Gender and the Politics of History

Gender and Culture Series

by Joan Wallach Scott

This landmark work from a renowned feminist historian is a foundational demonstration of the uses of gender as a conceptual tool for cultural and historical analysis. Joan Wallach Scott offers a trenchant critique of the compartmentalization of women’s history, arguing that political and social categories are always fundamentally shaped by gender and that questions of gender are essential to considerations of difference in history. Exploring topics ranging from language and class to the politics of work and family, Gender and the Politics of History is a vital contribution to feminist history and historical methodology that also speaks more broadly to the ongoing redefinition of gender in our political and cultural vocabularies.

This anniversary edition of a classic text in feminist theory and history shows the evergreen relevance of Scott’s work to the humanities and social sciences. In a new preface, Scott reflects on the book’s legacy and implications for contemporary politics as well as what she has reconsidered as a result of her engagement with psychoanalytic theory. The book also includes a previously unpublished essay, “The Conundrum of Equality,” which takes up the question of affirmative action.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, Gender, Gender Studies, Politics, Academic

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1988

About the author

Joan Scott is known internationally for writings that theorize gender as an analytic category. She is a leading figure in the emerging field of critical history. Her ground-breaking work has challenged the foundations of conventional historical practice, including the nature of historical evidence and historical experience and the role of narrative in the writing of history, and has contributed to a transformation of the field of intellectual history. Scott's recent books focus on gender and democratic politics. Her works include The Politics of the Veil (2007), Gender and the Politics of History (1988), Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (1996), and Parité: Sexual Equality and the Crisis of French Universalism (2005). Scott graduated from Brandeis University in 1962 and received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1969. Before joining the Institute for Advanced Study, Scott taught in the history departments of Brown University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Rutgers University.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to grapple with this book repeatedly in graduate school, and even came to resent being constantly reassigned to read the essay “Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis” three or more times in two years. But, looking back at it now, I’m find that that I’m glad I did give it so much attention, because a typical grad-school scanning and dissection would have caused me to miss a lot of what is important to the arguments here. This book is a challenge, but it’s one that is worth taking on. Toward the end of my career as a history PhD candidate, I had the opportunity to participate in a seminar with the author, Joan Scott, and one of my (male) friends referred to her as a “rock star” when I mentioned it. His point was that Scott had transcended the once-limited realm of women’s history to become important to the history field in general, and even that her work is applied outside the field, in other areas today. The seminar was undeniably stimulating and useful, although I don’t recall that I had the courage to contribute very much to it, unfortunately.

Anyone who has ever used or heard the term “gender is socially-constructed” can thank Joan Scott. She may not have been the actual originator of the concept – the impression I get is that it was collectively developed among feminist intellectuals in the early 1980s – but she is probably its most well-known advocate. This distinguishes it from “sex,” which is biological in nature, although for Scott our biological knowledge is also at least partly ideologically informed, so the distinction is less clear than it at first may seem. Current discourse on transgendered and intersex individuals supports her position; “male” and “female” are not the binary absolutes we once believed in. In order to get to this (current) level of understanding, however, it was necessary for pioneers like Scott to break apart our understanding of sex and gender, to cause us to begin to question whether the “obvious” norms of male/female were completely natural or actually part of our social conditioning.

The definition of gender Scott offers is, however, rather more nuanced than the simple phrase I mention above, and she would probably regard it as woefully over-simplified. In the “Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis” essay, she gives the following brief definition: “gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power” (p.42). The understanding of the sex/gender division is clear here, but this is a less neutral, more politicized statement than the above. During the seminar with Scott, I wrote the following in the margin: “She claims this was /not/ meant to be prescriptive. Even denies it is a ‘definition’.” Well, it says it’s a definition right in the essay, but this goes a long way to demonstrate her ongoing concern for the power of “authorities” in circumscribing discussion by allowing statements to become calcified absolutes. She defined it that way in this essay at that time because it was a useful (to her) way of shifting perception in addressing issues of sex differences and power relations. She never meant to restrict future discussion.

