A History of "Gender" [PDF]

A History of "Gender" Author(s): Joanne Meyerowitz Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 113, No. 5 (Dec., 2008), pp. 1346-1356 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30223445 . Accessed: 14/03/2014 08:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

AHR Forum A Historyof "Gender" JOANNE MEYEROWITZ

SCHOLARLY ARTICLES TEND TO HAVE LIMITED SHELF LIVES, but twenty yearson, Joan

Scott's"Gender:A UsefulCategoryof HistoricalAnalysis"has no discernibledate of expiration.A cursoryGoogle searchleads to dozens of syllabithatfeatureit as

andthefigures fromJSTORattestto itsdurablepopularity. Of requiredreading, alltheAmerican Historical Review articles onJSTOR,Scott'shashadbyfarthemost traffic. SinceJSTORfirst articles onlinein 1997,usershave beganposting scholarly

accessed"Gender"morethan38,000timesand printedmorethan25,000copies.For thepast fiveyears,it has consistently rankedin thetop spot as themostfrequently viewedand mostfrequently of printed JSTOR's AHR articles.1 Whatelevatesone articleabovetherest?Whatcreatesthereputationthatmakes an articlerequiredreadingformorethantwenty years?In part,it maybe a matter of architecture. Scottbuilt"Gender"withan artfuluse of argument.In one brief essay,she managedto summarizethe adventofgenderhistory, providecritiquesof earliertheoriesofwomen'ssubordination, introducehistorians to deconstructionist methods,and lay out an agenda forfuturehistoricalstudies.But as we all know, academic reputationrestson more than compellingly structuredargument,even whenthe argumentis displayedwell in a top-tierscholarly journal.2For historians, thesurestwayto explaina textis to place itinhistoricalcontext.Thus,a shorthistory of "Gender"thearticlemighthelpus assess itsriseto prominenceand itsinfluence withinthefieldofU.S. history. And an evenshorterhistory of"gender"theconcept the article's contribution to American social thought. mightsuggest longer-lasting As SCOTrNOTED,BY 1986,feminists had alreadyadoptedtheterm"gender"to refer to the social construction of sex differences, and theoristshad alreadyposed "genFor helpfulcommentson earlierdrafts,manythanksto MargotCanaday,Regina Kunzel,Christina Simmons,and the editorsof and anonymousreviewersfortheAHR. 1 JoanW. Scott,"Gender:A UsefulCategoryof HistoricalAnalysis," AmericanHistoricalReview 91,no. 5 (December1986): 1053-1075.Thanksto RobertB. Townsend,AssistantDirectorforResearch and Publicationsof theAmericanHistoricalAssociation,forsupplying thesefigures, whichwerecomThe closest piled on December 27, 2007. The exactfiguresare 38,093viewingsand 25,180printings. were RobertFinlay,"The Refashioningof competitors(based on totalviewingsplus totalprintings) MartinGuerre,"AmericanHistoricalReview93, no. 3 (June1988): 553-571,with21,558viewingsand and MelvynP. Leffler, "The Cold War:WhatDo 'We NowKnow'?"American Historical 11,183printings, Review104,no. 2 (April 1999): 501-571,with22,075viewingsand 9,495printings. 2 For an attempt to theorizethesourcesofscholarly see, forexample,MichbleLamont, reputations, "How to Become a DominantFrenchPhilosopher:The Case ofJacquesDerrida,"AmericanJournalof Sociology93, no. 3 (1987): 584-622.

1346

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

A History of "Gender"

1347

der" as an analyticcategory,akinto class and race. A fewhistorianshad begunto use the term"genderhistory"in additionto "women'shistory," and a handfulhad as partof a genderhistorythatdid not focussolely looked at men and masculinity on women.Scottintervened in thishistoriographic processat a criticalmoment.For was mostlyunwelcome. some historiansof women,the shifttowardgenderhistory To replace "women'shistory"with"genderhistory"and to includemen and masa quest for culinityseemed to some at the timelike a conservativeretrenchment, or an abandonmentof the studyof marginalizedand oppressed respectability, groups.Scottrecognizedthe pitfallsand offeredreassurance.She directlyrepudiated the use of "gender"as a de-politicized,social-scientized forwomen synonym or sex,and she promisedto reinvigorate feminist history byexpandingitsrealmof influence.In thisway,she helped historiansof womento approve(and otherhistoriansto discern)an emergingshiftin historiography. a solution. Scottoutlineda problemfacedbywomen'shistoriansand proffered the Two decades afterthelaunchingof field,women'shistory was,she implied,stuck in a descriptive rut,relegatedto thelimitedbywaysof social historyinquiry.It had

failedinitsearlierclaimsto rewrite themasternarrative ofhistory, andithadnot

yetadequatelyexplainedthe"persistent inequalitiesbetweenwomenand men."ExShe offereda different istingtheories,Scottsaid,wereahistoricaland reductionist. for and Influenced approach rethinking rewriting history. byDerrida'sdeconstructionismand Foucault'sformulation of dispersedpower,she asked historiansto anhad appeared alyzethelanguageofgender,to observehowperceivedsexdifferences as a and fundamental These perceiveddifferences, historically natural opposition. she wrote,had oftensubordinatedand constrainedwomen,yes,but theyhad also otherhierarchical Thiswas the provideda "primary wayofsignifying" relationships. heartof her contribution: she invitedus to look at how "the so-callednaturalrenaturalized,and legitimatedrelationshipbetweenmale and female"structured, of between ruler and ruled or betweenempireand colony. lationships power,say,

