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MAKING SPACE FOR WOMEN'S HISTORY IN THE SECONDARY SOCIAL
STUDlES CURRICULUM
Jane Elizabeth Turner
B.A., University of Waterloo, 1 973
THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUlREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
in the Faculty
of
Education
Q Jane Elizabeth Turner i 998
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
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ABSTRACT
The history presented in the secondary Social Studies curriculum in British
Columbia is almost totally concerned with the activities and events in which men
participated and omits women's history to a great degree. Because of the
historical focus on men's pasts, history only gives us a partial view of Our
collective past and leaves out the significant history in which women participated.
This study examines the curriculum and textbooks used in the teaching of
history in secondary Social Studies in British Columbia for their bias towards the
presentation of men's history. It also examines the two ways in which women's
history has been included traditionally. Both contribution and bifocal history fall
short in their presentation of women's history in that they either minimalize,
tnvialize or separate women's history with respect to men's history.
This thesis presents gendered history, which includes both men's and
women's history in ways that identify the agents of the past in their full, socially
constructed, gendered identities, as an alternative to male-defined, contribution
or bifocal history. Gendered history calls for a re-examination of the past which
inctudes both men and women and connects their actions in a multifocal,
relational manner. It presents a gendered analysis as a primary lens for viewing
the past and writing history. Most importantly, gendered history is significant
history in that it informs the present about the past in ways that are meaningful
and important.
Finally, this study makes recornmendations for the development of a secondary
Social Studies curriculum and textbook resources that provide ways for women's
history to become a signifiant part of the history studied in secondary
classrooms.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my thanks to the people who have assisted in the
conception and development of this thesis.
Dr. Roland Case, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at
Simon Fraser University was instrumental in bringing this thesis to fruition. His
wisdom and support provided the encouragement I needed to successfully
complete my task. I cannot thank him enough; he was with me every step cf the
way. Dr. Peter Seixas, Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum
Studies at the University of British Columbia provided the focus for my thesis.
Thanks for introducing me to Martha Ballard.
Moira Ekdahl, an extraordinary Social Studies teacher in Vancouver
inspired me to add my voice to the growing body of feminist scholarship in
secondary Social Studies instruction.
To the girls in my Social Studies classrooms who expressed their desire to
leam more about their pasts. 1 also owe a debt. The vision of their expectant
faces in front of me offered the encouragement 1 needed to attempt this project.
Finally, and most irnportantly, to my husband David King and my sons
Jamie and Max, thank you for your patience and support. You are role rnodels in
the disruption of subjective gendered identities. You cleaned, cooked and took
care of everything, including me, while I studied, researched and wrote.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
T I T E PAGE I
APPROVAL PAGE II
ABSTRACT .-. 111
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1
The Dominance of the Male Paradigrn in History 3
The Importance of lncluding Women in the
H istorical Narrative 7
Organization of the Thesis 8
CHAPTER W O Gender Deficiencies in the Curent Secondary British
Columbia Social Studies Cumculum
Overview of the Deficiencies in the Secondary
Social Studies Curriculum
The Content of the British Columbia Social Studies
Curriculum
VVhere and How Women are Included in the
Curriculum
Analysis of Textbooks Used to Help Deliver the
Curriculum
Concl usions
CHAPTER THREE The Traditional Methods of Women's Inclusion
in History
Contribution History
Bifoca 1 History
Drawbacks to lncorporating Bifocal History
Conclusions on the Effectiveness of Contribution and
Bifocal History 63
Using Women as a Lens on History 64
CHAPTER FOUR Replacing Traditional Male-Defined History with
Gendered History 68
Defining Gender and Gendered History 69
Challenging the Canon by Using a Gendered Lens
on History 72
An Example of Gendered History 81
Conclusions 92
CHAPTER FlVE Implications for British Columbia Social Studies 94
Changing the Topics 95
Approaches to the Curriculum 99
Lenses 1 08
Resources 111
Conclusion 119
BIBLIOGRAPHY 121
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
"Why are there only men in this picture?" 1 asked my students.
The boys and girls were looking at a picture in their text of Louis Joseph
Papineau painted by C.W. Jefferys. A crowd was gathered around hirn as he
deliveted an oration on the need for responsible govemment in Quebec. The
students studied the picture and one ventured a response.
"These men are angry that they don't have the right to vote."
"Yes, that's true," I replied, "but why does the painting show only men?
Where were the women of Quebec?"
"Oh, there weren't any women in history," a student blurted out.
On numerous occasions and in a variety of ways students in my secondary
Social Studies classes have articulated the sentiment portrayed in the above
scenario. After years of studying history in their Social Studies courses, students
have corne to believe that women are not part of history. Coulter (1 989) noted a
similar finding in her work with high school students. Wornen are either
completely absent from historical narratives or their presence is described in
ways that are insignificant to the important events of history (Scott, 1989;
Noddings, 1992).
The invisibility and marginalization of wornen in history is a problem if the
study of history is to realize its full potential. We study history. a reconstruction of
the past, in order to understand and inform Our present circumstances and to
provide insight into actions we might take in the future (Becker. 1932; Seixas,
1994). Both the current and draft revisions of the Social Studies curricula for
British Columbia (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1995;1997c) include
history as an integral part of the Social Studies curriculum for similar reasons.
Students need to understand the past in order to participate fully in the present
and prepare themselves for their future needs and that of society. But what do
our students lose if history is constructed around only half of humanity? If women
are absent or marginalized throughout historical texts then two problems occur:
female students are denied the opportunity to learn about their particuiarized
pasts, that of their forernothers, and the history that is studied by al1 students is
only a partial reconstruction of the past.
History that is centred around men's lives, activities and events does not
represent a universal history for all. It is argued that in much traditional history
only white, middle and upper class men count (Scott, 1989; Noddings, 1992;
Ekdahl, 1993; Hart, 1996) and that non-white, non-middle and upper class men
as well as women have been removed from dominant understandings of history.
In doing so, historians have done a disservice to those kept on the margins and
to the discipline itself. History purports to be the significant reconstruction of the
past (Becker, 1932, Lowenthal, 1986; Seixas, 1994); significant because it
informs the present about the past in ways that are meaningful and related to
conternporary issues and concems (Seixas, 1996). My thesis is that for history to
be considered significant in our contemporary society it must include women in
meaningful ways. It is only through the inclusion of women in history that girls
and boys in secondary Social Studies will be able to understand their pasts and
that the past wili hold significance for the present.
The Dominance of the Male Paradigm in History
According to Eckdahl (1 993), the study of history in British Columbia's
Social Studies courses is framed around "the 'white man's' discovery and
exploration of the new worid and on his attempts to make sense of these
processes in legal, artistic, military, political, economic, and social terms" (p.3).
This phenornenon is not unique to British Columbia. The history that is chosen
for presentation in current social studies courses through cumc~lum topics and
augmented by textbook choices is almost al1 about men, their experiences, their
worid view, and their rneans of operating in the world (Westcott, 1979; Rich,
1986; Dresden Grambs, 1987; Thornpson Tetreault, 1387; NoUdings, 1992;
Eckdahl, 1993; Clark, 1995; Bernard-Powers, 1996; Hart. 1997). Texts used in
classrooms are also mostly ail about men, their experiences. their world view and
their means of operating in the world (Baldwin and Baldwin, 1992; Eckdahl, 1993;
Clark, 1995). More precisely, the curriculum and texts used to convey it are
about white men's, mostly upper or middle class, definitely heterosexual,
experiences (Couture, 1997; Walter & Young, 1997; Hart, 1997).
Given that these are the people who have been largely responsible for
creating and writing about history, it is not surprising that the historical canon of
Social Studies - "the list of great names and significant dates which constitute
the key t e n s underpinning historical literacy" (Sekas, 1993) - could be subtitled
'the dead white male saga'. What is problematic is that the traditional canon is
often assumed to be the study of al1 human expenence (Thompson Tetreault,
1987; Hart, 1997). It is not. It iç the study of some humans' experiences; mostly
those of privileged males. Thompson Tetreault (1 987) employs the concept of
"male-defmed histories" to describe traditional historical texts as "predicated on
the assumption that male experience is universal, fairly represents al1 of
humanity, and constitutes an adequate basis for generalizing about all human
beings" ( p. 170). Women and their experiences are included, if at all, as part of
the male experience (Westkott, 1979; Scott, 1987; Tetreault, 1 987; Ekdahl, 1993;
Stone, 1996).
Just as Morgan (1 980) explained that male evolutionists depicted women
as metaphoric satellites to the male centre, with only occasional references to
women in sections of discourse entitled "Sex and Reproduction" (p.3). women are
often left out of the historical strand of Social Studies except in areas of study
about family life. Women are included in historical metanarratives only when
they fit into the picture defined and constructed by men and about men.
Metanarratives are important in that they set up universal validity claims about
what is normative and valuable (Habermas, as quoted in Cherryholmes, 1988,
p l 1 ) For example, in the metanarrative in the grade ten Social Studies
cun-iculum about the struggle for representative government in Upper and Lower
Canada, it appears that white men of property were the only ones concemed
about enfranchisement in the text Our Land: Building the West (1 987). The
metanarratives of history, based on male noms and values, have becorne firmly
entrenched in Our understandings of historical events.
Thus the androcentric historical canon persists despite the recent attempts
by fernale and male scholars, textbook writers, curriculum developers and
teachers to include women and marginalized men into the curriculum (Westcott,
1979; Thompson Tetreault. 1987; Scott, 1989; Noddings, 1992; Seixas, 1993;
Couture, 1997). The explosion of knowledge about women resulting from
feminist scholarship and critique in history, econornics, anthropology, political
science, psychology and sociology (which are the constituent parts of the Social
Studies whole) has not found its way into the mainstrearn of Social Studies. In a
recent attempt to revise the Social Studies curriculum in B.C., Eckdahl (1 996)
notes that "despite advice from several sources to consult with women scholars
on the language of outcornes which would explicitly write in women's history, no
such consultation ever happened" (p.40). Nor were proposed changes accepted
to the course of studies that would be inclusive of women. Topics that were
deemed to be more inclusive of women's experiences and open to feminist
history such as 'wnflicffresolution'~ were rejected in favour of the more traditional
subject headings as 'war' (Eckdahl, 1996).
There has been little acknowledgment that women have a role to play in
the various aspects of Social Studies. Curriculum, texts and other resource
materials as well as the theoretical work done by feminist academics have had
little impact on the conternporary Social Studies curricrilurn. Those who have
purçued scholarship and critique in feminist studies have been largely ignored by
acadernics in the Social Studies. Dresden Grambs (1 987) commented on the
absence of women from the Social Studies by stating, "the experience and
testimony of students and teachers. as well as studies of school texts, indicate
that women and scholarship about women's experience are still marginal, if not
entirely rnissing" (p. 204).
Even when acknowledgment is given that women contributed to shaping
the wo;;d in the past, that acknowledgment is often cursory. Noddings (1 992)
noted that a major encyclopedia updated its entries to include the name of Emily
Greene Balch. but that the entry consisted of only a few Iines. Noddings
concluded that the encyclopedia did not value the peace work done by Balch,
even though she and several other women, "suggested a permanent arbitration
body before the League of Nations was established" (p. 231) and Balch herself
received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946. A quick check of the indexes of three
texts (Haberman, 1977; DeMarco, 1987; Howarth, 7996) appropriate for the
History 12 cumculum in B.C. shows no reference for Emily Balch, even though al1
three of the texts deal specifically, and supposedly in depth, with topic of the
search for peace. None of the texts was published before 1977 and one was
repn'nted as recently as 1996, yet none makes mention of the wornen who
worked so tirelessly for peace.
As further evidence for the clairn that Social Studies has ignored feminist
scholarship and critique, Bernard-Powers (1 996). in reviewing the Handbook of
Research on Social Studies Teaching and Leaming (Shaver, 1991), states this
massive volume "is a testament of the extent to which research on gender in our
field has been marginalized; feminist scholarship is virtually absent frorn this
important book (1996, p. 5). It seems the Social Studies still places man (and by
this I mean the gender-specific male, not the supposedly universally inclusive
humanity) at the centre of the world and woman is left to orbit his rnass.
The Importance of including Women in the Historical Narrative
Woutd history be different if women were a more decisive and dominant
factor in its construction and interpretation? How would history and the work of
historians change if historical reconstruction focused as much on the traces and
accounts (Seixas, 1995) left by wornen as they did on those left by men? One
result would be that history would tell a more complete story of the past. lnstead
of revealing only part of the picture, history and historians would broaden the view
of the past by including wornen in the historical narrative. it will never be possible
to tell the whole hurnan story through a history curriculum (Becker, 1932;
Lowenthal, 1985; Rogers, 1987; Himmelfarb, 1989; Sekas, 1993; Fowler, 19951,
but without including women's history the history with which we are left is not
significant or compiete enough to fully examine "people in society as they interact
with each other and their many environrnents" (British Columbia Ministry of
Education, 1 995, p. 1 ). Althoug h traditionally, male experience has been
represented as the universal human experience and male values have been held
up as the standard by which al1 values are measured (Westcott, 1979; McKenna,
1989). current feminist scholarship is reclaiming previously unrecognized or lost
women's voices and demanding that a place be found for women's history within
Social Studies cumcula. Seixas (1 996) contends that women's history must now
become the locus of significance because the group to whom history must relate -
- the "people in society" - has been redefined by women to include themselves
as well as men.
lncluding women's experiences in history cumcula changes and extends
our understanding of the past, providing "another interpretation of the past, and a
starting place for a re-visioning of history (Hart, 1997, p.92). What that does to
the view of the past we receive through the Social Studies in general and history
in particular is the focus of this research.
Organization of the Thesis
My research focuses on the ways in which women are and can be included
in the historical strand of the Social Studies curricul~m in British Columbia (British
Columbia Ministry of Education, 4995; 1 997b; 1997c) Although Social Studies is
not embedded in history. it is the backbone of the secondary Social Studies
cumculum (Ekdahl, 1993) both current and the draft revision. At the writing of
this thesis, Social Studies is prescribed through a curriculum last released by the
British Columbia Ministry of Education in 1995. A new curriculum will be
implemented sometirne in the future, but as of this writing, the draft revision has
been "put on hold" (public speech given by Premier Glen Clark, March, 1998).
Therefore, when referencing cumculum documents, I will use the current
cu~culurn. unless explicitly stated otherwise.
This thesis is structured by using the following as chapter organizers.
