I used for my preliminary examination revision, in which I achieved a mark of 67%. They include a wealth of examples spanning across a wide range of time periods (from medieval to modern), as well as discussion of a broad range of historiography, making them a complete resource for studying for the Approaches prelim, if you are taking the Gender or Sociology option...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Approaches to History Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Approaches Revision Notes:

GENDER:

Religion:

1. What role has organised religion played in the history of gender roles?

Could organise into:

  • Texts.

  • Symbolism.

  • Moral behaviour.

  • Idea of fundamental difference.

  • Political platforms/community.

REINFORCED BROKEN DOWN

Have certainly had impact:

  • “Religions have created and legitimated gender” (Ursula King).

Could give women a platform:

  • U King highlights. Talks of this as a “paradigm shift”.

  • E.g. Women’s Caucus, Harvard Divinity School founded 1970.

  • E.g. Jewish Religious Union founded 1902 by Lily Montagu because of United Synagogue’s failure to address women’s demands, e.g. 1899 attempts to secure vote in synagogue elections.

  • “One public arena from which they were not excluded” (Hugh McLeod).

Religious knowledge associated with ‘maleness’:

  • Even word ‘patriarchy’ comes from Church gov’t.

  • Most religious texts written by men.

  • Is “androcentric” (U King).

  • Exemplified by way that Katharina Kunig’s vision prophesying the need for change was rejected in Ref Augsburg.

  • Was really solely masculine domain in C16th Jewish shtetl communities. Women in charge of practical domain. E.g. woman in Burman’s study remembers grandma running grocery shop in Lithuania while grandfather just ‘prayed all day’.

  • E.g. In Manchester study of Jewish schools (Burman), 88% of men had formal relig. education, only 28% women: ‘a girl doesn’t need to learn’ (interviewee, born 1916).

Has been tendency to read religious texts through ‘lenses of gender’:

  • Ursula King’s idea.

  • Re-reading them began with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who published ‘The Women’s Bible’ 1898.

Many religious symbols are gendered:

  • God, Jesus, heavenly father v. Virgin Mary.

  • Jesus = “the archetypal Christian male” (J Gregory).

  • Comes from post-modernist tradition.

  • Roper argues that the male figures became more dominant post-Ref, e.g. dropping of Marian feast. “Reformed religion was relentlessly Christocentric”.

Women have often played leading roles during formative periods of religion:

  • E.g. C19th Christian missionaries.

  • U King.

  • E.g. Roper highlights role in Anabaptism, spiritualism in Ref Augsburg.

  • E.g. when Jews moved from shtetl communities England. Rules like dietary requirements, kashrut, became esp important.

Made even greater by printing press:

  • Several books addressed to men (who would have been more able to read anyway).

  • E.g. Presbyterian Thomas Gouge’s ‘The Young Man’s Guide, through the Wilderness of this World, to the Heavenly Cannan’ (1685 – emph link work-godliness).

  • However, note that there were also manuals available for men as husbands and workers (e.g. ‘The Husband Man’s Manual’ [1694], ‘The Tradesman’s Calling’ [1684]).

Emphasis on charity in C18th may have increased importance of female role:

  • E.g. Vicesimus Knox: ‘Christian charity never shone greater than in this age’.

Relevance of religion to family:

  • “Unlikely to disturb views of female inferiority” (L Roper).

Women were valued for piety and spiritual worth:

  • Key argument of Davidoff and Hall = religion “offered the key to… a world where women could be valued for their spiritual worth”.

  • Not really relevant in Christianity in earlier periods – in C16th, “the figure of the sexually hungry, masterful woman also made a frequent appearance” (Roper). Also see demonologies. Sexual crime made up 50% of crime for women, 14% for men.

  • Especially relevant to Judaism: ideal of woman = ‘Eshet chayil’ (‘a woman of worth’).

Religion often very strongly linked to maintenance of social order:

  • Key argument of Roper (on Ref Augsburg) is that it was used to entrench the “patriarchal ideal”.

There have been images of spiritual women:

  • E.g. St Afra, Church of St Ulrich and St Afra contained bones of ‘many other pious virgins’.

  • E.g. Church of St Ulric and St Afra – 31 reliquaries of male saints, 20 of female.

  • *However, note that these were always constructed in a feminine way.

Women played a very important role in household religion:

  • Key argument of Davidoff and Hall.

  • Roper: “her work was essential and valued”.

  • Especially in Judaism: became “core reference points” (Rickie Burman) when the Jews moved from shtetl communities of C16th Poland-Lithuania to England (men had to be breadwinners).

Could be said to have encouraged development of community of women:

  • Davidoff and Hall call this “a women’s subculture of validation and support”.

  • E.g. Jewish Religious Union.

Is a very complex issue, that has shifted over time:

  • E.g. piety came to be more associated with women whereas it originally was seen as more male.

  • Complicated by issues like class.

  • E.g. class-specific books such as ‘The Poor Man’s Catechism: or the Christian Religion’ (John Mannock, 1752) published.

  • Could be different in different religions.

  • E.g. Catholicism more centred on daily tasks: “nurtured a peculiarly female style of devotion” (Roper).

2. How far should historians distinguish between practice and doctrine when assessing the impact of religion on gender roles?

SIMILARITIES DIFFERENCES

Images put forward by doctrine did often translate effectively.

  • E.g. God, Jesus, Mary – done through paintings etc. in Churches.

Texts often v dominated by men, but this was not the same as popular belief.

  • Highlighted by European witch-hunt.

  • Many could not read.

The same...

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