Thehistory ofgendercould,itseems,inhabit moreofthehistorical turfthancould

thehistory ofwomen.It couldevenenterand remapthemostresistant domains,such as the historyof war,politics,and foreignrelations.3 Scottcouldnot influence, Althoughshepromisedto expandtherealmoffeminist deflectthe criticsfromwithinher own fractiouscamp. Her embraceof poststructuralismand herconsequentemphasison the languageof sex difference provoked a numberofpointedrejoindersfromprominent women'shistorians. JudithBennett, for example,worriedthat "the Scottianstudyof gender ignore[d]women qua and abwomen,"avoidedreckoningwith"materialreality,"and "intellectualize[d] the of the sexes." Linda Gordon Likewise, stract[ed] inequality suspectedthat a "focuson genderas difference in itself"as "a kindofparadigmforall otherdivides" had replaced"genderas a systemofdomination"and therebysubstituted a pluralist visionof "multipledifferences" forthe studyof "powerdifferentials." Joan Hoff wentfurther, even overboard.She accused poststructuralist and genderhistorians, Scottin particular, of nihilism, ahistoricism, obfuscation, elitism,obeipresentism, sance to patriarchy, ethnocentrism, irrelevance,and possiblyracism.Poststructur3 Scott,"Gender,"1066, 1067,1073.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER 2008

1348

JoanneMeyerowitz

alism,she found,"erased womanas a categoryof analysis,"underminedthe "traditionalstageofhistoricalfact-finding" forthosegroupsofwomenwhosehistory had notyetbeen written, and damagedpoliticalactivismforwomen'srights.She titled her essay "Gender as a PostmodernCategoryof Paralysis."4 The criticalcommentary also came fromhistorianswho did notwritewomen's turn.CritiquesofScott'swork history, especiallythosewhoquestionedthelinguistic came fromboththe leftand the right.BryanPalmer,forexample,decriedher reand GertrudeHimmelfarb complainedaboutthe pudiationofhistoricalmaterialism, of fact,reality,and objectivity." In the UnitedStates,as othershave undermining historians" were"inthevanguard"ofpoststructuralist historical suggested,"feminist outside of intellectualhistory,and Scott practice,especiallyin its manifestations stood out at the front.In thissense,"Gender"came to representsomethinglarger thanitself.Scottservedas thewhippinggirlnotonlyforgenderhistory butalso for thechallengesofpoststructuralism, therevisionism ofthelatestnewhistory, and the "intellectual haute couture"-of French She vogue-the imported theory.6 maynot butitno doubtplayeda partin attracting haveenjoyedthepublicflagellation, readers to her essay.

DESPITE THE MISGIVINGS OF SOMEHISTORIANS, gender soon took on a lifeof its own.

WithinthefieldofU.S. history, muchofthenewworkon genderhad littledirect connection withScott'sessay.Case studiesoftheintersections ofrace,class,and for and accounts of how various of women andmenpargender, example, groups inpolitics, didnotnecessarily drawon labor,andconsumption ticipated differently Scott'sDerridean, Foucauldian model.Somenewhistories ofgenderinpubliccited HabermasandNancyFrasermoreoftenthantheycitedDerridaandScott.' Jiurgen ButScott'sarticledidhaveunquestionable evenamongthoseauthors who influence, did not adopt the deconstructionist methodwholesale.In the 1990s,it inspireda

in a rangeofforms cohortofscholarswhowrotegenderhistory andfields.Within thiscohort,a numberof authorsfollowed Scott'sproposalto foreground thedisM. Bennett,"Feminismand History,"Genderand History1, no. 3 (1989): 258; Linda Gor4 Judith don,reviewofJoanWallachScott,Genderand thePoliticsofHistory, Signs15,no. 4 (1990): 858; Joan Review3, no. 2 (1994): 149, Hoff,"Gender as a PostmodernCategoryof Paralysis,"Women'sHistory 162. For additionalcriticalcommentaries, see, forexample,Sonya O. Rose et al., "Gender History/ Women'sHistory:Is FeministScholarshipLosingIts CriticalEdge?" Journalof Women'sHistory 5, no. 1 (1990): 89-128. Some of theseauthorsaddressedScott'sessaysmoregenerally, notjust the article "Gender." of Languageand the Writing of Social 5 BryanD. Palmer,DescentintoDiscourse:The Reification "Some Reflectionson the New HisHistory(Philadelphia,1990), esp. chap. 5; GertrudeHimmelfarb, tory,"AmericanHistoricalReview94, no. 3 (June1989): 661-670. 6 Joyce Appleby,LynnHunt,and MargaretJacob,TellingtheTruthaboutHistory (New York,1994), NewLit226; SandraM. Gilbertand Susan Gubar,"Sexual Linguistics:Gender,Language,Sexuality," turn"in history, see, forexample,JohnE. Toews, eraryHistory16,no. 3 (1985): 521. On the"linguistic "IntellectualHistoryafterthe LinguisticTurn: The Autonomyof Meaningand the Irreducibility of Experience,"AmericanHistoricalReview92, no. 4 (October1987): 879-907; KathleenCanning,"FeministHistoryaftertheLinguisticTurn:Historicizing Discourseand Experience,"Signs19,no. 2 (1994): 368-404. 7 See, forexample,MaryRyan,Womenin Public:BetweenBannersand Ballots,1825-1880 (Baltimore,1990),and Glenda ElizabethGilmore,Genderand JimCrow:Womenand thePoliticsof White in NorthCarolina,1896-1920(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996). Supremacy