Curriculum content and the textbooks used to deliver that content is the focus of
chapter two. Chapter three analyzes the traditional methods that have been used
to include women's history in the Social Studies cumculum. Chapter four offers a
mode1 of gendered histoiy as a means through which historical significance can
be achieved. The last chapter revisits curriculum and textbooks and
recommends changes which will offer opportunities for the inclusion of significant
women's history.
The methodology I use to ana!yze curriculum and textbook is quite simple.
With respect to the cumculum, I count the number of times and note where
women's history is included in the current cumculum then comment on the
number of places where it logically could be added based on the guidelines
offered in the cumculum document. My analysis of textbooks is slightly more
cornplex. I again count the number of times women's history is included in the
text or visual representations present. I then provide a description of the context
in which the representations of women occur and offer suggestions on how it
could be changed to improve students' understanding of wornen's historical lives.
The key question 1 use to examine the portrayal of women historically in
chapters three and four is the information presented about women historically
significant? Historians like curriculum developers and textbook authors must
choose information to present in any account they are producing. Significance is
a key issue for historians when they are deciding what is worthy of study (Seixas,
1994). Content deemed historically worthy serves the greater purpose of
enlarging and enriching the present (Becker, 1 932). Significant history informs
the present not just about the past but about the present as well; "historical
significance always emerges out of a particular kind of relationship between
ourselves in the present and various phenornena in the past" (Seixas, 1994.
p.284).
My research focuses initially on the current state of secondary Social
Studies in British Columbia. In order to examine how women are included in the
current cumculum I explore in chapter two the curriculum documents and the
historical texts used to deliver that curriculum in secondary Social Studies. In
examining the Social Studies cumculum documents (British Columbia Ministry of
Education, 1995) my methodology first explains how the curnculum for study in
each grade is outlined for teachers, and then counts how many topics are
devoted to historical study. Looking ai individual sub-topics, 1 count how rnany
specific references to womenJs historical experiences are listed and how many
topics are suggested that might lead teachers and students to study wornen's
history.
Tied very closely to curriculum are the textbooks used by classroom
teachers. Texts oficially sanctioned by the Ministry of Education have provided
the core means cf delivering curriculum in British Columbia since 1875 (Clark,
1995) and as such, constitute the living C U ~ C U I U ~ of the classroom. Texts are
used in a variety of ways, not just as a means of transmitting information.
Creative teachers can use the text to teach bias, perspective and point of view as
well as to unpack historical thinking (Wineburg, 1991), but it is diffÏcult to
creatively use what is not there. Using the texts predorninant in classrooms
throughout B.C., I ascertain how many times women appear in them, either in the
written text or the visual presentations and explore the context of those
presentations and their connections to specific curriculum instructions to
teachers.
The ways in which wornen have been included in the delivery of history,
either by their representation in texts or through other cumcular materials, are
explored in chapter three. The two traditional methods of including women in the
study of history are 'contribution" and "bi-focal histoqf (Thompson Tetreault,
1987). These were the methods feminist teachers and some text book and
curriculum authors in British Columbia used during the I97Ofs and early 1980's.
The inclusion of women into vanous segments of the history cumculum using
these two approaches was only moderately successful. The shortcomings of
these approaches, both because of extemal resistance and their inherent
weaknesses are explored. I argue that these rnethods of inclusion were not able
to fully reveai the importance of women's historical experiences and activities to
the students in British Columbia's classrooms and do not constitute significant
history.
Chapter four follows up the deficiencies of contribution and bi-focal
histories by focusing on what does constitute significant history. lncluding
women's history as a means of analyzing past events and activities and
connecting women's activities and lives to those of men's creates a historical
paradigrn markedly different from male-defined history. This framework is
referred to as gendered history by feminist historical scholars (Tetreault, 1987;
Scott, 1988; Crease & Strong-Boag, 1995) as it places socially cunstnicted
gendered beings, be they male or female, and their relationships to one another
and the the society in which they live in the foreground of history.
Through the examination of gendered histories I deal with the thomy issue
of historical validity, framing the exploration of gendered history with the question:
does constructing history using gender as an analytic category make it a fairer
reconstruction of the past?
Finally, in chapter five, I suggest how the Social Studies cumculum and
textbooks in British Columbia can be changed to include women in ways that are
significant for both females and males. I propose a framework that would more
successfuliy permit a gendered analysis of history, a framework that necessitates
changes in three areas of curriculum design. It includes the topics chosen for
study in history, the approaches used in the delivery of history to the students,
and
and the lenses or perspectives through which historical activities are viewed.
This chapter also provides a cal1 to textbook authors to redress the omission
marginalization of women in the past by writing consciously gender-specific
history texts for the future.
CHAPTER TVVO
Gender Deficiencies in the Current Secondary British Columbia Curriculum and
Text boo ks
Curriculum was one of the main contested grounds for feminists during the
1960's and '70's (Gaskell, McLaren & Novogrodsky, 1989; Weiler, 1989) because
it was recognized that what was studied in schools helped to shape the thinking
of the future generation. If wornen were not included in curriculum, then wornen's
importance to society would not be considered in the thinking of the future
generation. The initial writing team for the new British Columbia Social Studies
c~rnculum (1 997) recognized the importance of including women and
endeavoured to ensure that women were present in the topics, approaches and
lenses used in the new cumculum. However, according to Ekdahl(1996). the
subsequent revisions that tcok place relegated women's history, issues and
concems to the margins of the curriculum. It would seem that women's place in
the Social Studies curriculum still needs to be asserted, even though this position
has been fowarded since 1976 when Jean Grambs introduced a special issue of
"Theory and Research in Social Education" and called for the inclusion of women
in the Social Studies curriculum. Acceptance of a gendered view of history is still
contested ground (Bernard-Powers, 1996).
Overview of the Secondary Social Studies Curriculum
The Social Studies cumculum in British Columbia (British Columbia
Ministry of Education, 1997b; 1991 b ) is designed to support the study of "human
interaction and natural and social environments" (p.1) through a multidisciplinary
approach that includes the social sciences and humanities. From this
theoreticaily broad base, keeping in rnind the predominance of history within the
Iived curriculum, secondary Social Studies is intended to develop future citizens
who are thoughtful, responsible and active. These citizens will leam to approach
issues and information from multiple perspectives and make reasoned judgments
about situations, events and issues. When using the discipline of history within
the Social Studies, students are to make connections between the past, present
and future. In other words, the study of history is to be significant.
The Social Studies curriculum (British Columbia Ministry of Education
1995; 1997b, 1997c) states that students need to learn in a supportive
environment, one which builds upon their own experiences so they may create a
successful future for themselves and their society . These sentiments are
consistent with the ideas of Madeline Grumet who contends that curriculum
bonds ideas to real worid relationships (Couture, 1997), but it seems that the
philosophical underpinnings of the cumculum do not match with the practical
realities of its content.
The Social Studies curriculum of British Columbia follows in the tradition of
male-defined history (Tetreault, 1987) as articulated in chapter one. There are
very few topics offered for study that lend themselves to the inclusion of women's
history. The topics chosen are fonulated around the trinity of political, economic
and military history, long the presewes of male activity. In concert with the
historical orientation to political, economic and military history, there is no attempt
to wnnect the actions of wornen's political, economic and military activities with
those of men's. On the few occasions when wornen are included in the
cumculum, inclusion is done in a marginalized rnanner largely due to the choice
of sub-topic and the approach that is taken to the specific content. As well, the
perspective or lens through which the historical content is viewed is that which
gives priority to men's activities.
The Social Studies curriculum (British Columbia Ministry of Education,
1995) states that due to the immense scope of human history choices had to be
made about which topics to include for study. Choices have been made for the
curriculum, choices that, for the rnost part, excluded women's history (Ekdahl,
1 996).
From the goals and objectives of the Social Studies curricuiurn, choices
have been made about the specific information students should study. In British
Columbia's secondary schools, those choices have focused on the Iives and
activities of men. Ekdahl (1993) notes in her study of British Columbia's Social
Studies curriculum that the curricular objectives transmit the mainly male legacy
of nation-building. For example, the grade nine study of eighteenth century
revolutions in France and the United States focuses almost exclusively on men's
actions in developing democratic nations. In grade ten and eleven Canadian
history, the focus is again on men and their travails in developing Canada. This
male legacy does not mean that al1 men's experiences are included, however.
The curriculum only occasionally chooses to include the experiences of
marginalized men, those who are not white and middle or upper class, althcugh
the new curriculum (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1997) has made the
overt choice to include First Nations history where ever possible. An equal
emphasis on women's history has not been made.
The Content of the British Columbia Social Studies Curriculum
The new curriculum guide for secondary Social Studies (British Columbia
Ministry of Education, 1997b, 1997~) outlines what is to be studied by grade.
Each grade is subdivided by strands labeled society and culture, politics and law,
economy and technology and environment. However, using the new cumculum
to ascertain what is to be taught is problernatic because the wording under each
strand is so vague (Clarke, 1997) it is difficult to know exactly what is intended.
For example, in the grade eight curriculum, under the strand heading Society and
Culture, the instruction is to "identify factors that influence the developrnent and
decline of world civilizations" (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1997b,
p. 14). A teacher must look to another column entitled "Suggested Instructional
Strategies", and connect "brainston factors that affected various cultures or
civilizations e-g., Byzantine" (p. 14) to understand the cumcular intention.
In practice, when a cumculum iç vague, teachers either retreat to the old
curriculum, turn to the classroom text as a guide to what should be taught or use
a combination of both. For my purposes, an understanding of exactly what is to
be taught for each grade be better served by using the current cumcular
organizers. Given the consistency between the two curricula, there is no conflict
in doing so. Wherever there are significant differences between the two curricula,
1 will point thern out.
In contrast to the vagueness of the new curriculum the current cu~culurn
(British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1995) is much more specific. Each grade
listing is subdivided into areas of Focus. These are the overarching topic areas
for a given grade. There are five or six focus areas, depending on the grade
level, but generally, they fafl into the categories of geography (environment in the
new cuniculurn), historical eras or places, current events and extension activities.
The last two headings, current events and extension activities, are left to the
teachers' discretion and design, but the guide cautions that topics studied under
these headings "should be related to the course content" (p.48) or "consistent
with the intentions of the cu~culurn" (p. 49). In the new curriculum, current
events and extension activities are listed within each strand, thereby committing
thern to the same general orientation of the strand as well.
Focus areas are subdivided into specific Topics, the number of which
depends on the scope of the Focus. For example, a Focus for grade eight is
"The Middle Ages in Western Europe" (pp:18-23), containing five Topics to be
studied. "The Middle Ages in Eastern Europe and the Middle East" (p.24) has
only three topics to be studied.
Each Topic is then broken down into Understandings and Skills that are to
be taught to students. An example of these from the grade nine curriculum is to
"identify the econornic and political factors that shaped the development of New
France" (1995, p.42). In the new curkulum students are to gain a similar
understanding, but it is written across two strands, politics and law and ewnomy
and technology.
Accompanying the Understandings and Skills are specific Sample Key
Questions. The Sample Key Questions are often the real indicators of specificity
for what is to be taught by teachers. One such example asks students to
consider how the industrial revolution changed the lives of men, women and
children. Again, there is a corresponding item in the new curriculum which states.
"students will evaluate the effects of the Industrial revolution on society and the
changing nature of work" (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1997b, p.28),
but it is less specific than the question framed in the current curriculum..
The majority of Focus areas and Topics identified for study in the
secondary Social Studies curriculum are historical. Grade eight is typical for the
whole cumculum. Of the five Focus areas listed, one is geographic, one is for
current events and one suggests possible extension activities. The rernaining
two Focus areas are historic. Of the nineteen Topic subsets for grade eight, five
are geographic, al1 but two directing teachers to establish historical events'
geographic setting. The two geographic topics concentrate on developing
physical geographic skills of mapping and graphing, chart and statistical
interpretation. The fourteen remaining topics deal directly with historical events or
time frames.
The history that is presented for study in grades eight to eleven spans the
subgroups of historical study such as political, military, social, economic,
religious, legal and cultural history. For each of the topics, 1 have used the
wording supplied by the curriculum writers to ascertain the historical subdivision.
For example, "understand the role of the Byzantine Empire in preserving classical
culture" (p. 24) was counted as cultural history and "understand how trade
patterns led to the origin and growth of commercial centres" (p. 27) was counted
as econornic history. Not al1 entries were as clear as these, but the sub-category
of history was evident through intent or the Sample Key Questions such as "How
did religion influence the development of early civilizations in India, China, and
Japan?" (p. 25). That topic was counted as religious history as the intent is to
primarily focus on religion rather than culture.
In the new cumculum. the breakdown of historical themes o m r s through
the designation of strands. Under the strand heading Society and Culture, the
history to be studied is mainly social and cultural but religious history falls under
this strand as well. Interestingly, there is no strand for military history but a
careful examination of the curriculum document shows it is embedded in other
strands. For example, under Society and Culture in grade eight, students are to
"brainstom factors (e-g. trade, war, technology) that affected various cultures or
civilizations" (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1997b. p. 14). In other
grades, for example ten and eleven, military issues are found within the Politics
and Law strands.
At least half of what is to be studied in al1 grades in the current C U ~ C U I U ~
fowses on political. military and econornic history. There is no viable way of
ascertaining the numbers of topics that will be studied using these historical
categories in the new cumculum as the Prescribed Leaming Outcornes are not
specific. For example, in grade nine a Prescribed Learning Outcome expects that
students will "analyze the relationship between Aboriginal people and Europeans
and explain the role of each in the development of Canada" (British Columbia
Ministry of Education, 1997b. p.24). Whether this means students are to conduct
an anthropological and sociological study of Aboriginal and European people or
whether they should use a comparative history format is unclear. It is also
useless to count up the number of Prescribed Learning Outcornes under each
strand to compare the numbers and types of history being invoked as the strand
organizers do not always stick to their own titles. Military history appears in
political. legal and cultural strands. Religious history too is embedded within
various strands in the new curriculum. For this section 1 use the current
curriculum in order to ascertain what is supposed to be taught in secondary
Social Studies.
Using the example of "Focus:The Middle Ages in Western Europe" (British
Columbia Ministry of Education, 1995, pp. 18-23) in grade eight. there are
fourteen Understandings and Skills that are to be taught. Of the fourteen
listings, one establishes "the geographic factors which have affected the
histoncal and cultural developrnent of Western Europe and the Mediterranean"
(p. 18), and three deal with religion, specifically the development and influence of
the Christian church. Even within religious history it can be argued that "How did
the church exert its influence within the feudal system?" (p. 22) is a political
analysis of a religious institution. One area of study is given over to legal history,
asking students to understand the legal rights and obligations of feudalism (p. 20)
and two sections deal with social history, requiring that students understand the
lack of social rnobility within a feudal society and the nature of life in a medieval
manor and town (pp.21-22). The rest of the topics, seven of the fourteen. focus
on military. economic and political history, political history leading the way with
three listings in "Understandings and Skills".
