Book examines how gender symbolism permeates American life

U of Ideas of General Interest ó December 1998
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contact: Andrea Lynn, Humanities/Social Sciences Editor
(217) 333-2177; [email protected]

GENDER

Book examines how gender symbolism permeates American life

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ó One of the hottest new academic fields can now ìgo by the bookî ñ the textbook, that is. The first documentary history of gender in the United States has hit the bookstores.

This textbook of unusual, often poignant readings and images is a departure from recent textbooks because it covers manhood as well as womanhood, gay men, lesbians and transsexuals. It also attempts ìto capture the meanings of all of these categories under the rubric of gender,î says Sonya Michel, co-editor of ìEngendering America: A Documentary History, 1865 to the Presentî (McGraw-Hill).

ìWe have found gendered constructions and language everywhere ñ even in the most unlikely places,î said Michel, who is director of the Womenís Studies Program at the University of Illinois and a professor of American history. Robyn Muncy, a University of Maryland history professor, is co-editor.

Acording to Michel, ìgendered representationsî can be detected in the literature of the most mainstream of disciplines ñ diplomatic and military history, for example ñ and in the histories of events that have not been considered the turf of one gender, such as the civil rights and anti-war movements.

To understand the ìshifting terrains of gender history,î the editors have culled documents from a wide range of sources: personal papers, popular culture, social movements, and governmental and religious organizations. They use blues lyrics, political songs, posters, oral interviews and soap opera scripts to ìuncover gender in communities that have left few conventional historical sources.î The words of the well-known and the ordinary are heard, including freedwoman Roda Childsí affidavit on her rape in ante-bellum Georgia; Ernie Pyleís description of battalion engineers; Frankenstein Smithís Playboy article on seduction strategies; and rapper Ice Tís observations on feminists.

Michel said that she and Muncy also tried to demonstrate ìthe hidden history of gay men and lesbians.î In one World War I Navy recruitment poster, six sailors from different allied navies are shown arm in arm, with the words: ìAll together! Enlist in the Navy.î

ìBecause gay homosexuality wasnít talked about much when the poster was first used, few people probably noticed the homoerotic overtones of the illustration,î Michel said. ìBut with our contemporary eyes we can catch those clues.î

When all of the evidence is pulled together, ìyou can see the ebbs and flows of gender liberation,î she said. ìThere are periods of quite a bit of freedom ñ people asserting themselves and seeking new identities ñ and then there are periods of shutdown afterwards.î

Michel believes we are in a ìmixed periodî of gender liberation.

ìThereís certainly a lot of reaction and backlash, but there also are new frontiers,î she said, noting that the last images in the book are of a woman who undergoes a sex change.

ìThis suggests that anything is possible today. But in fact, were I now to write an epilogue, Iíd have to discuss the tragic murder of Matthew Shepard and what that event says about our society.î

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