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER2008

A History of "Gender"

1349

and trackhowtheyconstituted cursiveuse ofperceivedsexdifferences relationships thecase studiesof"women'sworlds"and "femalecultures" ofpower.In U.S. history, in the 1980s dwindledas accountsrose of the waysin which thathad proliferated the languageof genderhad shoredup hierarchiesof race, class, region,politics, nation,and empire. ofU.S. history A quick(and,forgive me,incomplete)surveyofjusta fewsubfields Dowd Hall endorsed thegender establishesthepoint.In southernhistory, Jacquelyn projectearlyon. "The South,"shewrotein 1989,"providesa primeexampleofhow gendersignifiesrelationsof powerin hierarchicalregimes."Otherhistorianstook and politiciansreministers up the task.StephanieMcCurryfoundthatproslavery ofwomen"and "thatofslaves," peatedlydrewanalogiesbetween"thesubordination ofthefamilyand especiallymarand thereby"endow[ed]slaverywiththelegitimacy riage."Theyused thelanguageofgender"to naturalizeothersocialrelations-class and race,forexample."Laura Edwardsreportedsimilaranalogies-betweenwomen and other"dependent"groups-in the Reconstruction-era writingsof elite white theirbidto monopolize southernmen,whoused thelanguageofgenderto legitimate werecoded politicalpower.Historiansalso notedhowthesouthernstatesthemselves as femininewithinthe United States.Nina Silber,forexample,pointedto a posttheSouthas a "submissive" wife bellumnorthern languageofgenderthatportrayed and helped to enable the "romance"of sectionalreunion.8 In otherareas,historiansalso attendedto thewaysthatpoliticaltheorists, govto construct ernmentofficials, and otherwritersused thelanguageofsex difference and sustainpoliticaland social hierarchies.In earlyAmericanhistory, MaryBeth Britishmale colonistsestablishedgovNortondescribedhow seventeenth-century ernmentsbased on a gendered,hierarchicalmodel of the family,and Kathleen Brownsuggestedthatgenderdiscourseshaped theemergingpoliticalorderin Virginia fromthe firstconflictswiththe Indians throughthe course of Bacon's Rebellion. JenniferMorgan illustratedhow earlyEuropean narrativesof the New World"reliedon gender,"especiallyon accountsof monstrousIndianand African and Toby Ditz women,"to conveyan emergentnotionof racializeddifference," stabilizedtheirownfragdelineatedhoweighteenth-century Philadelphiamerchants theirfailedand dishonest ile masculinestatusbyfeminizing and thereby stigmatizing At the other end ofthechronological and colleaguesas "weepingvictims harpies."9 U.S. politicsexaminedhow male politicians span, historiansof twentieth-century Masters 8 JacquelynDowd Hall, "PartialTruths,"Signs14, no. 4 (1989): 910; StephanieMcCurry, South ofSmallWorlds:YeomanHouseholds,GenderRelations,and thePoliticalCultureoftheAntebellum and Confusion:The CarolinaLow Country (New York,1995),214,224; Laura Edwards,GenderedStrife PoliticalCultureofReconstruction (Urbana, Ill., 1997), esp. chap. 6; Nina Silber,TheRomanceofReand theSouth,1865-1900(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1993), 10. union:Northerners and Fathers:GenderedPowerand theFormingofAmerican 9 MaryBethNorton,FoundingMothers and AnxiousPatriarchs: Society(New York, 1996); KathleenM. Brown,Good Wives,NastyWenches, L. Morgan,"'Some Gender,Race, and Powerin Colonial Virginia(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996); Jennifer Could SuckleoverTheirShoulder':Male Travelers,Female Bodies,and theGenderingof Racial Ideor, 54, no. 1 (1997): 168; TobyL. Ditz, "Shipwrecked; ology,1500-1770,"Williamand MaryQuarterly of Failure and the GenderedSelf in EighteenthMasculinityImperiled:MercantileRepresentations CenturyPhiladelphia,"JournalofAmericanHistory81, no. 1 (1994): 54. On gendermoregenerallyin see TobyL. Ditz, "The New Men's Historyand thePeculiarAbsenceof GenearlyAmericanhistory, dered Power: Some Remedies fromEarlyAmericanGenderHistory,"Genderand History16, no. 1 (2004): 1-35.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER

2008

1350

JoanneMeyerowitz

usedthelanguageofgenderto createa hierarchy inwhichtheystoodabovetheir maleopponents. Intheearlytwentieth as feminine century, theycastmalereformers andtherefore andinthelatetwentieth maleliberals lacking, century, theyattacked insomewhat form. GailBederman andArnaldoTestishowedhowTheodore similar hisreform Rooseveltshookoffthegenderedsmearbycombining agendawithan and RobertDean andK. A. Cuordileone racisthypermasculinity, eluimperialist, cidatedhowJohnF. Kennedy to the with an attempted repel aspersion aggressive ofliberalism.10 expression alsomadesignificant intothehisgenderhistory forays Perhapsmostsurprising, the field of that had seemed most immune of U.S. tothe history tory foreign policy, in Scotthadspecifically calledforsuchan intervention; women'shistory enterprise. andmadethecase forthepotential benefits of 1990,EmilyRosenberg responded she said,pervadedaccountsof international genderanalysis.Genderedimagery, relations ofdomination anddependence. Andrew Rotter affairs, legitimating foreign the lead and showed how U.S. had pursued mid-twentieth-century policymakers Indiaas feminine andIndia'smaleleadersas passive,emotional, andlackimagined In thiscase,the"feminization" undermined theopportunity foralingin virility. liancebetweentheU.S. andIndia.In othercases,though, the"masculinization" of nationsand theirleadersdamagedinternational while"feminization" relations, eased them.FrankCostigliola, forexample, thewritings ofColdWar investigated architect who shifted from a beloved Russia inthe1930s GeorgeKennan, feminizing toportraying Sovietleadersas "monstrously masculine" andrapaciousinthepostWorldWarII years.PetraGoeddetracedtheinverse shift withregardto Germany. World War American soldiers vilified the Nazi II, leaders,whomtheyunDuring as brutally butafter thewarthey"developed a feminized derstood masculine, image" ofGermans as a population inneedofprotection, andthus,Goeddeclaimed, "paved thewaytowardreconciliation."1 Historians also beganto suggestthatdiscourses ofgenderhad promoted and sustained American interventions. In Fighting KrisManhood, military forAmerican tinHogansonexplored"howgenderpoliticsprovoked theSpanish-American and ofherbookstatedplainly. As theyadwars,"as thesubtitle Philippine-American vocatedwar,jingoesandimperialists concern withmasculinity expressed heightened andlookedto themilitary to buildandproveAmerican manhood. Theyposedthe o10 Gail Bederman,Manlinessand Civilization: A CulturalHistory of Genderand Race in theUnited States,1880-1917(Chicago,1995),chap. 5; ArnaldoTesti,"The Genderof ReformPolitics:Theodore Rooseveltand the Cultureof Masculinity," JournalofAmericanHistory81, no. 4 (1995): 1509-1533; RobertD. Dean, ImperialBrotherhood: Genderand theMakingof Cold WarForeignPolicy(Amherst, Mass., 2001); K. A. Cuordileone,ManhoodandAmericanPoliticalCulturein theCold War(New York,

2005). 11 Emily J. S. Rosenberg, Journal "Gender," 77,no.1 (1990):116-124;Andrew History ofAmerican TheUnitedStatesandSouthAsia,1947-1964," "GenderRelations, Relations: Journal Rotter, Foreign forPenetration': Pressure 81,no.2 (1994):518-542;FrankCostigliola, ofAmerican History "'Unceasing inGeorgeKennan's Formation oftheColdWar,"Journal andEmotion Gender, ofAmerican Pathology, Fraternization andtheFem83,no.2 (1997):1333;PetraGoedde,"FromVillainstoVictims: History inization ofGermany, 1945-1947," 23,no. 1 (1999):2, 20. See also theessayson History Diplomatic S. Smith, genderin theWinter1994issueofDiplomatic History, especially Geoffrey "Commentary: andtheHistorical Gender, Process," 18,no.1 (1994):79-90;PetraGoedde, Security, Diplomatic History GIs and Germans: andForeign 1945-1949(NewHaven,Conn.,2003).For Culture, Gender, Relations, a usefulreview "What'sGenderGottoDo withIt?WomenandForeign essay,see Kristin Hoganson, RelationsHistory," OAHMagazine 19,no.2 (2005):14-18. ofHistory

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER 2008

A History of "Gender"

1351

feminineand repulsively mascuSpanishsoon-to-beenemiesas both distastefully line-"effeminatearistocrats" and "savagerapists"-and sometimesalso feminized the Cubans and Filipinosas well as theirown domesticopponents.Mary Renda outlineda somewhatdifferent masculinediscourseof "interventionist paternalism" thatunderwrotethe Americanoccupationof Haiti. The genderedlanguageof faand marinesto justifyimperialist violenceas a therhoodhelpedU.S. policymakers to and the Haitians. childlike manlyattempt protect,educate, discipline allegedly And RobertDean wroteof the threatsto the "imperialmasculinity" of the midU.S. foreignpolicyelite. Politiciansand policymakers used the twentieth-century of to defend their own manhood and diminish that of their rivals, language gender and therebyengaged,Dean suggested,in a "politicsof manhood"that"crucially shaped the tragedyof the VietnamWar." Hoganson,Renda, and Dean (and the otherauthorsmentionedabove) did notconfinetheiranalysesto thedeconstruction of binaryoppositions,but theyprovidedevidenceof how the languageof gender constructed and legitimated Americanimperialism and itsviolentmanifestations.12 Taken together, thesevariousworkspoint,as Scottpredicted,to themultiplicity ofmeaningsthatgenderedlanguageconveyed.In different historicalcontexts, masculinity represented strength, protection, independence,camaraderie,discipline,riand femininity valry,militarism, aggression,savagery,and brutality, represented weakness,fragility, domestication, nurturance, passivity, helplessness,emotionality, and The so-called natural differences attractiveness, excess, partnership, temptation. betweenthesexeshad no fixedand unchangeablemeaning,and in theirvarietythey As otherhistorians providedpotentialmeaningfora rangeof otherrelationships. haveprotested, the ultimate of the of though, impact language genderremainedhard to discern.13 When (and how), as Scottasked,did the languageof gendercrucially structure behaviorand decision-making, andwhen experienceand actuallyinfluence did it simplyadd a convenientrhetoricalflourishor embellishwitha hollowclich6? When (and how), as Scott asked, did the languageof genderconstituteotherrelationsofpower,and whenwas itjust a minorparagraphor a supplemental example and Even all withinthenarratives ofsocial without theanswers,the politicalorder? growingnumberof studiesof genderdiscoursepushed historiansto recognizeits