In each of the subsequent grades, political, economic and military history
constitutes over half of what is to be studied. In grade nine, only four of twenty-
three areas of study do not deal specifically with political, economic or military
history. In grade ten. the number falls to two. By grade eleven, the last year of
Social Studies education in British Columbia, sixteen study areas out of forty-five
concentrate on cultural. social or legal history. Five of those are combined with
political and or economic history. There are eight geographic areas of focus, but
four are economic geography. three are demographic geography and one is
cultural geography.
The frequent and explicit focus on political, econornic and military history in
the secondary Social Studies curriculum has a not-so-subtle message for
teachers and students. What is important to study are the activities, events and
ideas of men as politics, macro-econornics and rnilitary campaigns have
traditionally been the areas of life where men have dorninated the action. Thus,
the framework surrounding the historical studies included in the Social Studies
curriculum guide almost guarantees that men's history is mainly studied in
classrooms throughout B.C. Returning to the Current Events and Extension
Focus areas, they too will rnost likely be focused on men's lives and activities, if
they are to be extensions of the previously studied cumculurn as is directed in the
guide. Consequently, other than in physical geography, the Social Studies
curriculum for grades eight to eleven rnarginalizes women, "leaving 'human action
in the social world' to be defined largely in male terms" (Ekdahl, 1996, p. 1).
This study of men's history is presented without any recognition of the
gender or class bias it presents. No mention is made that what has been chosen
for inclusion in the curriculum is men's history; that the events studied are
typically the expenences and activities of white, dominant males. Nor has any
analysis been offered to look at the gendered construction of those men's
activities and ideas, an idea further explored in chapter four of my thesis.
Choices have been made by curriculum writers and these choices do not
adequately include women and their expet-iences. When the choice is made to
study the political creation of Canada, students will focus on the Fathers of
Confederation.
Where and How Wornen Are lncluded in the Curriculum
Most areas of the current curriculum make no specific mention of women's
expenences. In only one instance in the entire curriculum guide are the Iives of
women and girls explicitly rnentioned as an area of study. In the grade nine topic,
"the social and political effects of the Industrial Revolution", teachers are asked to
explore in the Sample Key Question, "How were the lives of men, women, and
children changed?" (British Columbia Ministry of Education. 1995, p.46). In the
draft revised curriculum, there are more frequent references to women's lives and
activities. In grade eight, four specific references are made to women's lives in
the Suggested Instructional Strategies column. None appears in the Prescribed
Leaming Outcornes, but the language used in this column is always generic. For
example, under Politics and Law, students are to "demonstrate understanding of
the tension between individual rights and the responsibilities of citizens in a
vaflety of civilizations" (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 1997b, p. 16).
Generic words like citizens or individuals pose problems in that their use is not
equitable in practice, most often leading to the exclusive exploration of men's
lives (Ministry of Education. Social Equity Branch, 1997).
In the draft revised curriculum, the way in which wornen have been
included is often as an "add-on" or, as in the following example, an item in a list
(Ekdahl, 1996). In grade eight. a Suggested Instructional Strategy is included
under the strand Politics and Law to have students role-play period characters
and the examples offered include "a serf on a medieval manor, a transSaharan
trader, an abbess in a convent, a governrnent offcial in the lncan empire" (p.16).
in a few cases students are encouraged to explore gender roles. but the
instructional strategies are so vague that it is difficult to envision what the content
of the ensuing classroom discussion may entail. For example, under Society and
Culture for grade eight a Suggested Instruction Strategy states that students
should be provided with a series of pictures and related data on daily life in early
civilizations and then be invited to "draw conclusions about what they see
focusing on cornparisons between then and now and the differences and
similarities in gender roles portrayed" (British Columbia Ministry of Education,
1 997b1 p. 14). There is no supporting text offerhg ways to approach this activity
or perspectives that might arise during the studentsJ work. It seems that the
Ministry is fully confident that al1 teachers have well developed gender awareness
and are capable of wading into difficult areas like gender role analysis in a fully
cornpetent fashion. Given how Iittle experience teachen may have in this area
based on over a decade of using the current cumculum one may wonder from
where this confidence might spring. According to Ekdahl (1 996) the curriculum
organizing strands were employed so that "teachers could recognize the famil iar
discipline areas" (p.41) of the current curriculum. This hardly inspires confidence
in a shift in the understanding needed to successfully incorporate instructional
strategies such as the one mentioned above.
Ekdahl (1996) notes that the Ministry of Edumtion was explicitly advised
to consult with women scholars so that the writing of outcornes for the curriculum
wuld include women's history in ways that were sensible and meaningful for b
teachers and students. If the new curriculum was to seriously redress the lack of
women's history in the curriculum then consultation with appropriate groups
should have taken place as it did with First Natiom groups. No such consultation
occurred. Three women were hired to conduct a gender equity review of the
curriculum; t was one. We were told from the outset that we could not write new
curriculum, we could only review what was already written and suggest ways that
women could be included. Faced with a curncuium that had already been
designed around the traditional male-paradigm, the results of Our tinkering were
unimpressive. The result was, as Ekdahl (1 996) writes, an 'add-on' here and
there or one activity per strand.
Given the lack of women and women's experiences in British Columbia
secondary Social Studies curriculum documents, does this mean that wornen
really are excluded in the 'lived' curriculum of the classroom? There is no explicit
prohibition of women's histones from the curriculum guide so there is a possibility
that some teachers include them when translating curriculum demands to unit
and lesson plans. If the textbooks that are used to support the teaching of Social
Studies include, however, women's history, then there is a greater likelihood that
wornen's histo~y is part of the 'lived curriculum'.
Analysis of Textbooks Used to Help Deliver the Curriculum
The textbooks used to support the delivery of the currÎculum suffer from
similar problems identified in the curriculum. They, too, are oriented to topics that
pnvilege men's actions, take approaches to content that deny women access to
the main stage of history and are written from the perspective of men. Baldwin
and Baldwin (1 992) state that textbook authors and publishers try to correspond
directly to cu~cu lum documents, so it is not surprising that texts suffer from the
same lack of information about women as the curriculum. But it is not simply a
lack of information that is the problem with textbooks. Like the curriculum, they
also take a male-defined perspective in the presentation of historical information.
If the texts that are used to support and deliver the curriculum include
examples of women participating in all aspects of history, then women will be part
of what is studied by students. Teachers work from texts, particularly in high
school (Cassidy & Bogden, 1991 ; Case, 1992; Clark, 1995), so including women
in the te* will include them in the living classroom curriculum.
In British Columbia, the Ministry of Education provides an official list of
sanctioned texts, from which School Boards and individual schools may choose
specific titles. These texts become the main tesources used in schools by and
through which students are taught. Wineburg (1 991) noted that students use
history texts as their prirnary source of information and rank them as the most
tnistworthy source of information. The matetial contained in the texts is seen as
legitimate knowledge (Clark, 1995). In practice, textbooks become the major
determinant of the curriculum and form the basis of instruction. Down (1 988)
describes the impact of textbooks in education by stating that textbooks, "set the
curriculum, and often the tacts learned and teachers rely on them to organize
lessons and structure subject matter" (as quoted in Clark, 1995, p.8).
Baldwin and Baldwin (1992) estimate that texts ars used for seventy to
ninety-percent of classroom instructional time. Their impact is considerabie on
the presentation of curriculum, as the information presented in them constitutes
the choices made by the teacher for the content of the course of study. They
present the 'legitimate knowledge' (Clark, 1995; Ekdahl, 1995; Baldwin &
Baldwin, 1992; Wineburg, 1991 ; Cherryholmes, 1988) offered to students in
secondary classrooms. The implication of this is significant; the text becomes
the basis of curriculum instruction (Case, 1992). To ascertain whether Social
Studies includes women in significant ways and how they are portrayed
throughout the curriculum. it bec~mes necessary to read and analyze the
textbooks that are used in 6.C. classroorns.
My review of textbooks used in secondary Social Studies classrooms is
stnictured in the following manner. I selected the titles that were issued to
classrooms by the Ministry of Education when the secondary Social Studies
cumculurn was implemented in 1989. These are the texts that are still being
used throughout B.C. Although the Ministry no longer follows the format of
selecting and paying for classroom texts, there has been no large-scale refitting
of classroom texts to date.
I reviewed each history text used in classrooms by first noting how many
references appear in the index that refer explicitly to women. This is compared to
the number of explicit references to men. Secondly, I read through the chapters
of the text, making note of any picturial references to women's activities or Iives.
Lastly, I constructed an analysis of the context in which women are presented in
the texts. Some of the questions I asked in order to complete this analysis of
context are: Is the preseniation accurate? 1s this an important part of the main
story being presented? and Does the presentation add to our overall
understanding of the history being read? In other words, is the women's history
evident in the te* valid and significant (Seixas, 1994)?
The texts that are currently used to support the delivery of history
cumculurn in British Columbia's secondary classrooms are: Burton F. Beers'
(1984), Patterns of Civilization Vol. 1 and II, which are used in grades eight and
nine, respectively; grade nine also uses Paul Collins and Norman Sheffe's (1 979)
Exploration Canada for its Canadian history segment; Vivien Bowers and Stan
Garrod's (1 987) Our Land: Building the West is the text for grade ten and;
Towards Tomorow, written by Desmond Morton (1 988) is the Canadian history
text used in grade eleven. Each text was assessed on its content about women.
The dominant topics in each of the texts, with the exception of Exploration
Canada, are political, economic and military history. The specific content within
each of these organizational divisions is overwhelmingly about white, upper or
middle class males' expenences and activities. Even when wornen are included,
it is usually 'great women' that are presented; those who easiiy fit into the
political, economic and military paradigrn of history.
In the grade eight text, Patterns of Civilization Vol. 1, there are thirteen
references to specific women in the index and a general reference heading for
women with seven topic listings is included. There are one hundred and ninety-
one specific references to men in the index, and no general reference for men is
included. This text has a historical scope and sequence of over fifteen hundred
years of European history and includes chapters on the 'golden ages' of China,
India and Japan. This historical canon, "the list of great names and significant
dates which constitute the key terrns underpinning historical Iiteracy" (Seixas,
1993, p. 237) is the focus of the grade eight text. Because the canon is
dominated by men's activities, I assume that is the reason there is no general
index heading of 'men' included. Unless otherwise specified, all of the history that
appears in this text is about men. Only thirteen pages out of one hundred and
eighty-eight pages of text have been allotted to women's activities
Some of the women mentioned in the text are Anne Boleyn. Catherine of
Aragon. Catherine the Great, Elizabeth 1, and Queen lsabella of Spain. This is
consistent with the more general pattern noted by Baldwin and Baldwin (1992)
that women who appear in history texts are members of royalty. The presentation
of Joan of Arc, the only named woman appeanng in the text who was not a
mernber of the aristocracy or ruling class is informative in the search for gender
balance in the curriculum. Her picture appears in the text (p. 91) and she is
dressed in arrnour, holding a sword, long hair tucked behind her head. She looks
[ike a male and is presented as a noteworthy historical character because of her
male-like soldierly role in the Hundred Years War. There has been no attempt to
describe Joan as representative of the female gender. "Under her leadership, the
French forced the English to retreat from Orleans. Joan's absolute faith and
intense patriotism soon inspired the French to new victories" (p. 90) describes
Joan of Arc's contribution to history. She is important because her actions are
similar to other males. She fights for King and country, actions that are valued
and emphasized in the traditionally male-dominated historical canon (Thompson
Tetreault, 1987). Patterns of CiviIization Vol. 1, presents women sparingly and
does nothing to disrupt the themes of traditionally male activities (Baldwin &
Baldwin, 1992).
Visually, the text is a testament to the predorninance of men throughout
history. Of the sixty-six pidures that are included, twenty-one have wornen
represented. Of those twenty-one pictures, only eight feature women solely.
The other thirteen include women as part of a scene with men. Of the eight
women represented by themselves, one is da Vinci's Mona Lisa, another is of the
warrior Joan of Arc and another shows Chinese women making silk. Five depict
queens or upper class women. Although nearly a third of the pictures in the text
include women, the context in which they are presented either renders them
invisible, subservient or appendages to men. As if to punctuate the sub-text of
the book, the commentary made about a picture showing Christine de Pisan
states, "the lives of most women in the Middle Ages revolved around their homes
and families" (p. 48). The author does not include the comment that this was true
for most men as well. The vast rnajority of men in the Middle Ages also focused
their interests around home and family. It was only upper class men who
dominated political, military and economic history.
It is this kind of omission which leads students to the presumption that al1
men lived lives in the public sphere that history calls political, economic and
military history, and therefore, men are worthy of historical study. Wornen, only
focused on home and hearth, are unnecessary to historical study because they
were not usually part of the public sphere. Texts foster the idea that women were
not part of history by not only ieaving women out but by implying that what upper
class men did was representative of al1 men's activities. Students accept that
what is presented in the text is the knowledge that is worth knowing, (Wineburg,
1991) a knowledge that supposedly includes al1 men's activities. This reinforces
the notion that women's lives and activities are not worthy of historical study.
Students and rnany teachers do not realize that women's lives and activities,
along with most men's lives and activities have not been included intentionally for
study. Choies have been made and those choices were framed around the
male-dominated canon of history.
Burton F. Beers', Patterns of Civilization Vol. 11, (1985). continues in a
similar vein to Volume 1. The central organizational structure of Patterns of
Civilization Volume I I is based on political, economic and military paradigms and
women appear in the text and illustrations in substantially the same number and
rnanner as in Volume I . Despîte the curriculurn mandate which specifically
itemizes women and children as areas of study there is no perceptible increase in
the number or quality of presentation of women in the grade nine text.
The history conveyed in Patterns of Civilization Vol. I I , is predominantly
eighteenth and nineteenth century European history. The history focuses on
developments within Europe and in European empires. Within the text three
special "feature boxes" out of thirteen deal specifically with women. Marie Curie,
Emmeline Pankhurst and women in the Mexican Revolution each receive two-
thirds of a page. There are only fourteen specific references in the index to
women, five of whorn were queens, three are Mexican revolutionaries, two are
authors. one scientist, one ballerina and one suffragette. Compared to the over
two hundred references for men, Volume I I cleariy focuses on men's history.