In the 1999 preface to this book, Scott claims that gender “is, these days, a term that has lost its critical edge,” and she advises seeing the essays in this book as “tribute to the critical work done…for a brief moment in our recent history” (pp xxii and xxiii). Here and in the (new) final chapter of this book, she argues that so long as “gender” is used, not to demonstrate the ways that “men” and “women” are historically contingent ideas, but instead to reify those terms by emphasizing differences in “status, experience, and possibilities,” that the value of “gender” as a term is diminished (xxii). It would seem to me that, although it may have been abandoned by its earliest advocate, gender remains a viable term to offer entrée into critical thinking about sex-related identities and differences, power structures, and those excluded from traditional categories. This does require using it deliberately, and that requires critical engagement, which this book still serves to introduce, making it rather more than a tribute to the past, even if it is hardly a step-by-step program to build a future. If that future is to be participatory and diverse, it will of course need more than a single manifesto, but the essays in this book can be seen as inspirations for new methods and ways of thinking to be developed as we go.

[Andrew]

Probably pretty important for a time, although this doesn’t seem as full-bore “post-structuralist” as I was led to believe. In fact, there’s a fair bit of good old meat-and-potatoes Marxist historical materialism in here. The opening salvo: sex = biology, gender = social construct. This was standard knowledge by the time of my undergrad, and frankly at this point seems pretty intuitive. I’m not sure how I find the takedowns of major historians. I feel like she kinda did my boy E.P. Thompson a bit dirty, and a lot of her analysis seemed to revolve around his vibes more than his actual claims. But that being said, a lot of her arguments were also completely fair, and I think she does a pretty good job of pointing out how women have been excluded from the story. Again, this was pretty much THE standard feminist account of historiography by the time I was an undergrad.

Where she loses me is in the last essay. I think it’s telling that the last essay favors the concept of equity put forth by Mamphela Ramphele, who went from Steve Biko’s widow and a major anti-apartheid activist to a World Bank shill. This is an almost perfect example of what happens when you reject universalism. You find a particularism that winds up looking an awful lot like a marketing niche.

[Samrat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liked how the series of essays continually emphasized the particular and historical contingent nature of not just how gender is treated across different periods of time but also what gender is understood as in the first place and how those understandings shape and legitimize other ideas.

The closing piece built on a previous piece on equality versus difference to examine perceived tensions between disadvantaged individuals demanding treatment as individuals and those demands being articulated by identifying with other similarly disadvantaged people. While the piece read as heartfelt and cogent, something made it feel strange, like it made sense specifically when written from the perspective of a society that has always seen itself as homogeneous and is only just now recognizing its heterogeneity.

The format led to quite a bit of repetition as later essays would retread ground established in earlier ones, but this had pedagogical advantages that significantly outweighed any loss in efficiency.

[T.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that cracked my mind wide open upon first reading it. Damn you and your clever prose, Joan Scott. I had to read it three different times before I even came close to understanding what the hell JWS was talking about.

But time three--oh it was so worth it. That book made me think, made me angry, and made me look at gender, feminism, and woman's studies in a whole new light. THIS is why I am doing gender studies in my research on colonial South Africa. Joan Scott, you are entirely to blame.

That said, her Marxist-influenced rhetoric wears a bit thin in places, but I love G&TPH specifically because it challenges basic assumptions about history and gender. A must read.

[Noah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The amount of other books that site Scott speaks for itself.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy fucking shit. I wish I could write and think like this.

[Emma Brisbois · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the one hand, Scott’s contribution to gender studies and gender history can not be understated. She was grasping at straws (at best) at this time to try to construct some kind of methodological framework for the profession going forward. And for that, I applaud her.

On the other hand, reading this book was akin to getting every single one of your teeth pulled out with very little novocaine. This text is so dense and so deeply inaccessible, that even those who have mastered the likes of Foucault and Chomsky might still struggle with it. Part of the issues come from the lack of terminology to support her claims, but part of the issues come from attempting to analyze power structures without the creation of a knowledge hierarchy for readers.