thediversedomainsinwhichperceived sexdifferences pervasiveness, appearedas andmetaphor forhierarchical and the model,analogy, relationships, wide-ranging and changing ofmasculinity andfemininity in themodernera. meanings Thestudiesalsoenhanced thereputation ofScott'sessayandinjected itsmessage intotraditional subfields ofhistorical Almostalloftheworkscitedabove(and study. as well)mentioned inthefootnotes ifnot "Gender," manyotherbooksandarticles inthetext.Someofthemquoteditdirectly. Itbecamea validating behind authority in themonographic worksthatmovedgenderto thecenterofspecializedsubfields

whichithad earlierstoodat themargins.14 a process Bytheend ofthe1990s,through

12 Kristin L. Hoganson,Fighting forAmericanManhood:How GenderPoliticsProvokedtheSpanishAmericanand Philippine-American Wars(New Haven,Conn.,1998), 11; MaryA. Renda, TakingHaiti: 1915-1940 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2001); Dean, Military Occupationand theCultureof U.S. Imperialism, 243. ImperialBrotherhood, "NewApproaches,Old Interpretations, and ProspectiveRe13See, forexample,MelvynP. Leffler, DiplomaticHistory19, no. 2 (1995): 195. configurations," 14 Scott'sarticlealso had a significant See especiallyAva Baron,ed., impacton U.S. labor history.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER 2008

1352

JoanneMeyerowitz

of repetition,"Gender" had reshapedthe commonplacewisdomof the discipline.

As a measureof itssuccess,Scott'sessayincreasingly servedas a voicefromthe recentpast statingeloquentlywhateverybody, it seems,alreadyknew.

movedinnewdirections. In 1999,shequestioned the Scottherself Meanwhile, oftheterm"gender." In the1980s,shewrote, ongoing vitality genderhad"seemed

a usefulcategoryof analysispreciselybecause it had an unfamiliar, destabilizing effect."Now, however,it had "lost its abilityto startleand provoke."In everyday forwomen,forthedifferences betweenthe usage,genderhad become "a synonym sexes,forsex." The word"gender"had creptintowomen'shistorywithoutnecesthefield.It appearedoftenin "predictablestudiesofwomen,or sarilytransforming in the status,experience,and possibilitiesopen to womenand ... of differences men."Manyaccountsfailedto "examinehowthemeaningsof 'women'and 'men'" were "discursively established"or to addressthe "variationsof subjectively experienced'womanhood.'" Theytherebyimposeda falsesolidityon the unstableand variablecategoriesof "women"and "men." Scottnow avoided theword"gender" betweenthe sexes and about sex as a historand wroteinsteadabout "differences to psychoanalysis, to thefanicallyvariableconcept."She turnedmoreconcertedly tasiesthatenable identities,includingthe "phantasmatic that mobilize projections In individualdesiresinto collectiveidentifications." her 2005 book,ParitY!Sexual and her2007 book,ThePoliticsofthe Equalityand theCrisisofFrenchUniversalism, Veil,she enteredinto currentdebates in Frenchpolitics.She focusedless on the in contemand more on the languageof universalism languageof sex difference poraryFrance.In thesebooks,she did notrenouncethestudyof "gender,"butshe positionedFrenchgenderrelationswithina discursiveanalysisof "the abstractindividualism"thatanimatesFrenchrepublicantraditions.15 As one would expect,otherhistoriansalso venturedintonew territory. In U.S. in now and women's-and theybrought race,sexuality, nationality gender-history, as equallyusefulcategoriesof historicalanalysis,and theyborrowedfrompostcolonial,criticalrace,queer,and politicaltheory.Otherformsofperceiveddifference seem to have constituted them.In particular, genderas muchas genderconstituted thecall to addressrace had at least as muchimpacton U.S. women'shistory as the call to attendto gender.Historiansofwomenand genderalso turnedto the policy ofwelfareand wages,thelegal history of marriage,and thesocial history of history thosewho questionedand transgressed norms. Historians of women shifted gender studiesthathad characterizedsocial historyand away fromthe local community focusedmoreon individualor collectivebiography, questionsoflaw and citizenship, and transnational circulations ofwomenand ideas aboutwomanhood.Theyrewrote the historyof women'smovementswitha closereye to differences amongwomen and conflicts At thesame time,historiansof amongcompetingschoolsoffeminists. manhoodproduceda seriesofstudiesofshifting conceptions, multiplevariants,and WorkEngendered:Towarda NewHistory ofAmericanLabor (Ithaca,N.Y., 1991). The articlealso had influenceoutsideU.S. history, of course,but I will leave thatto the otherparticipants in thisforum. rev.ed. (NewYork,1999),xi-xii,204; Scott, 15JoanWallachScott,Genderand thePoliticsofHistory, Paritd!SexualEqualityand theCrisisofFrenchUniversalism (Chicago,2005); Scott,ThePoliticsof the Veil(Princeton,N.J.,2007), 154. See also Scott,"FantasyEcho: Historyand theConstruction of Identity,"CriticalInquiry27, no. 2 (2001): 284-304.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER

2008

A History of "Gender"

1353

Genderhistory, then,continued(and continues)to repeatedcrisesof masculinity.

thrivein severalincarnations, it and despitethefearsof early(and later)critics,

or displacing,thehistory coexistsand overlapswith,insteadofsupplanting ofwomScott'sarticlehas takenon theemblematicroleofa founen.16Amidtheprofusion, dationaltext.

SCOTT'SESSAY HAD ITS MOST OBVIOUS INFLUENCEin the fieldsof women's and gender

butitalsoplayeda significant from socialtocultural history, partinthebroadershift

fromthe studyof the demography, history, experiences,and social movementsof oppressedand stigmatizedgroupsto the studyof representations, language,pertheriseof genderhistory was similarto and ception,and discourse.In U.S. history, simultaneous withchangesinotheridentity-based fieldsofhistory, roughly including AfricanAmerican,Latino/a,AsianAmerican,immigrant, gayand lesbian,andworkof masculinity had ing-classhistory.Genderhistoryand the historicalconstruction theircounterparts inthehistory ofraceand theconstruction ofwhiteness, thehistory ofethnicity and theconstruction ofnationalidentity, thehistory ofsexualityand the construction ofheterosexuality, and thehistory ofclass and theconstruction ofmiddle-classness.To a certainextent,the same left-leaning politicalenergiesthathad informedmuchof the newsocial historyinformedthe newculturalhistoryas well. The ironyis thatsocial history, theallegedsourceofcentrifugal had fragmentation, thatseemsto have gravitated back-in thehistories spunout intoa culturalhistory of masculinity, and middle-classwhiteness,national identity,heterosexuality, ness-to return,witha new and criticaltorque,to the pre-social-history centerof historicalinquiry."7 as well,provideda keypiece "Gender,"and Scott'sotherwritings of the theoreticalgroundingforthishistoriographic trend.

thisone,too,willno doubtpass.Andwhenit Likeall historiographic moments,

does,whatwillwe remember?We mightconsideranothercontextforunderstanding the significance of Scott'sessayand its largercontribution beyondhistoriography. We haveonlybegunto historicize"gender"-thatis,to writethehistory oftheconitrepresents a turning ceptofgenderitself.Scott'sessaybelongsinthathistory; point

whenU.S. feminist scholarspulled"gender"awayfromitsscientific andsocialscientific reworked its and its broader and social, cultural, origins, meaning, suggested historical impact. Scottdatedtheterm"gender," initscontemporary usage,to the1970sfeminist butthewordhas a longerhistory, evenas a reference to thenon-biomovement, of sex. Before the used as Scottac1950s,linguists "gender," logicalcomponents torefertoa form ofgrammatical classification. Theconceptofsocially knowledged, constructed sexdifferences didnotyethavea wordtoconnoteit.Nonetheless, theoriesofthesocialconstruction ofsexdifferences in tandem with theories emerged ofthesocialconstruction ofotherforms ofgroupdifference. Fromtheearlytwen16 For morerecentconcernsthatgenderhistory willsupplantwomen'shistory, see Alice KesslerHarris,"Do We StillNeed Women'sHistory?"ChronicleofHigherEducation54, no. 15 (December7, 2007): B6. see Daniel Wickberg, "HeterosexualWhiteMale: Some Recent 17 For a recentaccountofthistrend, Inversionsin AmericanCulturalHistory," JournalofAmericanHistory92, no. 1 (2005): 136-157.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER2008

1354

JoanneMeyerowitz

tiethcentury ofbiological on,socialscientists engagedin a profound questioning determinism andthecategories on whichitrelied,notonlywithregardto sexbut

also withregardto race,ethnicity, nationalcharacter, and mensexuality, criminality, tal illness.By the mid-twentieth and sociologistswroteof century, anthropologists "sex roles" to referto the culturallydeterminedexpectedbehaviorof womenand men and "sexual status"to acknowledgethatdifferent culturesaccordeddifferent social rankingsto womenand men. Psychologists used the phrases"psychological to pointto a person'sacquired sense of self as sex" and "sex-roleidentification" femaleor male.1s In the mid-to late 1950s,JohnMoney,JoanHampson,and JohnHampson,all thenat JohnsHopkinsUniversity, introducedthe term"gender"intothisscientific literature. In a seriesofarticleson intersexuality, theyarguedfortheenvironmental determinants of "gender,""genderrole,"and "genderrole and orientation," just as othershad earlierarguedforthe environmental determinants of "sex roles" and "psychologicalsex." Childrenlearned"gender"in earlychildhood,theyargued,in the same waytheylearneda language.Biologicalsex,howeverit was defined,did