"Men" is not listed as an indexed item but "Wornen" is. Five sub-headings are
referenced under the indexed item "Women"; "working, middle class, voting
rights, Mexican revolution and postwar pen'od" (Beers, 1985, p. 209). "Women"
also appears as a sub-heading under the general indexed listing of "Industrial
Revolution" (p. 207), acting as a cross-reference to one of the sub-headings
under the general index listing of "Women". In total. six pages are devoted to the
experiences and activities of women in a text of two hundred and four pages.
There are eighty pictures (excluding maps and charts) scattered throughout the
text, thirteen of which include images of women. Of those thirteen, eight have
women as the central figures. The other five have women in the scene, but as
part of a crowd or in the case of the picture of Napoleon's crowning as ernperor,
kneeling at his feet.
How wornen are represented in the text can best be exemplified in the
chapter which is devoted exclusively to the Industrial Revolution as it is the
chapter that includes the most references to women. Of the eighteen pages in
the chapter, two are devoted to women under the sub-heading "Changing Roles
for Women" (pp. 96-97). The author notes the shift in women's work from farm
life io factory Iife, commenting thal women were an integral part of the family
econornic unit. Beers also notes that women's work was not completed after a
twelve to sixteen hour factory work day, stating they were still responsible for al1
of the home chores such as cleaning, cooking and sewing. The author mentions
the middle class value of having the wornan care for the home, but offers no
analysis of the bourgeois shift in values for women, which helped to legitimize
their power base in society (Rowbotham, 1977).
Women are also mentioned in two other places in the chapter. The first,
appears in the wntext of factory work: "Women and children -- some of whom
started to work at age five - were in great demand because they worked for even
lower wages than men" (Beers, 1985, p. 95). No mention is made of the reason
for the lower pay for women and children. leaving it open to suggestion that pay
rates were based on worth rather than a policy of subsistence wages. The
second entry appears in a section entitled "Responses to the lndustnal
Revolution" and devotes a paragraph to a seventeen year old girl's account of
working in a mal mine (p. 98). On the same page is a picture of a little girl in a
textile mill. This entry explicates the calls for re fon in Parliament, alluding to the
middle class values that would abhor such working conditions for wcimen and
children. In this chapter, there are ten pictures. Two of the pictures have women
as the central focus of the picture. One other has a man. wornan and child
working in a textile mill. Six pictures focus exclusively on men and their activities.
The tenth picture is a reproduction of Monet's, St. Lazare Station.
On each page in the chapter, specific men or male roles such as soldiers
are named, usually as examples in the broader metanarrative being delivered.
Even in the two pages listed in the index as dealing with women, men specifically
or indirectly appear in the narrative text. For example, a paragraph dealing with
women's work in the mines is preceded by the information that men worked there
too, giving the impression of a hierarchical work system, with men at the top of
the pyramid. "ln the mines, for example, men often dug the mal, women dragged
coals trucks through low tunnels, and children sorted mal" (p. 96).
The reverse is not true for women. When the texts makes reference to
men and their activities, women are not included. One paragraph details the
improvements made to spinning by three men, James Hargreaves, Richard
Arkwright and Samuel Crompton. "Using the spinning jenny, as it was called, a
There is no index listing for 'Women', nor m e for 'Men' but there are
thirteen specific references to individual women in the index compared to
seventy-one references to individual men. Although the numbers do not seem
significantly different from the other texts reviewed. the context in which these
women appear is. Only one of the women Iisted is a queen and she receives the
least amount of text devoted to her. The rest of the women have, on average,
two pages devoted to their stories. The women presented range frorn
Shanawdithit, the last surviving Beothuk in Canada to Madeleine de Roybon
d7Allone, a French woman who was also a Seigneur in New France. Elizabeth
Simcoe, wife of the Lieutenant-Govemor of Upper Canada is also featured, not
simply as his wife, but through her writings of life in Upper Canada. Similarly,
Molly Brant, sister of Joseph Brant and wife of William Johnson is presented as a
woman who is important in her own right. The named women who appear in this
text are presented in the context of having made a valuable contribution to the
development of Canada.
The text uses the women's symbol ten times, but in many cases the
symbol does not appear when women and their activities are presented over a
number of pages. There is a chapter devoted to the lives of women in New
France, comprising eight pages, but the women's symbol is used only once. Of
the one hundred and seventy-five visual representations (excluding rnaps, charts
and graphs) thirty-three include women, men and often children; twelve others
are of women alone. Nearly one-quarter of the pictures in Exploration Canada
have women present in them. This text makes an effort to include women and
their activities into the history of Canada.
Ironically, the cornplaint rnost often made about Explorafion Canada is
that it does not have enough history in it, that it is 'light on content'. In an ad hoc
survey of fifteen of my Social Studies colleagues, only three said they liked using
Exploration Canada. The reason they liked the book was that it included the
history of both men and women. The other twelve disliked the book for the same
reason, but stated it differently. They commented that they did not like the book
because there were not enough hard facts offered. When pressed, they pointed
to the chapter on Women in New France as 'contentless'. This comment supports
Himmelfarbls (1989) assertion that the challenge facing social historians is to "put
more history into social history" (p. 662). There is very little significant history
being revealed through this type of social history.
The grade ten text, Our Land: Building the West, by Vivien Bowers and
Stan Garrod is the only text used that has a fernale author. Covering ninety yean
of Canadian history, from 181 5 to 1905 as well as units on contemporary
econornic activity in Canada and British Columbia specifically, there are only two
specific references tu women out of ninety names in the index. There is no
general index heading for women as there is in Patterns of Civilzation Volumes I
and II.
The specific references to Queen Victoria and Susanna Moodie in the text
reveal the attitude of the authors regarding the importance of women in history.
The entry for Queen Victoria states she, "sent a message to the people of the
new Dominion of Canada via the recently wmpleted transatlantic telegraph
cable" (Bowers & Garrod, 1987. p. 103) and that included in her message was a
knighthood for John A. Macdonald. It seems that not even a long-reigning queen
is important except as user of new communication technology to bestow an
honour on an important man. The authors use a coloured box to highlight one
entry of Susanna Moodie's writing from her book Roughing It in the Bush,
excerpting her cornments on the rebellion in Upper Canada. In this focus piece,
Moodie outlines the 'backwoodsmen's' response to the rebellion. Even thoug h
the authors have chosen the writing of a woman and highlighted it within the text,
they have chosen to focus on her cornments on the military and political situation
in Upper Canada. They also write that histonans use this book as a source of
information about the times, but then ask the question, "How reliable do you think
these accounts would be?" (p. 46). Are the readers to infer that wornen's
accounts are not reliable? No similar question is posed on the previous page
where an excerpt from Alexander Mackenzie's publication appears, yet the
authors have chosen Moodies' work to ask a question about bias. Are the
students to infer that only women wnters are biased?
In a book wi-th over four hundred pages of text, eight pictures out of one
hundred and twenty-four have women in them. One is of Susanna Moodie, the
second is of fernale tourists in Gastown, Vancouver, a third has a mother
ministering to her sick family during the great migration and the fourth is of
Chinese women selling food products in the streets of China. The four other
pictures in the text show women in scenes with men.
Women are omitted from this text, even though there are several places
they could easily be inserted. A section on the canning industry has an excerpt
from a fernale cannery worker about her workplace, but there is no mention in the
narrative text about the women who worked in the canneries. Nor do the authors
take advantage of the opportunity to portray the role First Nations women played
in the fur trade. They only comment that "many of traders and voyageurs took
Native wives" (p. 120). In the last section of the text where the focus is on
specific B.C. industries, two of the case studies presented include women in key
roles.
The first is a case study of a mining town. Esther Wllensky is a fictional
composite character married to Mike, her miner husband. Although the majority
of the case is written about Mike's job, h o of twelve paragraphs are devoted to
Esther's thoughts on living in a mining town. She focuses on the raising of her
children, the stability of the comrnunity and the demographic changes that have
occurred in the last five years. There is no mention of the alwhol and related
wife abuse that often exists in small, remote areas. Nor is there any mention of
the other myriad of problems that face women in single-industry towns such as
mental illness, poverty due to family breakdown and isolation (Crease & Strong-
Boag, 1995). Esther has a part time job, but her work as a homemaker and
employee is not exploreci whatsoever.
The second case stuciy depicts single-parent Sandra, again a fictitious
person, who "owns and operates a small apple orchard near Oliver" (Bowers &
Garrod, 1987, p. 392). The main focus of the case is a description of orcharding,
from land and tree maintenance to marketing, but within the case, Sandra
discusses her farnily life as well. When asked if her move from the city to the
Okanagan was worthwhile, Sandra camments, "My farnily has benefited from the
change, too. We are much closer and 1 feel that my kids are more responsible
than they would be growing up in the dty" (p. 395). The case descnbes the
research Sandra conducted in order to qualify for a bank loan to purchase the
orchard. The authors missed the opportunity ta comment on the degree of the
difficulty Sandra might have had in getting the bank loan because she is a single
wornan. Overall. this case study portrays an ordinary woman in a positive and
productive, integrating the roles of mother and provider that is the reality of so
many women.
These two women presented in the last unit of the text are mothers and
workers, but the opportunity to convey the importance of women in the
developrnent of Canada has, for the most part, k e n lost in the plethora of data
about men and their contributions to Canadian society. Bowers and Garrod
overwhelm the reader with their narrative focus on men's political, military and
economic activities.
The grade eleven history text, Towards Tomomw (Morton, 1988). reflects
the mode1 esta blis hed in Patterns of Civilization. Once again, the histoflcally
male-defined canon is the focus for the content. Military, political and economic
history dominates the text. Within this framework, it is not surprising that the
specific listing of individuals in twentieth century Canadian history favours males
by a ratio of one hundred and six men to two women in the index. This pattern is
consistent with Light, Staton, and Bourne's (1 989) findings in textbooks approved
for use in Ontario schools. Despite gender equity measures introduced in the
1980's (Baldwin & Baldwin, 1992), less than thirteen percent of the pages in texts
were about women and their experiences.
Throughout the text there are one hundred and twenty-six pictures,
cartoons or historical drawings that depict people. Of those, eighty-three are
entirely composed of men, most of whom are politicians or men in the armed
forces. Twenty-two pictures depict both men and women, mostly in street or
group scenes. Twenty-one visuals are exclusively about women. Nine of those
depict women in traditional roles of wife mother, homemaker; two of the pictures
are of individual wornen, Nellie McClung and Jeanette Laval, the first native
woman to challenge status laws for native people. Eight pictures show women in
various work places, including war work ; one shows women marching for the
vote and the last shows a woman performing a traditional dance.
There is a general index heading of 'homen" in Towards Tomonow
(Morton, 1988, p. 2321, but not one for men. Under this heading, women's
participation in political, military and economic events are noted. How the author
has chosen to represent women's participation in these events is significant. For
example, in the chapter devoted to the history of World War II, women appear in
six of the twenty-one pictures presented throughout the text. In these six
pictures, four of them depict women in the traditional role of wife, mother, or
homemaker. Of the remaining two, one shows a wornan working in a nose-cone
of an airplane with the caption, "As during the first World War, women took over
jobs for men fighting on the front" (p. 11 3). Like Joan of Arc, this woman is
portrayed as a replacement for a man. The last picture shows wornen at a flight
training school in Quebec, but the focus is on two young women wearing skirts,
legs crossed and leaning towards each other so their heads are touching and
their hands clasped. They seem to be sharing some girlish secret from the smile
on one's face as she listens to her friend (p. 120). The serïousness and extent of
women's contribution to the military effort seerns to be negated by the visual
image presented. In no way would this picture disnipt traditionally held
assumptions about women's role in society, even though the women are in a non-
traditional job.
The emphasis on women as wives, mothers, and homemakers reinforces
traditional views and values about women. Baldwin and Baldwin's (1 992)
assertion that textbooks recreate consewative or established visions of the world
is supported by two pictures juxtaposed in the chapter on World War II (p.130).
The picture on the left is a drawing of chiseledthin men in flight suits, stating
they are ready but waiting for the people of Canada tc, give them wings. The
drawing qasted beside it is of a pretty, blonde young woman holding a baby in her
arms. Two hands emerge from opposite margins of the picture, with Nazi and
Japanese symbols of them respectively. The caption urges viewers to buy victory
bonds to keep German and Japanese hands off wives and children. The overt
message of these pictures is that Canadians were encouraged to buy bonds to
support the war effort. No editorial comment is made in the text or margin about
the historical view of the drawing as women needing protection from the strong
and fearless male soldiers, thus covertly supporting the image of men the
protector and women the helpless. In texts like Towards Tomomw, it is often
what is implied that is as harmful to students' understanding of women as what is
directly stated.
The Social Studies curriculum guide explicitly states that choices need to
be made about what shouid be studied. Textbooks dictate which information
likely will be chosen. Towards Tomorow, like other Social Studies history texts,
reveals that a gender balance has not been achieved in the curriculum. Support
for this abounds in the absence of women in the text. Those women who are
inctuded are mentioned as sidebars to the male domination of Canadian history.
Emily Carr, an artist important for her depiction of First Nations life on the
west coast of Canada is given one sentence in the text. In the same paragraph,
four men are specifically noted. The focus of this paragraph is the issue of
Canadianism and a list is given of some of the men who were inspired and
sustained by it (Morton, 1988, p.78).
Nellie McClung, who fought for womenfs rights, through her writings, offers
conternporary Canadians an opportunity to understand the social, political and
econornic challenges faced by Prairie families at the turn of this century.
McClung is not listed in the index of the text, but a picture of her appears on page
46 in the section entitled, "How the War Changed Canada" where it is noted that
McClung and other suffragists helped women gain the vote in Canada. Imagine
the outcry of historians if Lord Durham and his report, the document that
instituted responsible government for some men in Canada, was not listed in the
text index and relegated to a single caption under a picture placed in the margins.
Students would understand that this person and his accomplishments were really
just a footnote in the important events of history. So too will be their impressions
of Nellie McClung and women's suffrage.
Agnes MacPhail, Canada's first fernale Member of Parliament shares two
sentences in the text with the leader of her political party. It seems they "held yet
another view. They wished Canada to disarm, renounce war and set an example
to the world" (p. 98). No further information is available in the text about
women's involvement and leadership in the peace movement. No wonder Clark
(1 995) comments that "secondary texts are strangely devoid of women and of
discussion of gender-reiated issues" (p. 232). In contrast, the peace process
proposed by Woodrow Wilson, and the ensuing Treaty of Versailles is deemed
worthy of a quarter page picture showing the leaders of the four major allied
wuntries in World War I as well as a full page of text. The focus is still not
universally on peace, but on what Canada could get from the peace process.
Instead of taking an approach to history which Noddings (1992) and Ekdahl
(1 996) state wouid be more inclusive to women, the text focuses on the men who
created peace treaties and what econornic and political advantage muid be
gained from thern.