I walk away still unsure of her call to action, and dissuaded by her invalidation of women’s historians. Even today, women’s history attempts to even the playing field and find representation for the underrepresented historical actors throughout history—who were so often female. Every discipline has its flaws (and i know pieces of this come from a personal connection to the field) but to so savagely dog on a field of study less than a decade after its inception is disheartening.

Joan Wallach Scott, you are much too intelligent for me. However, this book is no walk on the park… unless the park is ravaged with poisonous snakes and all of the walking paths are on fire.

[Aydan · Rating 4 out of 5]

im intrigued,,,,, and confused

[Anna Grace Wenger · Rating 3 out of 5]

very interested in thinking about what she could write today, with more inclusivity and a different societal understanding of gender identity. may reread this to figure that one out !

[Joanna Walbourne · Rating 5 out of 5]

so smart and so good

[H. Givens · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the first and last sections, I'd gladly give it five stars. Densely theoretical, but important. Even revelatory. Scott explains and interrogates historical practice with clarity, and provides an important conceptual foundation for dealing with gender as a historian.

Dropped to four stars because I readily admit that Joan Scott is much smarter than I am, but I don't understand why the middle two sections are in this book. They're narrowly-focused studies of women and gender in European labor history. They may be interesting and significant in that field, but I wasn't able to pull any broader themes from them, except those already explicated in the beginning. The book has a broad title and description, why include so many pages of essays that aren't actually necessary, and in fact distract from her broad points? She also mentioned her linguistic approach's relationship to literary analysis at the beginning, but never goes any deeper into that, and its a missed opportunity as far as I can tell. And she's generally very inclusive, but I'd love to hear what she had to say about the concept of queer gender identities if she was writing today. It would almost always support her position on historicizing gender.

Anyway, the book is probably too specialized for the general reader -- I recommend reading her famous essay "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis" if you're interested, it'll still be dense and theoretical but won't take as much time and establishes her main points -- but as a historian, and a queer female historian, this book was and will continue to be very useful.

[Beetsobriety · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book to gain some context for a gender historiography paper last semester, and it was completely worth it. Not only was it a good read (a little dense at places and sometimes overly complex for the ideas that were being elucidated), but it really helped with understanding where history of gender and sexuality is now. Be warned, she is unapologetically influenced by Foucault, Derrida and Lacan, to name a few, so her language is dense and necessarily careful.

One issue I do have with this book, and this is a problem I tend to have with Scott's other work, is that she unproblematically retreats to the gender binary in her work (masculin/feminine; man/woman; etc). This is particularly evident in her reading if Thompson as she tries to deconstruct class identities and processes. If you are looking to use this book for a current gender theory paper, you should look into other authors that critically analyse gender discourse perhaps from 1995 and onward.

All in all, I highly recommend this text. It's a classic.

[Eliza · Rating 1 out of 5]

ouchies. this book made me hate reading, graduate school, history, and finally, myself. so much theory. so many compound words ending in -ism. oh god.

[Totochelamouche]

It follows then that gender is the social organization of sexual difference. But this does not mean that gender reflects or implements fixed and natural physical differences between women and men; rather gender is the knowledge that establishes meanings for bodily differences. These meanings vary across cultures, social groups, and time since nothing about the body, including women’s reproductive organs, determines univocally how social divisions will be shaped. We cannot see sexual difference except as a function of our knowledge about the body and that knowledge is not “pure,” cannot be isolated from its implication in a broad range of discursive contexts. Sexual difference is not, then, the originary cause from which social organization ultimately can be derived. It is instead a variable social organization that itself must be explained.

What seemed to be called for was an analysis of discrimination that extended to the categories themselves, categories such as class, worker, citizen—even man and woman.

It's not as if the meaning of gender has been settled, far from it.