notdetermine one's"genderroleandorientation."'19 Otherscientists andsocialscientists In 1962,psychoanalyst RobertStollerandhis pickedupthenewterminology. in Los Angelesopenedthefirst ofCalifornia Gender colleaguesat theUniversity ResearchClinic(GIRC), andin 1968,Stollerpublished thebookSexand Identity whichseemstohavebeenthefirst American bookwiththeword"gender," Gender, in itscurrent to the form,in thetitle.For Stoller,genderreferred non-linguistic balanceofmasculinity andfemininity foundineachperson.It had"psyparticular orcultural rather thanbiological connotations." Stoller wasnota feminist. chological In fact,he worriedabouttheerosionofgenderrolesand thedevelopmental disof"genderidentity," turbance thenewtermhe coinedfor"psychological sex."He andhiscolleaguesat theGIRC workedto instillmasculinity in feminine boysand inmasculine thensomeconstructed, femininity girls.Ifgenderwasmostly socially

built.Stollerand his one, theyreasoned,had to repairit when it was improperly colleaguessignedup forthejob.20 Influencedby the women's movement,Americanfeministsappropriatedthe word"gender"in the 1970sand transformed itsmeaning.Like othersbeforethem, feministsocial scientistsused "gender"to rejectthe notionthatthe perceivedsex

and the social construction of sex differences, 18 On Americansocial scientists see, forexample, Rosalind Rosenberg,BeyondSeparateSpheres:IntellectualRoots of ModernFeminism(New Haven, inAmerican Conn.,1982);Carl Degler,In SearchofHumanNature:TheDeclineandRevivalofDarwinism Social Thought(New York, 1991); Mari Jo Buhle,Feminismand Its Discontents: A Century of Struggle withPsychoanalysis (Cambridge,Mass., 1998). 19 For uses of the new terms,see JohnMoney,"Hermaphroditism, Gender,and Precocityin Hyperadrenocorticism: PsychologicFindings,"Bulletinof theJohnsHopkinsHospital96 (1955): 253-264; JohnMoney,JoanG. Hampson,and JohnL. Hampson,"Imprinting and theEstablishment of Gender and Psychiatry 77 (1957): 333-336. Money Role," AmericanMedicalAssociationArchivesofNeurology laterretreatedfromhis earlyenvironmentalism; bythe end of the 1960s,he speculatedthatearlyexof thebrain(as well as environment) posureto sex hormonesand theneurophysiology shapedgender On Money,theHampsons,and "gender,"see BerniceHausman,Changing Sex: Transsexualism, identity. and the Idea of Gender(Durham, N.C., 1995), chap. 3; JoanneMeyerowitz, How Sex Technology, in theUnitedStates(Cambridge,Mass., 2002), chap. 3. Changed:A Historyof Transsexuality 20 RobertJ.Stoller,Sex and Gender:On theDevelopment and Femininity ofMasculinity (New York, How Sex Changed,chap. 3; PhyllisBurke,Gender 1968),9. On Stollerand the GIRC, see Meyerowitz, Shock:ExplodingtheMythsofMale and Female (New York, 1996).

AMERICAN

HISTORICAL

REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER

2008

A Historyof "Gender"

1355

and intellectwere simplynaturalor innate, differences in behavior,temperament, and questionedwhether but unliketheirpredecessors,theyrejectedfunctionalism thenmany genderand genderroleswerenecessaryor good. If genderwas artifice, 1970sfeminists saw littlereason to maintainit,especiallywhenit playeda partin

women.Butgender, initsmultiple wasnotso easilywilled variations, subordinating andpracticeoffamilies, labormareducation, away.It wasbuiltintothestructure in and and it had roots the behaviors and kets, government deep everyday policies, inthe ofindividual womenandmen.Someacademicfeminists, fantasies especially turned thestudy ofgenderroles,gendersystems, andgender humanities, awayfrom offemininandfocusedinsteadon thereconstruction andrevaluation segregation, women'sethics,andwomen'sworlds.21 ities,women'swritings, Otherssearched fortheoretical thatcouldexplicate howperceptions approaches ofsexdifference in and In thelate1970s order. operated language, psyche, symbolic andearly1980s,someAmerican feminist critics turned toFrenchpoststrucliterary turalist theory. Theydrewon theworksof JacquesLacan,RolandBarthes,and andtheytranslated thewritings ofH616neCixous,LuceIrigary, and JacquesDerrida, JuliaKristeva. from"thewomanreader, women'sculTheyexpandedtheirpurview andculture." Cixouswrote: ture,andthewoman'stext"to "thewholeofliterature ofculture, ofsociety, thewholeconglomeration ofsym"Everytheory everytheory bolicsystems..,. itis all orderedaroundhierarchical thatcomebackto oppositions theman/woman criticsrecognizedthe opposition."Bytheearly1980s,male literary In 1983, in LiteraryTheory,TerryEagleton feministaffinity to poststructuralism. to post-structuralism was in part suggestedthat"the movementfromstructuralism a response"to thedemandsof thewomen'smovement.In thisrendition, feminism stood frontand centeron the poststructuralist stage.22 In 1986,withthearticle"Gender,"JoanScotthelpedto bridgethegap between the feministsocial scientistswho critiqued"gender"and "genderroles" and the feministliterarycriticswho deconstructedtextualrepresentations of sex difference.23She wrotein a moment,as she noted,"of greatepistemologicalturmoil," "fromscientific whensocial scientists wereshifting to literary paradigms,"andwhen werefinding"scholarlyand politicalallies" amongpoststructuralists. For feminists elementofsocial relationships based on perceived Scott,genderwas "a constitutive differences betweenthe sexes,"and also "a primary wayof signifying relationships of power."Scott'sdual definition allowedherto bringtogetherthesocial scientists who rejectedbiologicaldeterminism and questionedthe allegedlynaturaldiffer-