Conclusions
The absence of women from the Social Studies curriculum guide in British
Columbia seems not to be an indication of gender neutrality or even innocent
omission, but one of gender bias. When women are portrayed in texts, they
appear in traditionally male roles, like nilers and other 'great women', as helpless
women who need protection from men or simply as replacements for men when
the real thing is not available. There is little or no exploration of women's
feelings, actions and thoughts in their roles as women in society (Dresden
Grambs, 1987) just as there are few similar understandings developed about men
who are not in the ruling elite. Clark (1995) states that sewndary history texts
are "particulariy poor in terrns of including women" (p. 232). Those who are
included often tend to be role models of impossible proportions such as Queens
or the a-typical pioneer woman described in Canada: Building a Nation (Clark,
1995).
The sewndary Social Studies curriculum is overwhelmingly about the
men who have shaped events which have been deemed historically significant.
Thompson Tetreault (1 987) calls this male-defined history. History "is predicated
on the assumption that male experïence is universal, fairly represents al1 of
humanity, and wnstitutes an adequate basis for generalizing about al1 human
beings" (1 987, p. 170). Male-defined histories mostly exclude women's
expenences and actions because they focus on the macro-political, economic
and military events in society. As a result, women (and most ordinary men) have
been excluded from the secondary Social Studies curriculum. Noddings (1 992)
notes that women's activities do not conforni to male-defined standards and are
consequently valued less than men's. When women's stories are included in
history, they are often considered of less value or as secondary stories to the
main events. The texts that are used to deliver the secondary Social Studies
cumculum are missing women's history that is significant. The present is not
better informed by the past when it cornes to the contributions made by women in
developing societies, nor are women seen in relational actions with and to men.
How this lack of significance is played out in the teaching of women's history
using methods that do not fundamentally alter the male paradigm of history is the
focus of the next chapter.
CHAPTER THREE
The Traditional Methods of Women's Inclusion in History
The stated goals and philosophy of the curriculum are key to
understanding why including women in the Social Studies curriculum is necessary
and why the method of inclusion is equally as important. Generally, the
curiiculurn is designed to support the examination of the interaction of people in
society. The goals of Social Studies demand that students understand their
heritage, know what has happened globally, understand how their rights and
responsibilities support society and themselves and, finally, actively participate in
their society (Ministry of Education, 1992).
It could be argued simply on the basis of fairness that wornen's activities
and experiences should be included in Social Studies. Girls are part of the
student population to whom the curriculum is aimed. They are half of the people
who are supposed to examine, know, understand and participate. Their heritage
needs to be included along with the boy's. Girls' rights and responsibilities need
to be addressed and they need to be able to actively participate in the society in
which they live.
Being fair by providing equal time and space to girl's needs and heritage is
reasonable. Students need specific role models to develop a vision for personal
possibilities (Sadker & Sadker, 1986; Coulter, 1989). However, the fairness
argument does not necessarily address the more important concern that the
history being presented be sig nificant history.
lncorporating women's accounts raises senous questions for historians.
Does it mean that half of the history currently being studied must be eliminated?
How else would textbook authors find the physical space to include women's
history? What history would be eliminated and at whose expense? This is part
of the debate surrounding the reconstitution of the historical canon (Seixas,
1993).
It can be and is argued that the canon provides girls with appropriate
visions as it outlines a clear picture of the significant events in human history.
For example, Himrnelfarb (1 989) argues that the 'ordinary people' who are the
focus of social historians are immensely concerned and affected with the big
issues of the day. The canon is a credible representation of the past which
informs the present and is accepted by contemporary as well as traditional
historians (Bliss, 1991 -92; Himmelfarb, 1989). It is assurned that the 'universal
man' represented through canon narratives represents women (Scott, l989). and
that including women's history would be at best redundant. Feminist historians
absolutely disagree with the conclusions of traditional historians and 1 will
explicate this disagreement in chapter four.
Putting aside the concerns (for now) raised in the canonical debate, I
would argue that the 'gender fairness position', if it can be so labeled, has so far
led to wn-ting history in ways that are problematic. Being fair to girls has often
been interpreted to mean giving women's iives more (Bender, 1989) or equal
(Dresden Grambs, 1987) time in history but not reconstructing the prevailing
framework of history. lnserting women's history into the existing framework has
been done in two largely unsatisfactory fashions . One way keeps the traditional
male-defined and dominated histories more or less intact, involving a few
exceptional women where appropriate (Bender, 1989). These histories which
include more data about wornen, but do not fundamentally reorient or reorganize
them are called 'contribution' histories by Thornpson Tetreault (1 987).
Publishers encourage this type of 'add women and stir' approach, as it helps
thern rneet gender equity guidelines set by Ministries of Education in Canada
(Baldwin & Baldwin, 1992). The second method, used over the decades of the
seventies and eighties to include women into history, focused on women's
exclusive experiences, often highlighting their separation frorn men or their
oppression by men. The male-defmed histories stay as they are, universalized
narratives of upper and middle class men's actions and goals and the women's
histories are written as particularized and separated. Thompson Tetreault (1 987)
categorizes these histories as bifocal histories. Again, bifocal histones do not
readjust the dominant historical framework; they add unparallel histones to stand
beside thern. Both contribution and bifocal histones present a myriad of
problerns, not only for women but for history in generaf.
Contribution History
Contribution histories are those that focus on the men who participated in
the political, military or econornic events and activities in history with an addition
of the few wornen who fit appropriately into the paradigm (Thompson Tetreault,
1987). These are women who acted on the public stage of history, women like
Eleanor Roosevelt, Nellie McClung, Elizabeth I and Joan of Arc. They might be
called the 'great women' of history, parallei to the 'great menf. No doubt more
women could be added to general histoncal accounts which would broaden the
representation of great women as Bender (1 989) comments some historians are
urging. The result is history texts like Burton BeersJ (1 984, 1985) Patterns of
Civilizafion, Volumes I and II. Women have been sprinkled sparingly into those
volumes, as outlined in my previous chapter. The text is not better for it, as the
impact those few women have on the overall scope and sequence of the history
being presented is negligible. These women have been placed in history texts,
because as Thompson Tetreault (1 987) points out, al1 presentations of females
whether significant or not, count. Counting the numbers, not the quality of
presentation, seems to be what is paramount and the numbers do not have to be
equal.
According to Noddings (1992) it is demeaning to women and trivializing to
history when women are added to history to fiIl some kind of publisher's quota.
Tokenism is as reprehensible to women as to other marginalized groups. The
object of including women in history is to write about women who made a
significant contribution to history. Trying to find women who made such
contributions is often difficult, particularly when the focus is on traditional political,
military and economic histones. Most women did not actively participate in the
public sphere. Yet even when women are in the forefront of historical events,
histonans often miss the opportunity to include women in meaningful ways.
lnstead they opt to continue the pattern of contribution history. Patterns of
Civilizaion II (Beers, 1985) offers just such an example.
Chapter two of the text explores the events of the French Revoiution. The
front piece of the chapter describes the people of Paris storming the Bastille. At
the end of a full page description, the author writes "The fall of the Bastille
signaled the central role that the people of Paris would take in the French
revolution" (p. 23). Beers clearly has the opportunity to write about the roles of
the women and men in the revolution but never delivers. His next sentence
betrays the promise of inclusive history when he writes, "The French Revolution
went through many stages and had far-reaching effects, not only on France but
on al1 of Europe" (p. 23). With this sentence, he misses the central point of the
Revolution from women's perspectives. By the end of the Revolution any gains
women made during specific pen'ods of the struggle in law, politics and
economics, except through their husbands' achievements, were wiped out
(Piercy. 1996). Contribution history establishes women as secondary characters
in the creation of large events and requires no specific insight on the part of the
historian to reveal the broader base of human experience (Thompson Tetreault,
1987). Beers establishes himself as an androcentric historian through his
treatment of the rnaterial in the French Revolution.
The chapter outlines the events that occur during the three phases of the
Revolution. He Wtes of "the rnarch on Versailles", stating that a crowd led by
thousands of wornen went to protest the p r i e of bread and retum the King to
Pans so he and his wife couId not subvert the revolution. He makes no mention
that the women of Paris had been dernonstrating in the streets for months before
they went to Versailles in support of the Third Estates' attempts to reform the
systern nor that the march was planned by the women and men of Paris. Beers
writes, "ln October, 1789, a Paris crowd led by thousands of women marched in
the rain to Versailles. The women were angry about high food prices" (p. 28)
Compare his offenng with the following from Piercy's (1 996) City of Darkness,
City of Light , "Food was their business. Food was their problem. When there
was not enough food, not enough bread, then the women rioted. So it always
had been, and so it was right now" (p.153) What appears to be a single event in
the history of France in Beers' text, turns into a pattern of female activism when
read in Piercy.
Beers tums the segment on the march to Versailles into a description of
the King and the National Assembly. The two paragraphs allotted to the wornen's
march only includes one paragraph of information about the women themselves.
The picture that accompanies the article shows about two dozen women holding
alofi sticks while the King rides in front of thern. No mention is made that the
sticks are weapons, hand made, borrowed or stolen to give the wornen power
and protection. They look more like housewives about to beat the rugs clean
rather than Pansian revolutionaries.
There are only two other references to the women of France in the rest of
the chapter, except for Marie Antoinette, who has a cartoon drawing included of
her. The author writes that the men, women and children of France went to the
guillotine and that, under Napoleon's rule, laws protecting the rights of women
and children were repealed. Although much is made in the chapter about the
Declaration of the Rights of Man, there is no mention that a Declaration of the
Rights of Woman (Piercy, 1996) had also been written, but consciously never
adopted by the various assemblies and conventions of France. Beers' traditional
male-defined history does not open up the appropriate spaces for women to
enter. Contribution histories convey by their omissions as much as their
inadequate submissions the strong if subtle message to readers that women
really do not matter.
My choice of the Beers' example of the French Revolution is not meant as
a persona1 slight against the author. As Clark (1995) notes, the lack of women in
male-defined contribution history represents not just the perspective of the author
but also the world view of those in authority. Textbooks are chosen because they
reinforce m a t those in authority want students to know or think of as legitimate
knowledge. Moreover, reinforcement of the insignificance of women cornes from
another dimension of texts: the style in which they are written.
Male-defined histories which allow these meager glimpses of women's
lives (contribution histories) are usually written in what Bakhtin calls "the
authoritative voice" (Wertsch, 1991). The authoritative voice presents
information as if it is truth and allows no interplay between the reader and the
text. What is written must be accepted. Religious, political and moral texts were
given as examples by Bakhtin of authoritative voice texts. I would add male-
defined histories to the list. Wineburg (1 991) concurs when he quotes Peter
Schrag stating that, "textbooks are often wntten as if their authors did not exist at
all, as if they were simply the instrument of a heaveniy intelligence transcribing
official truths" (p.511). Clark (1 995) notes the use of the 'omnipotent narrator' as
common practice in texts used in British Columbia. The pervasive use of the
authoritative voice in male-defined history results in studenis and teachers
accepting what they reûd as the most reliable presentation of history (Wineburg,
1991). It is no wonder that few people engaged in teaching or learning Social
Studies question where the women are. If it was important to know about them
then presumably they would have been included in the text.
Clark (1 995) calls for teachers to encourage students to critically assess
the supposed legitimate knowledge passed on through texts and search for a
variety of texts to use in the classroom instead of the single, authoritative voiced
text. For feminist historians' purposes, the cal1 for inclusion of social and cultural
history texts in classrooms has been one way to combat the ovennrhelming
dominance of male-defined history in Social Studies.
Social and cultural histories lend themselves nicely to the inclusion of
women, as social and cultural history are by definition about "the smali. intimate
details of everyday life" (Himmelfarb, 1989, p. 661). The focus on the private
sphere of life as opposed to the public sphere provides many entry points for
women's history so social and cultural histories seemed a natural place for the
location of women's history. What emerged from this method of writing women's
history was what Thompson Tetreault (1 987) called bifocal histones.
Bifocal History
Bifocal histories are those that stress the different spheres, public and
private, between men and women; see women's lives as different but equal to
men's lives; and often focus on the oppression of women histoncally (Thompson
Tetreault, 1987). Bifocal histones value the work and experiences of women,
even though they may not fit the framework offered in political, military and
economic histories. Noddings (1992) points out there are important gaps in our
historical understanding because the important work of wornen has been
traditionally overlooked. She cites the work of Emily Greene Balch specifically
and the peace movement generally as good examples of significant historical
actors and activities. Histones that focus on the efforts and activities of women
would fiIl in the gaps in our historical knowledge, she daims. Finding out what
happened in the more typically fernale private sphere enlightens us al1 about the
whole pattern of human development, which is one of the four goals of the Social
Studies curriculum.
Texts like Exploration Canada (Collins & Sheffe, 1979) attempt to redress
the imbalance between men's and women's history. Exploration Canada offers
chapten of social history, specifically one on the [ives of wornen in New France
and another on the lives of the Acadians. Within these chapters the authors
portray the lives of ordinary women and men, weaving their daily tasks into the
larger framework of the political, rniiitary and economic history of the time.
Students have the opportunity to leam that history is more than battles between
amies. decisions made by political leaders or developments in new rnethods of
production. Each of the above has consequences and impact on real people
living real lives. This type of knowledge promotes the goals of the curriculum in
ways that authontative voiced male-defined histories cannot. If students can
engage with the text in meaningful ways, that is they have opportunity to have an
intemal dialogue with the words presented to them, then they are more likely to
make and hold rneaning from what they read (Wertsch, 1991).
For this reason alternative texts were purchased by the Ministry of
Education in the 1970's to broaden the base of students' knowledge about
wornen. A class set of Never Done (Corrective Collective, 1974) was sent to
each school in the Province to support the inclusion of women's history in
secondary Social Studies. Nevsr Oone is a social, ewnomic and political history
of three centuries of women's work in Canada. It was intended as a
supplernentary text for the grade nine and ten curriculum. Never Done presents
the work, domestic and paid, political and quasi- military that women engaged in
during the eariy centuries of European settlement in Canada.
