RGHIST616

Post 8 (31Oct Class)

Title: Women and Gender in the American West

This is my third attempt at getting this to post. Hopefully, it won't go into bit heaven.

Admittedly, I have not given much thought to the history of women in the American West, at least to the extent of a separate area of study.

I am of similar thinking as John’s blog in that I would prefer to see a more “holistic picture” instead of a “soda straw view”. This could also be due to my relatively limited experience in historiography. Or, it could be that I simply prefer to see topics put into a larger context.

The general theme in these essays is of the agency of women—various ethnic and racial groups—in different regions and times in the West (the U.S. and Canada). The essays discussed, in varying degrees, how women operated within the confines of the political, economic or social structures in which they existed. For example, Ledesma’s essay (Texas Newspapers and Chicana Worker’s Activism, 1919-1974)depicted the limited agency of Mexican-American women laborers (launderers, dressmakers, pecan shellers, cigarmakers) who pushed for labor reforms within the unions. She showed how the press—labor, local and Spanish-speaking—and labor union leaders (read men) selected gender-driven words and phrases to define female laborers’ roles in strikes. Conversely, Irwin’s Going About and Doing Good’: The Politics of Benevolence, Welfare, and Gender in San Francisco, 1850-1880 study of late nineteenth-century San Francisco women’s benevolent societies revealed the power and influence of “gentle tamers”.

As one would expect, the authors did not agree on each other’s works. According to Casteneda (Women of Color and the Rewriting of Western History), Jen and Miller (The Gentle Tamers Revisited: New Approaches to the History of Women in the American West) did not “analyze relations of power among women of different races, classes and cultures”, nor did they “examine…the conflicts and differences among cultures.” (p.70) However, in Jensen’s and Miller’s opening paragraph they state the purpose of this essay, one of which is “to explore new possibilities for analysis.” (p.9) The authors do, in fact, touch on relationships between women of different cultures and races (Anglos, Indians, Hispanic and blacks). My point is that it seems that quite often an historian will take exception to another’s work if the one does not mention in detail the interests of the other. Everyone seems to have their own ingredients of the historical fruit salad (political, social, military, economic, gender, environmental, etc) and some feel that others have missed a fruit or two.

Like Audrey, I noticed the multitude of what we could call historian-unique words: deconstruct, postmodernism, discursive, etc. Some of the terms, I vaguely recall from earlier classes. As such, it would seem that the intended audience of this book is not the general public, but fellow historians.

I would guess that this book selection, like the ones that we have already covered, is a continuation of the theme of the West of myth running against the West of reality. As it relates to women’s, I mean gender, history, the only myths come to mind that specifically relate to women in the West is that of the frontier wife, toiling away with her husband and baker’s dozen children in a sod house on the prairie. And there is the dance-hall girls in the rough and tumble cow-towns, the silent Indian women of the movies (unless she is a beautiful young woman in love with the Anglo) or the devout Mexican woman in the veil attending mass. Regardless, like many of the other subjects covered to date in this class, a study of the American West would be incomplete without this slice of the historical pie

posted by rgault @ 12:53 PM