“So, when do we get a Men’s History Month?” - Blog Against Sexism Day 2007
It’s inevitable, isn’t it? I mean, one writes about Women’s History Month and one is instantly asked “So, when is Men’s History Month?” Or, to be specific:
Can we have a men’s history month too? And talk about manly manly things? The history I teach is weighted to be representative of the whole population, not just men and not just white men. Every mainstream History 101 book that I know of being in use is well weighted to over represent minorities and women to compensate for past disparities. Which is just fine. But if most freshmen 101 history classes are well weighted to be a fair representation, then why the special month?
Why the special month indeed.
I decided to take a quick look at the syllabi (syllabuses?) of several History courses, trying to get a sense from them what sort of overview they were doing and how women were being considered within them. To be clear, the classes I looked at were limited to North American university classes, and those I could find online. It’s not the best representation, but it at least gives us something to look at. Frankly, it’s harder to find them online than I was expecting. I tried to look only at introductory courses, but rarely did they make it clear what they were teaching. Instead, I focused on courses teaching Medieval History, although one of my examples is an intro course.
The first one I looked at was “Poets, Priests, & Paladins: Views of the Medieval World“, a 300-level course on Medieval Europe. This time period (500 - 1500) includes Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mellisande, Margery Kempe, Joan of Arc, Clare of Assisi, and Hilda of Whitby. Women were founding and living in religious orders, they were going on crusade (as washer women), they were troubadours, they were weaving great tapestries, they were raising up their own armies and defending their own and their husband’s land… it’s a great time for a class that includes women, right?
Too bad this one only brings any attention to “Women’s Roles” on the 22nd day of class.
Of all the source material and the texts mentioned specifically in the syllabus, only one is about women, and it’s about Christine de Pizan. It’s not clear if it includes samples of her writing or not.
It does, however, manage to focus three different days on medieval faith, monks, and the papacy, and dedicates much of the reading to Arthur and the Round Table.
This isn’t striking me as a “fair representation”.
But that’s just one course, at one university. Let’s look at another.
Medieval History is another 300-level course, again in the same time period.
This course does a little bit better, at least in the syllabus. There are mentions of actual women - Hilda of Whitby, Heloise, and Eleanor - and some acknowledgement that women were a part of the culture at the time. But there’s still an entire class dedicated to the Status of Women (instead of it being spread out through the coursework, as one would think it should be), there’s no mention of any other women, Hilda is only mentioned in relation to Bede, and Eleanor gets seven classes dedicated to her in some way. There’s a “special” question on the status of women during the time of Bede, but all other questions focus on Bede entirely.
This class really looks like it’s falling into that trap I was talking about before of not knowing how to integrate women into the narrative. There seems to be no source material that is written by women, and making Eleanor so incredibly important makes her seem like the only woman of note in the time period. With a survey course, you’re not going to get into the nitty-gritty, but some acknowledgement that women were doing things other than being written about by Bede and having sex with Henry II would be nice.
But it’s definitely a step up from the first one.
The last class I looked at was “World History for Teachers” [DOC]. Because it’s a doc, I’ll quote a bit from the syllabus here:
Objectives:
1) Students will develop strong foundational knowledge of all major civilizations and societies in world history.
2) Students will be able to make inter-civilizational comparisons, especially regarding the major themes of world history, e.g. economic development, political organization, belief systems, use of technology, etc.…
Textbooks:
The following books are required for this course:1) Stearns, Peter N. (2006) World Civilizations: The Global Experience, 5th edition
2) Packet of readings from The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History
I want to take note of that packet of readings there.
In the course of 13 weeks, it manages to mention two women. Elizabeth and Isabella.
Two.
September 11th gets an entire day of course material dedicated to it, but in a list of the influential people that the course will look at, women are tacked on to “The Rise of the West”.
*sigh*
Of the fourteen syllabi I looked at, only one seemed to have any real attempt at integrating women into the narrative, giving women their own voices, and treating women like they did more than get married. Unsurprisingly (to me), it was an advanced level seminar course with a very lengthy reading list. Heck, looking at it, I want to take this course.
To say that history as it’s taught right now in North America is somehow balanced to include women’s voices seems to me to be, at best, a naive comment and, at worst, a comment to how wilfully blind the person making it is to the way women’s voices are silenced in the historical narrative.
So, when is men’s history month?
As they say: The other 11 months of the year.
And that, my friends, is what sexism is.