Never Done is a text representative of Thompson Tetreauit's (1 987) bifocal
phase of women's history in that it separates out wornen's roles from men's and it
tends to gloriv women's experîences and culture. In a description of the Loyalist
migration to New Brunswick, the authors write "ln exchange for secure urban
living, the Loyalist women now looked fonivard to hard dangerous lives" (p. 28) In
another part of the text women were portrayed as saviours during the French-
English war. The authors tell the story of Wolfe looking through his spy glass in
hopes of finding a way up the cliffs guarding Quebec. When he saw a group of
washenvomen at the top of the bluff carrying their loads, then later spied them on
the shore of the St. Lawrence, Wolfe new he had found a way up the cliffs that
was under cover. The authors end with "the moral of the story is if you won? do
your own laundry, you'd best guard your dirty linen (p. 25). Describing women as
fearless adventurers and moral dispensing washer women glorifies the daily tasks
and hardships faced by European women in Canada. a trait cornmon in bifocal
history.
New Beginnings, Volumes i and II (Marsh & Francis, 1981) were also
purchased to supplement the cumculum during the 1980's. A social history
intended for grades nine and ten Social Studies, the text presents the activities of
both men and women in Canada, before and after contact with Europeans. The
language used in the book is inclusive; both male and female pronouns are used
when referrïng to specific activities of people. Students reading this book would
understand that Canada was populated and developed by two sexes through
both the text and the pictures. The stories of women are found throughout the
text, but they are still located in separate columns, paragraphs and pictures. The
separate sphere nature of this bifocal history permeates the text. For example,
in a segment on the Iroquois the author asks the rhetorical question, "Why did
the Iroquois women have so much more power than women in other groups?"
(p.40). The answer provided is that given the separate natures of men's and
women's work, the women were considered important and often left in charge
because the men were away so often. The authors bring women's lives into
focus but in a way that keeps them separated from the men.
In a segment on the women of New France, students are presented with
the opening statement of, "New France offered few opportunities to women
outside of family life" (p.106). Of the seven paragraphs recounting the history of
women in New France, five of them deal with extraordinary wornen who
participate in life outside of family obligations. The authors provide a mixed
message in this segment. On one hand, they state women were basically wives
and mothers, yet give little description of what that means, then they proceed to
detail the heroics of Madeleine de Vercheres and the business acumen of Agathe
de Saint-Pere.
Drawbacks to lncorporating Bifocal History
Despite some of the drawbacks of bifocal history texts mentioned above,
using them in Social Studies classrooms would increase studentsJ knowledge and
understanding of the roles wornen played throughout history. There was a
serious attempt on the part of the Ministry of Education, no doubt partly prompted
by the urging of the British Columbia TeachersJ Federation Status of Women
program1 to provide teachers with alternative sources of information. Yet in 1984,
when I traveled across the Province of British Columbia visiting school districts in
the Okanagan, Lower Mainland, Kootenays and the North giving in-service
workshops on the then new Social Studies curriculum, I would ask the
participants in the workshops if any of them used Never Done as a
supplernentary text. In only one case did a teacher reply in the affirmative. She
was teaching Women's Studies in the Kootenays and found the text useful for
both her Women's Studies course and her Social Studies classes. Many of the
other teachers polled did not remember the text. When I showed them a sample
copy, they remarked, almost universally, that their class sets were packed away
in a book room. It seems that bifocal histories are not utilized in the secondary
school system, perhaps because there is no direct inducement through the
curriculum, or perhaps because it is considered unimportant, "not real history" as
-
1 As a member of the Stams of Women Cornmittee fiom 1978-8 1, we sent several Ietters and convened meetings between the Ministry and the S/W cornmittee regarding sexism in textbooks.
60
one of my colleagues stated. Once again the problem that Himmelfarb (1989)
noted, the jack of significance in social history is a deterrent to its inclusion.
Beyond the problem of under-utilization, bifocal histories pose other
concems for historians. The position of women as separate but complementary
and equal to men is one the underpinnings of the bifocal position advanced by
Thompson Tetreault (1 987, p. 172). It accepts a dual vision of men and women;
the private and public natures of their roles, reminiscent of Rousseau's depiction
of Emile and Sophie. "Emile . . . is educated for individual superiority, public life,
and citizenship". Sophie's strength lies in her charms; "among them are
politenes, coquetry, grace and license" (Stone, 1996, p. 43). This acceptance of
the dual natures of men and women is exemplified by histories and
anthropologies that recount man the hunter's activities along with woman the
gatherer's. They are seen as separate, complernentary but arguably not equal
(Reiter, 1975).
There is a danger that bifocalisrn may solidify inequity between men and
women. Thompson Tetreault (1 987) points out that the separate spheres
argument often perpetuates stereotypically appropriate male and female
behaviours and activities. For example, not al1 women support peace initiatives
and many men are not war mongers. As well, notions of public and private
spheres can legitirnize inequality, subordinating the private sphere to the public.
Paid work, valued more highly than unpaid labour in Western society exemplifies
the secondary position of private sphere activities (Alexandre, 1989). The
dichotomy of private and public is also a fairly modem, middle class construct.
For example, poor women have never had the luxury of participating solely in the
private sphere. They enter the public sphere daily in their work (Stone, 1996).
Finally, the public and private spheres are not as clearly delineated as once
thought. Thatcher Ulrich's (1 990) history of Martha Ballard, a seventeenth
century midwife in New England connects the private activities of a homemaker
and midwife with the public political, economic and legal events of the tirne. Links
are now being seen between poveriy in the developing world and women's work
and roles in society (Alexandre, 1989). Critical analysis shows the private
sphere is merging with the public one.
The bifocal position also emphasizes the oppression of women. "Exposes
of women-hating in history are common. Emphasis is on the misogyny of the
human experience and in particular, on the means men have employed to assert
their authority and imply female inferiority" (Thompson Tetreault, 1987, p. 174).
Histones of witch hunts and bumings (Tyler, 1993), ferninist historiographies that
exhort the examination of "the structures of women's inequality" (Pierson &
Prentice, 1988, p. 21 2). histories that illuminate women's lives relegated to the
private sphere such as Christine de Pisan's accounts of medieval daily life (Hill
Gross, 1 987), and texts that portray women's oppression (Rowbotham, 1 973)
exemplify the focus of the bifocal position. While it is important to recognize the
validity and impact of this oppression I wonder how effective it would be to only
portray women in this Iight? Viewing the historical roles available for wornen as
oppressed or victirnized would do Iittle to enhance the self-image of girls in Social
Studies classrooms and would likely not contribute to their sense as change
agents or participants in a democratic society. The goals of the cumculurn would
not be particularly well sewed if this was the heritage offered to females in Social
Studies classrooms throughout British Columbia, one of separation, victirnization
and oppression.
Conclusions on the Effectiveness of Contri bution and Bifocal History
Both contribution and bifocal history allow a view of women's history but
both have serious drawbacks. Contribution history does not fit the criteria
established for significance. The women's history presented through contribution
is often trivial, incomplete and irrelevant to the main story being told. In çome
presentations of contribution history women are character-ized as men, distorting
the view we in the present have of the past. Bifocal histories too suffer from
distortion, but it cornes from a different source. Women are seen as separate to
men and not connected in their lived relationships to the men around thern and
the society in which they exist and affect. The separation of women is often
unjustified, arising from contemporary. middle class notions of the separate
spheres for men and women (Hahn, 1996).
At this point let us retum to the question, why should the curriculum
include women's history? As previously stated, examining how people interact in
society is an integral part of the purpose of Social Studies. The goals of the
cumculum are presented to support such an examination. Both males and
females need to gain a full and rich understanding of women's roles as well as
men's in history if they are to understand the interactions of people in a given time
and place. Othewise. they will be looking at a one-sided view of the past through
maledefined or contribution histones or students will see a distorted view of
women as separated, oppressed or victimized characters.
Using Women As a Lens On History
It becomes obvious that if women are to be included in the study of history
a different method must be found from bifocal or contribution history. A way of re-
visioning the history that can be written anses from an example of a ferninist
treatment of human evolution. The Descent of Woman (Morgan, 1980) is a
scientific treatise and wonderfully entertaining book about the evolution of human
beings. Morgan challenged the predominant beliefs about human evolution by
taking the known facts and reconfiguring them as they might apply to the female
of the species. She examined the story of evolution from a woman's perspective
and came up with a very different picture than the traditional 'masculine'
evolutionary tale. The following samples of Morgan's revisioning of the past
provide insight into the possibilities for history when women's lives are used as a
lens to view the past.
Morgan begins with the same questions asked by male evolutionists. What
happened to the apes during the twelve million year period of drought called the
Pliocene? Why did Our ape-ancestors become bi-pedal? How did they start
using weapons? Why did the naked ape become naked? How did human
relationships become so cornplex? (Morgan, 1980. pp. 5-1 0). Her research
showed that if approached through wornen's biology, a markedly different story
was revealed from that described by Desmond Morris' Naked Apes: A Zoologist's
Study of the Human Animal (1 969).
According to Morgan, Morris and other evolutionist writerç posit that apes
descended frorn the receding forests during the Pliocene and ventured into the
grasslands to look for food. In order to see across the veldt, they stood up,
picked up weapons and ran after their prey on two legs. Because they were often
away on the hunt for long periods of time, it became necessary to pair bond so
that men could have a woman to corne home to, and sex would have to be more
complicated so that the pair bond would last a lifetime. Morgan contended that
this story did not really make much sense, particularly if looked at from women's
perspectives.
If men lost their body hair in order to avoid overheating while on the hunt,
why did women [ose more haïr if they were just sitting around waiting for the food
to arrive? Why would apes stand up on two legs and run if using four was always
faster? How did apes become such skilled tool users? More probable answers,
according to Morgan, as to how apes evolved into pre-humans can be
constructed if evolution is traced through women's needs and physiology.
A summary of Morgan's narrative follows. With no trees left to offer
protection from the carnivores that stalked her, the female ape and baby would
have to find another place of refuge. The open veldt which was fast replacing the
forests of Miocene era could not afford a safe place for mothers and their
children. They needed to find a place to dwell that afforded them safety. food and
shelter. Morgan suggests that rnoving to the ocean's edge would satisfy these
needs of the women in the early Pliocene.
Because she had bi-pedal capability, she wuld wade into the waters of the
ocean and out wait her hunter in relative safety. Most of the animais at the
ocean's edge were "slower, smaller and more timid than she was herself"
(Morgan, 1980, p. 19). Having a hairy body was a distinct disadvantage however.
so the hair receded and was replaced by a layer of subcutaneous fat which kept
her wam in the water. It was often difficult to see because of the glare of light off
the ocean's surface so body signals no longer helped communication with others
in the group. Vocal noises carried nicely over water however. It was a distinct
disadvantage to remain on al1 fours as it often led to drowning, so there was
constant reinforcement for standing on two legs. Food was readily available. if
she was able to crack open the shells that protected many of the food sources. A
plethora of stones and slow moving, edible objects created the right environment
for the weapon user to evolve. Caves, readily available at the sea shore,
provided a good place to store the food so it would not be carried away by the
tides, thus beginning a cave-dwelling habitat culture (1 980, pp. 19-33).
Morgan builds the story of a marine environment evolution piece-by-piece.
She details examples of other marine mammals, similar to humans, where no
other mammalian similarity exists. By the end of her book, she had me
convinced that her explanation of the 'facts' was more credible than others I had
read. Her evolutionary history, based as it was on women's biology, convinced
me that accepting descriptions of the world that only take into account one
viewpoint, the male viewpoint, might radically change if approached frorn another
perspective. Readers of Morgan might reject her conclusions but what is not so
easily dismissed is the method by which she reached them. Looking at the world
from a woman's perspective led. in this case, to a different set of images than
those developed by a male viewpoint. A balanced and rich history can only
occur through a new paradigm of historical construction. How men and women
interact with each other in society, not as separate entities in separate spheres
would provide such balance and richness. The interplay between men and
women can be developed in history by using gender as an analytic category in its
construction. As well, "historical perceptions, interpretations and periodizations
are frequently seen differently when women's history is taken into consideration"
(Hill Gross. 1 987). lncluding women changes historical understanding; it offers
opportunities for a more complete accounting of the past. It also provides
histonans with the opportunity to investigate the cornplexities of the past and
present their findings in more significant ways.
CHAPTER FOUR
Replacing Traditional Male-Defined History with Gendered History
This chapter focuses on several elements necessary for the revisioning of
history so that it includes women in significant ways. This revisioning calls for a
gendered history. 1 first offer definitions of gender, gender identity and gendered
history. In understanding the nature of gendered history it is necessary to accept
that men and wornen's gendered identities are socially constructed and that the
construction of these gendered identities is in relation to existing institutions
within society. The construction of gender identities invokes societal norms and
references which, according to Joan Scott (1 988), need to be examined fully in
order to more adequately reconstruct the past. I then outline why gender is an
important lens on history and detail how gendered history provides a better
framework for significance than the traditional canon of history. Finally, I offer an
example of a gendered history, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's (1 991) A Midwife's Taie,
and dernonstrate how the information presented in Ulrich's history of Martha
Ballard, an eighteenth century rnidwife, applies Scott's (1 988) constitutive
elements of gendered identities.
Defining Gender and Gendered history
All people in society have a gendered identity. By this I mean that the
general characteristics ascribed to men and women in any time or place are
largely a part of what is considered to be their gendered identity. This identity is
different frorn people's sex, male or female, as that is biologically detemined
(Fausto-Sterling, 1989). The personalities of individuals are determined not only
by their genetic makeup but by the socialkation processes and noms dominant
in their society. The range of acceptable behaviours, roles and role models
available for people are articulated and enforced through the noms of society
and under that broad umbrella falls gender identity.
Gendered identities are constructed by society. We use the term gender
instead of sex to denote the culturally wnstructed conceptions of what it means
to be male or female in our society (Bernard-Powers, 1996). For example,
women in contemporary society are offen generally seen as nurturing and
compassionate whereas men are seen as dominating and aggressive.
Obviously these are gross caricatures and we can al1 think of individual examples
that belie those stereotypes. The point is that wornen who act out of role, Joan of
Arc for instance, are more easily understood if they are portrayed in male ternis
since her behavior was more consistent with men' s behaviour. Gender identity
becomes almost a short hand for understanding the roles and activities of men
and women within society, but that short hand can lead to misunderstandings and
altered perceptions (Alexandre, 1989).
When historians examine the interactions of people in society they often
invoke a gendered identity as a rneans to portray individuals to contemporary
society. Historians ofien unconsciously miss the role played by women in
particular situations because they see thern from their own subjective position.
For example. when the Jesuit priests first came to North America, they set down
their experiences and perceptions in joumals. These writingç, often detailed
descriptions of what was seen by the priests without the addition of prejudicial
cornmentary, have been used by historians to write about the past. When the
Jesutt Father Lafitau described the power and position of women within lroquois
or Huron society, historians made note of it, but did not grasp its full import.