21 On 1970s feminists and "gender,"see, forexample,Suzanne J. Kesslerand WendyMcKenna, Gender:An Ethnomethodological Approach(Chicago, 1978); see also RosalindRosenberg,"Gender," inTheodoreM. PorterandDorothyRoss,eds.,TheModernSocial Sciences(Cambridge,2003),678-692. 22 Elaine Showalter, "Women'sTime,Women'sSpace: WritingtheHistoryof FeministCriticism," TulsaStudiesin Women'sLiterature 3, no. 1/2(1984): 35; H616neCixous,"Castrationor Decapitation?" An Introduction Signs7, no. 1 (1981): 44; TerryEagleton,Literary Theory: (Minneapolis,1983),149.For Americanfeminist see, forexample,Elaine Marksand Isabelle de CouradaptationsofFrenchtheory, AnAnthology and SexualDifference, tivron, eds.,NewFrenchFeminisms: Mass., 1980); Writing (Amherst, Contexts, SpecialIssue,CriticalInquiry8, no. 2 (1981); Feminist Readings:FrenchTexts/American Special see Buhle,Feminismand Issue,Yale FrenchStudies62 (1981). For criticalcommentaries byhistorians, ItsDiscontents, chap. 9; Claire GoldbergMoses, "Made in America:'FrenchFeminism'in Academia," FeministStudies24, no. 2 (1998): 241-274. 23 Scottwas soonjoined in thisendeavorbyJudith and Butler;see Butler,GenderTrouble:Feminism theSubversion ofIdentity (New York, 1990).

AMERICAN

HISTORICAL

REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER

2008

JoanneMeyerowitz

1356

enceson whichitwas based and thephilosophers, and literary critics psychoanalysts, whosuggestedthatthelanguageofdifference sustainedWesternsocial and political order.She was notalone inthiskindofendeavor.A yearearlier,forexample,Henry Louis Gates, Jr.(and others)had positedrace as a "tropeof ultimate,irreducible difference" thatnaturalizeddistinctions between"cultures,linguistic groups,or adWithinthe United States,the scholarlystudy herentsof specificbeliefsystems."24 of difference and inequality,once firmly groundedin social science,had migrated to the humanitiesand takenrootin the studyof language.It soon spreadbeyond the analysisof literatureand into the readingof multifarious texts,includingthe use as evidence. kindsof textsthathistorianstypically in This abbreviatedgenealogyofgendermighthelpto place Scott'scontribution a broadercontext.For historians, Scottsummarizedexplanationsofgenderinequaltrend,and importedtheoryto a discipline ity,capturedan emerginghistoriographic ofcommitted She promisedbothto expandtheterrainofthenewsocial empiricists. the traditionalfieldsof historical and culturalhistoryand to returnto and revivify sustained her argumentfirstbypublicly In and her readers 1990s, study. the 1980s debatingitsmeritsand thenbyapplyingitstheoryand itsmethodofreading.Beyond the historicaldiscipline,though,Scott'sessayenteredintodecades-longconversaofsex difference. She helpedto move tionson thesocial and symbolicconstructions and socialscientific theAmericanconceptofgenderbeyonditsscientific originsand nudged the Americanadaptationsof poststructuralism beyondtheirrecognized had place in literarycriticism.She suggestedhow the languageof sex difference historicallyprovideda means to articulaterelationshipsof power. In this way, she tied genderback to otherformsof differenceand pushed us to ponder the metanarratives that mutuallyconstitutedvarious social and politicalhierarchies. And ponderwe should.This may,in the end, proveto be the enduringlegacyof "Gender." 24 Scott,"Gender,"1066,1067;HenryLouis Gates,Jr., 'Race' andtheDifference It Makes," "Writing and Difference, "Race," Writing, Special Issue, CriticalInquiry12, no. 1 (1985): 5. Gates's essayis the editor'sintroduction to theissue;someoftheotheressaysin theissuealso addressthelanguageofrace difference. See also EvelynBrooksHigginbotham, "AfricanAmericanWomen'sHistoryand theMetalanguageof Race," Signs17, no. 2 (1992): 251-274.

Joanne Meyerowitzis Professorof Historyand AmericanStudies at Yale Uni-

inChicago, Sheis theauthorofWomen Adrift: WageEarners versity. Independent A History 1880-1930(University ofChicagoPress,1988)andHowSexChanged: in the UnitedStates (Harvard UniversityPress, 2002). From of Transsexuality 1999 to 2004, she served as the editor of the JournalofAmericanHistory.She is currentlywritinga historyof the "culture-and-personality school," its popularization,and its impact in the twentiethcentury.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW

This content downloaded from 194.117.18.21 on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 08:33:40 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

DECEMBER2008