The question was not who held power, but what forms it took and what operations it performed.

How is gender being defined is what we are asking; what work is it doing and for whom?

Gender, in these essays, means knowledge about sexual difference.

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A historiographical classic of gender history, it seems, and does offer a good gendered analysis of Marxism and political history. Poststructuralism is Scott’s main approach and her argument revolves around the social construct of gender. The chapter on E.P. Thompson is great. The book itself however, was so difficult to read.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and ground-breaking for the history field.
I struggled a little bit with the first chapters because they were rather theoretical and abstracted, but it got easier to understand with the following essays where she applied the methods to concrete examples.
A little repetitive at times, but still an impressive read.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatest value of this classic is not so much "introducing gender as a useful category in history" rather the brilliant use Scott gives to genderized labor history. Her x-ray of the way the category of "labor" was used in Nineteenth century France to exclude women is amazing.

[Amy Do · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nuanced and sophisticated discussion about representation of women, and people of ethnic minorities, in French and American history. It is not the simple "women are excluded from history books", but a more in depth analysis on how women are portrayed in history due to social and political forces.

[Charlotte Foos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for a class, skimmed most of it. Glad I own it as it is pretty central to an area of historiography that I actually enjoy. Good for those who want an answer to the question of why is women's history separate from just normal history. Will piss you off.

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

just ugh.

[anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for a social and cultural history class

slightly too dense for me

[Lou Diez · Rating 4 out of 5]

fucking fire for a history book, reads itself like a manifesto

[Any]

solo una parte (ma molto illuminante)

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Building on her infamous and influential 1986 article "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis", Scott blends the language of feminist & post-structural theory to the applied (and more grounded) exercise of historical analysis. Challenging, both in terms of its prose and its approach to historical narratives, Scott's text relays a framework for women's and gender history, and demonstrates how it can be applied practically to histories of class, economics, and politics. This is the second time reading it, and I found this even more challenging on a re-read. Highlights for me are the chapters discusses on how gender defined how working-class French people approached their crafts, and the final chapter highlighting the ways women('s) historians have approached differences and the quests of equality within the American Historian profession.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A valuable book, to remind historians that they should be thinking of gender when writing history and to show them examples of how gender influences political history and economic history and all kinds of history. There are several essays contained in the volume and I can see myself referring back to them in the future. I don't think this book is something that the lay reader is really going to get much out of though; if you don't spend time thinking of historiographic theory at all I would think you would find this a little dry.

[Alessandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joan Scott pushes historians to reject face-value frameworks for gender history. She also enlarges our historical understanding of gender- it is not simply about physical relationships btw men and women, but about how understandings of masculinity and femininity are weaved within socio-political discourses that create historical realities. An ardent post-structuralist, Scott deconstructs language and gender in evaluating history. The question then remains, how do we pick up the pieces and rebuild in the wake of Scott's deconstructive sword?

[Dan Gorman · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read this in Fall 2013. Understood it decently then, but I definitely got more out of it on the second go-round. Scott makes a strong case for the study of gender as a legitimate historical subfield. She defines gender as knowledge about sexual relations that is constructed and shaped by society. Chapter 10 is dense, relying too much on theoretical jargon, but the rest of the book is pretty readable (at least, from a grad-student humanities perspective). Social scientists will particularly enjoy her chapter on the gender biases that can shape statistics.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting. It's composed of a series of essays, which makes it difficult to put the whole thing together, but if you're interested in gender, how it's constructed, and history, it's a good read. She's a post-modernist feminist, so be warned.

[Benemint · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classic. I wanted to see if the historiographical development of gender history is applicable to the history of childhood/youth. It is, to some degree. But she is angrier and more personally committed to changing the state of the world (and the field) than historians of childhood in general.

[AskHistorians]

Historiographical classic in the realm of gender studies, arguments are dense but definitely understandable, calm and rational, no drama or modern politics in here. No-muss-no-fuss intro to gender as a category of historical analysis.