Brown (1 975) rejects this partial view of theinfluence of women in lroquois society
- an influence which, "seems to have commenced and ended with the
household" (p. 240). Brown comrnents that this is written despite the author's
understanding that iroquois women had the power of life or death over prisoners
of war. The historian, although presented with the knowledge that Iroquois
women had a vast scope of power, converted this knowledge into a framework
that was commensurate with his time, and in doing so, distorted the reality of past
for lroquois women. Without an understanding and analysis of our own
subjective position it becomes extremely difficult to more accurately portray the
events of the past.
The understanding that individuals are gendered beings Is critical to
understanding the past. There are h o radical notions in this idea. The first is
that gender matters; that it makes a difference to our understanding of ourselves
by viewing human beings as gendered. The second is that men too are gendered
beings. Generally, the work around historic gendered identities has focused
rnainly on women, perhaps because the female gender has put women in
problernatic positions histotically. It is highly probable that these two notions are
connected. If gender is seen as a preserve of women, then it may be assumed to
be unimportant for men. If it is unimportant for men, then it must be unimportant
generally (Dresden Grarnbs, 1987). By unlocking this view of gender, historians
are provided with a means through which they can examine human interactions,
both male and female more fully (Smith, 1996).
Cuvent feminist scholarship calls for inclusion of women in history that
goes beyond 'contribution' or 'bifocal' history. The writing of history demands a
fundamental change in the way history is written (Thompson Tetreault, 1987;
Dunn, 1987; Scott, 1988; Lather, 1991 ; Stone, 1996). lncluding women in history
"requires so cornplete a redefining of historical experience and significance that it
implies 'not only a new history of women, but also a new history"' (Himmelfarb,
1989, p. 669). This redefinition largely arises from the need to enlarge the idea of
historical significance to include personal and subjective experiences with public
and political events (Scott, 1988) if historical scholarship is going to have any
hope of telling stories that relate to the current human condition, a condition
which contemporary society recognizes includes women.
In order to examine how individuals interact in society both past and
present. it is important that those actions been seen as clearly as possible.
Feminist historians argue that the clarity of the picture improves by seeing that
human beings are gendered individuals and have always behaved in a gendered
fashion (Scott, 1988; Crease 8 Strong-Boag, 1995; Hahn, 1996; Smith, 1996;
Stone, 1996 ). The actions of men, as well as women, becorne more precisely
articulated when the writing of history invokes an examination of individuals'
gendered identities.
Traditional approaches to history, those articulated through the canon.
ignore gender as an analytic category and, in so doing. limit the sape and depth
of understanding the past. This limitation precludes not only significant womenJs
history but allows only a partial view cf men's history as well.
Challenging the Canon by Using a Gendered Lens on History
Carl Becker (1 932) spoke to the Arnerican Historical Association about the
need to make history relevant to the average person. The task of the historian
was to delve into the past cognizant of the present. Becker argued:
The history that does work in the world, the history that influences
the course of history, is living history, that pattern of remembered
events, whether true or false, that enlarges and enriches the collective
specious present, the specious present of Mr. Everyman. (p. 234)
Becker was reminding historians that history does not exist as something solely in
the past. It is wntten by those in the present to inform the present about the past.
In doing so, the ever-changing present will discard the myths of the past, myths
that once were considered history, when that history is shown to be invalid by the
present (Becker, 1932).
At the end of the twentieth century, feminist scholarship has created a
body of work, both theoretical and descriptive, which is part of the ever-changing
present that is challenging the validity of past accounts. This scholarship did not
anse in isolation, but as part of a movement within society as a whole. Gertrude
Himmelfarb's (1988) quip about word processors being programmed to spew out
the new triniiy of "genderl race/class" (p. 668) is a barbed recognition of this
change.
Conservative historians may not be willing participants in the debate about
the new history, but they are reluctantly dealing with issues of gender, race and
class. They claim the inclusion of histories of women and others previously kept
to the margins are diffusing and fragmenting the grand narratives of the past
(Bliss, 1991 -92).
lnstead of a clear notion of a national past, historians are giving us many
partial pasts, the history of many groups, often in splendid isolation, with
little suggestion of how or whether they make up a nation of a society
beyond themselves (p. 189, Bender, 1989).
There is a concem that expanding the traditional stories of the past through the
addition of others' stories will create a confusion leaving no one the wiser about
the past (Himmelfarb, 1989; Bliss, 1991-92; Ravitch, 1992; Fowler, 1995).
However. the traditional stories of the past have not offered a gendered analysis
of the stories' protagonists. There has been little analysis of the social
construction of male identity within a given time or event, thereby rendering the
description and analysis offered incomplete by today's standards.
Historical knowledge should provide a framework that helps make more
meaningful the events that occur in contemporary life (Rogers, 1987). As well,
history should provide accounts of the past that are believable and students of
history should have the ability to address those accounts critically (Seixas,
1996a). It is argued also that history should provide a common understanding of
the society in which people live, so they can successfully participate in their own
society through a shared vocabulary or set of common concepts (Seixas, 1993).
This cultural literacy as advocated by Hirsch (1 987) and others cannot be
achieved if the many stories of different groups' past crowd the stage that the
audience cannot see or cumprehend the main play. For the cultural literacy
advocates, there is a central play that needs to be presented, the content of
which is more significant than the skits pushing in from the wings.
This, then, becomes the core of the canonical debate: what histories are
significant and what is meant by significance in history? The key phrases of the
previous paragraph may give insight into the notion of significance in history:
make us wiser, be believable, stand up tu critical scrutiny, be meaningful for
contemporary life, allow participation in the culture. To be significant, historical
accounts, including women's histories, must address al1 of those criteria.
Are histones that include women historically sig nificant? Wiil knowing
more about women in the past make us wiser and be rneaningful to our
contemporary lives? Will the production of knowledge about women's history be
believable and able to stand the test of critical inquiry? Will including women's
stories into the historical literature of a culture facilitate rneaningful participation in
that culture? Using gender as an analytic category for history will allow historians
to see the complexities of the past in ways that are denied when gendered
analysis is not invoked.
Scott (1 988) argues that the successful use of gender as an analytic
category depends on the theory underpinning the concept of gender. if gender is
equated with sex and conceived as biologically detemined and static, it will
remain a criterion for description or a fixed biological determinant. Neither of
these are particularly useful as an analytic category. They perpetuate the binary
opposition of male and female as fixed and universal, instead of seeing male and
fernale as socially çonstructed and variable based on historical conditions. Only
modest shifts in understanding can occur when gender is seen as a fixed or
universal condition. Let me offer the example of Carol Gilliganrs work to illustrate
this point.
Working with Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, Gilligan
found that girls were not simply retarded moral developers able to reach only
stage three of Kohiberg's universal moral developrnent scale. She found that
they were equally developed moral beings if one studied them using a female
constnict (Wertsch. 1991). The responses of a male and female subject
revealed very different courses of action when presented with the Heinz and the
Dniggist dilemma (a scenarïo where a man's wife would die if she did not get a
certain dnig, but he did not have enough rnoney to buy it). The boys tended to
focus on the word "should" in the moral problem - Should Heinz steal the drug?
The dilemma was posed by Kohlberg to detemine if children could respond in a
morally correct way to theft. The girls were more likely to respond by
equivocating. For the girls, the action of theft was not a singular option.
Perhaps Heinz could think of another way to get the drug. The focus on the verb
"steal" as opposed to "should" revealed that these girls approached problems
differently than the boys. This difference was not recognized as an equally
suitable response by Kohlberg's interviewer, so girls were rated as inferior moral
reasoners. Gilligan theorized that females had "a universal preference for
relatedness" (Scott, 1988, p. 40). This theory has been adopted by some in the
Social Studies, Nel Noddings being one. Noddings (1992; 1996) creates an
alternative Social Studies cum~culum, using Gilligan's "different voice" of females
as support (1 992). But Gilligan's theory has a central drawback.
Gilligan extended our understanding of moral development to include
separate criterion for boys and girls but she did not fundarnentally alter its
developmental paradigm by questioning its socio-cultural construction (Wertsch,
1991). The criterion by which moral development is gauged are themselves a
reflection of the gendered noms of our contemporary society. That does not
mean they are invalid, yet it does situate them as Western, twentieth century
social constructions. Claiming they are universal criteria for al1 people in al1 times
becomes more problematic. Gilligan proved Kohlberg's criteria are not universal
for women. What she did not do was question the critena that would evaluate
girl's moral development as being situated and valid for our time and place.
The idea that gender causes a fixed determination of actions negates the
historical, social and cultural construction of gendered relations. Gender,
therefore, must be defined in a way that incorporates the changing ability of
individuals and social organizations to interconnect and interrelate and allows the
researcher to see those dynarnic relationships.
lnstead of using gender as a fixed or universal set of characteristics
describing men and women, Scott (1 988) proposes a theoretical conception of
gender that establishes it as normative and relational. Gender, like class and
race, is one of the elements which acts upon and helps shape and determine
social relationships. These perceived behavioural differences between men and
women, their gendered identities, signify relationships between men and women
and signify relationships of power within a society. From this conception of
gender, it becomes possible to find meaning in individual's activities and social
organizations and the relationship between the two in a given time and place. It
is the relationship between the individual subject and the social organization in
which she operates that provides the basis for analysis as to how gender works
and changes occur, therefore opening historical inquiry up to a more fully
developed presentation of the past. Moreover, it becornes evident that power
relationships are not unified and centralized but unequally dispersed within social
constnicts. It is the changes in these power relationships that precipitate further
change. How they are articulated as signifiant gives meaning to the research of
historians (Scott, 1 988).
Scott's definition of gender, as describeci previously, has two parts. The
first part isolates gender as a constitutive element of social relationships of
perceived sexual differences. By this, Scott means that gender differences
between men and women are constructed by the society and the institutions
within that society and that gender construction manifests itself through the ways
men and women interact with each other and with the society as a whole. Scott
argues that these manifestations can be more clearly seen and understood if men
and women are viewed through four lenses. She calls these the "four interrelated
elements" (Scott, 1988, p. 43), each of which is involved in, or part of, gender
construction. The first of these elements is the cultural symbols that are evoked
by descriptions of males and fernales. such as Eve, the Virgin Mary, or Abraham
Lincoln. The second is the ways that society uses these symbols to invoke
norms and normative relationships, such as the way in which contemporary
fundamentalist religious groups use the "traditional woman" role as a standard by
which all women should be measured. The third element is the way in which
gendered identities are connected to, relate to and anse out of the social and
political institutions and norms in society. For example, Margaret Thatcher, as
Prime Minister of England behaved in much the same way as any male Prime
Minister, drawing either criticism or accolades, depending on who was speaking,
for her 'masculine' approach to goveming. The last element is the subjective
identity of the individual, a non-essentialized view of the subject that relates
characteristics and activities of a person to the social and cultural milieu in which
she iives. If histodans use these elernents as a means of thinking about gender,
then that thinking will becume more precise and systernatic, according to Scott
(1 988, p. 44).
Using these four subsets to conceptualize and analyze knowledge
necessitates a multidisciplinary approach for historians. Anthropological,
sociological, political, psychological and Iiterary structures are invoked to present
as cornplete a picture as possible when writing histories that identifi gender as an
analytic category. As society is not forrned and framed through one discipline,
neither is gender. This corresponds to what Thompson Tetreault rneant when
she wrote, "As historians look closer at the complex patterns of wornen's live,
they see the need for a pluralistic conceptualization of women" (1 987, p. 175).
Retuming to the eaiiier descriptions of significance offered by Rogers,
Seixas and Hirsch - that history is significant if it infoms the present, is
believable, can stand critical scrutiny, and provides access to the contemporary
culture in which we live - Scott's notion of gender as an analytic category
becomes integral to significance because "concepts of gender structure
perception and the concrete and symbolic organization of all social life" (1 988, p.
45). In trying to articulate the past for the present, a gendered analysis provided
by histories of women have becorne a critical component of establishing
significance because without it there is little significance for half of humanity and a
distorted sig nificance for the other half.
Discussing notions of significance is slippery business, due largely to the
tenuousness of apprehending any histofical time. History that is well produced
cannot take the traces and accounts of the past and present them out of the
context of their time, yet they must be presented in a way that has meaning for
the present (Seixas, 1996). Laurel Thatcher Ulrich most adroitly stated the
historians task when she wrote, "1 have hoped to rernind readers of the
cornplexity and subjectivity of historical reconstruction, to give them some sense
of both the afinity and distance between history and source" (1990, p. 34). The
rerninder that al1 history is a reconstruction of things past that have occurred in
different contexts but serves our contemporary needs is a salient one for those
who doubt the validity of using gender as an analytic category. How could history
presume to be significant if it presents a past from a singuiar male point of view
which cannot bring to light the richness of that past? A gender analysis of
people and their activities in the past is necessary if history is to be believable,
able to stand up to critical scnitiny, infom the present and encourage
participation in the conternporary culture. lgnoring people's gendered identities
results in missing the wmplexities of social and power relationships as in the
example of the Iroquois women who are mistakenly seen oniy to be powerful
within the confines of the household, because it is through their gendered
activities that these relationships present themselves. To explicate this
theoretical position I offer a detailed examination of a gendered history, A
Midwifes's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard (1 990).
An Example of Gendered History
In A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Mafiha Ballad (1 990). Laurel Thatcher
Ulnch recreates the life of an eighteenth-century midwife by using Ballard's diary
and other histoncal traces and accounts of the place and period. Thatcher Ulrich
"open[s] out Martha's book for the twentieth-century reader" (p. 34) creating a
historically significant piece of work. It is significant because Thatcher Ulrich
connects the writings of a wornan alrnost three centuries dead with contemporary
concems. Seixas writes, "The significance of this histo~y lies in Ulrich's own work
with the traces of the past. rather than in some quality inherent to certain aspects
of the past itself' (1994, p. 283). It is the conscious effort Thatcher Ulrich makes
to connect the often cryptic and, by many previous historians' assessments,
seemingly trivial entries of Ballard's diary to the larger concerns of our
contemporary society that signifies this work as meaningful. One of the central
analytical tools that Thatcher Ulrich uses to do this is a decoding of what it means
to be a woman in eighteenth century New England. In writing her history of
Martha Ballard, Thatcher Ulrich does what Scott (1988) suggests should be done.
Thatcher Ulrich writes a significant history because the account describes
Ballard's life using gender as a constitutive element of social relationships and
presents in a primary way the gendered relationships of power existing within the
New England community of the late 1700's.
