History Notes Approaches to History Notes
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...
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Approaches Revision Notes:
GENDER:
Good essay structure/set of points to focus on:
Wage disparity/property ownership.
Association of men and skilled work, women and unskilled.
Centrality of women to the home.
Women’s public identity as workers.
1. How does the history of work interact with perceptions of gender roles?
HISTORIOGRAPHY:
One of historical traditions = that late medieval period was a ‘golden age’ for women workers.
‘Golden age’ = useful arg for both liberal feminists (can easily return) and socialists (capitalism is the enemy).
Susan Cahn talked of “women’s descent from paradise”.
Judith M Bennett warns against idealising the medieval period.
Too easy: “’medieval’ functions in this story as the antithesis of modernity”. Pessimism = “almost a foundational faith of women’s history”. Suits “our longings for another world… of a kinder and gentler variety”. Labels this “history’s seductive tale”.
“The medieval household economy was not an egalitarian refuge that capitalism and industrialism somehow cruelly undermined”.
The decline of the position of women has been linked to the growth of capitalism.
However, many historians now disagree with this.
K Honeyman and J Goodman: “labour markets in which women face discrimination are… very longstanding”.
Honeyman and Goodman talk of the “complex relationships between patriarchy and economic materialism”.
Some see women’s role in the home as the equivalent (as in just as important):
“Some Marxist-feminists have redefined reproduction as the functional equivalent of production” (Joan Scott).
Nice quote: “the household economy… was shot through with sexual inequality” (J M Bennett).
Overall, there has been less change than one might imagine:
J M Bennett talks of “strong and sure continuities in women’s work across the centuries”.
REINFORCES | BREAKS DOWN |
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Because of women’s other priorities, they could not participate in work in the same way, and this reinforced gender roles.
| Did farmers in the late medieval period really care about gender?
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Guilds played a crucial part in reinforcing masculine stereotypes, as well as male bonding.
| During time of work protests, women could come to the fore:
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Men’s domain = v clearly generally assoc with being outside OR skilled, women’s in the home OR unskilled.
| Women often did play a central role, just a more subtle one.
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Even when the number of women in work did increase, this often caused a backlash.
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Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Approaches to History Notes.
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...
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