In A Midwife's Tale, Thatcher Ulrich deconstructs Ballard's life invoking a
pluralistic conception of Martha Ballard as midwife, homemaker, healer, wife,
political cummentator and mother. The principles of Joan Scott's definition of
gender and its subsets are evident throughout the book. But just as Scott states
that al1 four elements -cultural images, noms, institutions and subjective identity-
- operate together but not simultaneously, Thatcher Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale
weaves together the complexities of Ballard's life and the reader becomes aware
of the substructure of gender analysis only when the book is viewed in its totality.
Thatcher Ulrich's book, reflecting Scott's definition of gender, stands out as a
masterpiece of history, one which connects the daily details of a woman's life with
the broader concerns of historical narrative.
What is first evident about Martha Ballard's diary, as presented by Ulrich,
are the tedious details of housewifery. It is not her work as a midwife that takes
the foreground in her journal. Page after page of diary entries detail the washing,
cooking, cleaning weaving and planting. A terse weather report, so important to
the housewife as anyone who has tried to garden, keep floors clean and get the
laundry dried c m attest, greets the reader at the beginning of most entnes.
The diary evokes clear images of the eighteenth-century chores carried
out on a daily basis by women. Because of this, the historians who were aware
of the diary did not find it very useful, citing it as being "not of general interest" or
"trivial and unimportant", as Thatcher Ulrich cites (1 990, pp. 8-9). It represents a
routine record of dornestic chores to historians not able or willing to plumb the
depths of women's histary. But the symbol of woman as domestic worker or
housewife is diçrupted by Ballard's own words when she writes on January 6,
1796, "1 retumd home and find my house up in a n s . How long God will preserve
my strength to perform as I have done of late he only knows" (p. 207). Here is a
woman who seems, from the continual recording of daily chores and tasks,
concemed with the typical housewifely duties of the time, yet on this occasion she
writes of a house that is fighting against her. Thatcher UlrÏch picks up on this
disruption of the wornan as housewife symbol and pursues this entry with her own
analysis:
r%nd my house up in arms."] The image is a curious one, as though
the fioorboards, pothooks, and bedsteads had risen against her. It
was not her husband and sons who were disturbed. If they had been
home at all, they had gotten their supper and breakfast themselves,
leaving their platters and mugs, unmade beds, and stiffening socks behind
them. It was no human enemy but Martha's house that had taken up arms
against her. (p. 21 9)
Thatcher Ulrich discusses Martha's negative relationship with housework,
commenting that Ballard was happiest when she had someone else in her home
who would cornpiete the dnidgery of the household chores. She develops the
complexities of Ballard's world by approaching it, "neither as a golden age of
household productivity nor as a political void from which a later feminist
consciousness emerged" (pp. 32-33).
The resentment that Ballard had toward her work as a housewife is dear
throughout the diary and Thatcher UIrich explores the syrnbol of woman as
housewife, exposing the normative interpretation of woman as fulfilled or
contented housewife for the fraud it is in Ballard's case. She shows the
relationship between two of the elements Scott (1 988) described as subsets of
the first part of her gender definition. The cultural symbol and normative concept
of woman as housewife/domestic worker are seen in specificity with respect to
Martha Ballard. Although domestic virtue was a cultural and economic symbol
initiated and perpetuated out of necessity for the success of the early European
settlements in Amerka (Thatcher Ulrich, 1990, p. 27). the rnythology of the
symbol is exposed in A Midwife's Tale. The essentialized woman as housewife
exists nowhere in this history. What does exist is the relationship Ballard has
with the daily work that presses upon her. Ballard writes, "1 have done my
housework. Feel fatagud" (p. 206). This is no happy homemaker. This is a
woman who does what must be done but is exhausted by it.
The symbol of woman as wife is also deconstmcted by Ulrich. The
economic relationship between husband Ephraim and wife Martha is clearly laid
bare when Ephraim is sent to debtor's jail for over a year. Uirich's narrative
describes Martha's need for fuel which was clearly Ephrairn's responsibility (p.
276) and the suffering she endured from the lack of wood in her home. Along
with wood cutting, other jobs usually done by her husband were hired out to
neighbours, paid for out of Martha's much reduced incorne from midwifery. But
instead of presenting this as a simple case of econornic deprivation through
dependency, Ulrich weaves into the relationship the love and sentiment Ballard
was also experiencing. "The change in her vocabulary is subtle-the addition of
the adjective "Dear," a more frequent use of exclamations ("Oh," "alas")-a limited
range of expression to be sure, but real because so rare in this tacitum journal"
(p. 275). The narrative describes the small acts of love that Martha provided to
ease Ephrâim's discornfort. She washed his clothes (doing the hated laundry),
mended his mat, and brought him small gifts. Once again, Thatcher Ulrich has
challenged the norms, in this case a Marxist one of wife as economic unit, by
presenting the complexity of the subjective identity.
It is also clear from Thatcher Ulrich's narrative that Martha contributed to
the family's economic health through work in her home as well as her work as a
midwife, showhg the diversity in Ballard's economic life. She and Ephraim raised
f i a , some of which was sold for seed and some of which was spun by her
daughters or female neighbours (p. 29). The men and women of the Ballard
family worked together in this economic venture and with this example, Thatcher
Ulrich disrupts the notion of the fixity of the separate spheres of men and
women's work existing in binary opposition to one another.
Thatcher Ulrich notes that men and women worked together to sustain the
ewnomy of the town in which they lived (p. 30). She uses a metaphor of blue
and white checkered cloth to clariw this issue. When blue warp threads cross
blue weft threads, the result will be a deep indigo fabric. Similarly when crossing
white warp and weft threads there will be a pure white square. When blue
threads cross white threads however, the result will be a light blue. The
metaphor of the checkered cloth then represents the work that men and women
did; white for women's work perhaps, indigo for men's and light blue for men and
women working together (p. 75). So the essentialized womanlwife as ewnomic
dependent working in a separate sphere is dispelled by the specificity of detail
showing Martha as lover. friend and economic providerlpartner. Once again
Thatcher Ulrïch has invoked a subset of Scott's gender definition. Martha Ballard
shows the mythology of the notion that there is a "timeless permanence in binary
gender representations" (Scott, 1988, p. 43). The social institution of mamage
and the organization of the household economy are neither fixed nor predisposing
of gender roles. The roles assumed by Martha Ballard and by the other women
of the Kennebec partly emerged through their kinship systems, but also
developed through their personal inclinations and talents, social and political
positions and their chronological ages.
The last way that historians can think about gender which adds clarity and
specificity is what Scott calls the subjective identity of gender. She urges
historians "to examine the ways in which gendered identities are substantively
constmcted and relate their findings to a range of activities. social organizations.
and historÏcally specific cultural representations" (p. 44). Thatcher Ulrich has
done this clearly, particularly with respect to Martha Ballard's identity as a
midwife.
The role of midwife conjures up the image of a woman who delivers
babies. The image may be broadened to include difficult and easy births, waiting
perïods, some post-natal care and herbal medicines administered in connection
with pregnancy and childbirth. Perhaps a coterie of women surrounding the
midwife rounds out the image. But is this a picture arising from historical accuracy
or popular culture and mythology? The constructed gender identity of Martha
Ballard, rnidwife, is much more cornplex.
Thatcher Ulrich begins her history by describing the medical practices in
which Ballard was versed. Ballard could relieve a toothache, manufacture
salves, treat dysentery, measles and frostbite, as well as dress burns (p. 11).
The last entry in the paragraph-long description is "delivering babies". Although
midwife was her title, it was not the total sum of her expertise.
There was a tension between Ballard's practice as a healer and midwife
and the doctors in Hallowell. In describing a birth that Ballard attended in 181 2,
Thatcher Ulrich notes that the diary makes reference to hnro other midwives being
present as well as two doctors. Ballard names the doctors specifically, but not
the midwives, and Thatcher UIrich comments that this indicates the deference to
which males and doctors were held by the wornen in the community. The
interesting point of this diary entry is that Martha actually performs the delivery,
even though onginally the rnother wanted one of the doctors to do it. Martha
writes:
I was Calld at 10 hour AM by Edward Savage to go and see his wife
who was in Labour. I had a fall on my way but not much hurt.
Found the patient had Calld 2 midwives & Doct Ellis before shee
saw me. I found her mind was for Doct Cony. He was Calld and as
Providence would have Shee Calld on me to assist her. 1 performd
the Case. (p. 140)
What must it have been like in that house with al1 of those medical practitioners
present? That Ballard was proud to have been chosen by the woman to deliver
her baby is clear frorn her reference to God's will intervening so that she could
deliver the child. How must the doctors have reacted to a midwife being chosen
to perform instead of themselves? Was their work in obstetrics. along with much
of the daily medical practices camed out in Hallowell, marginal to the inhabitants
of the area? Based on the picture that emerges from Ballard's diary, that might
be the case (p. 28).
Throughout A Midwife's Tale, Thatcher Ulrich probes the relationship
between doctors and midwives using Ballard's experiences as the sptingboard for
her historical research (pp. 6 1 -62, 1 75-1 79, 254-258, 338-340). Thatcher Ulrich's
narrative is rooted in the specitics of Ballard's diary, but not limited to thern. In
the same way she probes the relationship between the women and men who live
along the Kennebec River to the institutions of marriage (pp. 138-144), the law
(pp. 265-274), the economy (pp. 75-84, 99-1 00, 220-223) and religion (pp. 296-
303), as well as social customs like sexuality, weddings and funerals. Thatcher
Uirich connects life in New England to the institutions within the society. Although
many of the people appearing in Ballard's diary who form the basis for Thatcher
Ulrich's narrative have kinship bonds, her analysis goes beyond kinship and
extends into the structures of general society. When Ballard wntes about her
son Jonathan's illegitimate child by Sally Pierce, Thatcher Ulrich connects
Ballard's practice of taking testimony at the moment of birth to the laws of New
England and to the racial rights of the period (pp.151-152). Thatcher Ulrich
consistently connects the specifics of Ballard's diary to the social institutions and
organizations of the time and place, showing us how Scott's third element of
gender analysis can be applied in historical reseôrch.
Through Thatcher Ulrich's "opening out" of Martha Ballard's diary, the
constnicted identity of Ballard the midwife begins to take a more complex shape.
She was a practical healer as well as midwife, who was proud of her expertise.
yet courteously deferent to doctors. The image does not end there. Her job as
midwife enabled her to supply her daughters with yarn and ribbons for their cloth
work and household goods for their homes when they married (p. 221). The
payments she received, though most often in money, were also in goods or
services rendered by the grateful family she had helped. The image of
midwifelbarterer emerges to fiIl in the pictuie. So the constructed identity of
Martha Ballard, midwife, is one that encompasses the roles of healer, cornpetitor,
obstetrician, income earner, mother and dowry provider. What is extraordinary is
that this is just the identity that surrounds her rote as a midwife. It does not touch
on the identities that can be constructed from her roles as wife, mother, -
housewife, friend, colonial settler, and citizen in a new Republic. All of these
other identities do emerge in Thatcher Ulrich's thoughtfully crafted history, but this
example of the constructed identity of midwife makes the point that using gender
as a reference point creates a complexity and richness of character that makes
history and historical characters more meaningful. The separate spheres position
becomes open for debate in light of the evidence presented in Ballard's diary and
Thatcher Ulrich's work with it. The notion of separate spheres does not seern as
k e d or universal as it once did. 'Opening out' Martha Ballard's diary reveals the
"substnrcture of eighteenthcentury life" (p. 27), one that is rooted in the gendered
identities of the people living in that time.
While analysis of gender creates a more meaningful and richer historical
understanding, that is not its only function. The second part of Scott's definition
was that through understanding gender relations, the historian has a basis for
theorizing about power relations. If power relations are, "like Michel Foucault's
concept of power as dispersed constellations of unequal relationships,
discursively constituted in social 'fields of force"' (Scott, 1988, p.42), then
understanding the construction of the gendered identities in those gendered
relationships becomes a means through which histonans can understand the
construction of power and power relationships. Just as politics and political
power aid in the construction of gender identities, articulated by Scott's example
of rulers equating authontarian measures with masculiniiy, thereby establishing
male noms of behaviour, so the reverse is possible. Notions of gender legitimize
and construct politics and power.
Thatcher Ulrich recognizes the potential that gender holds for articulating
power relationships when she writes in her introduction to A Midwife's Tale,
Martha Ballard's diary connects to several prominent themes in the
social history of the early Republic, yet it does more than reflect an
era. By restoring a lost substnicture of eighteenth-century life, it
transfomis the nature of the evidence upon which much of the
history of the period has been written. (p. 27)
A good example of this "transfomation of the nature of evidence" arises
from A Midwife's Tale with respect to the previously rnentioned "separate
spheres" debate within history. Separate spheres have been suggested by
historians, including many feminist historians, to explain the neglect of women by
mainstream histories. If men occupy the public space and significant history is
about politics, economics and war (public events), then obviously men will be the
subject of political, military and economic history. Women, on the other hand.
occupy the private sphere of domestic and family life. Social histories which
make reference to domesticity and family organization would of course deal with
women. But Thatcher Ulrich contends that the division between private and
public is not so clearly cut. From the evidence available through Martha Ballard's
diary, women did participate in the public sphere of Hallowell's history. They were
an integral part of the econorny, in production, consumption and trade. They
were part of the cornmunity life, through small scale politics and large scale
economics. The impact of women in the town of Hallowell went well beyond the
household boundaries (p. 76).
Conclusions
A simple definition of historical significance - phenornena that affect a
large number of people over a long period of time in some way that is important
(Seixas. 1994) - can only be invoked if the word "peoplen really includes women.
But that understanding will only occur once gendered understandings are the
norm in society. At present, there can be no such assumption that the word
'peoplen includes women and men because the paradigm shift to gendered
understanding has not occurred. As a case in point, who, reading the previous
sentence, did not hesitate just fractionally at the ordering of women before men?
That may in itself be insignificant, but it is an example of the traditions we are
sttuggling against on al1 fronts.
Historically significant work has not traditionally dealt with women and their
experîences. The universalized daim that male activities represented women has
been the norm for centuries (Stone, 1996; Ekdahl, 1996). It is only in the latter
part of the twentieth century that the daim has been seriously challenged. But
challenging the daim on the basis of presence, that women are part of society.
has not been enough.
It has taken the work of historians, both modem and post-modern, cntically
assessing historical significance, as well as the work of feminist scholars to
provide theoretical frameworks for, and concrete examples of, gendered histones.
Opponents sf a gendered approach to historical work are trying to denounce
feminist scholarship as fragmenting and obfuscating (Hirnmelfarb, 1989; Bliss,
1991 -92; Ravitch. 1992), but the fact that they are addressing faninist
scholarship, even negatively. is better than the way it was ignored two or more
decades ago (Dresden Grambs. 1987). it is certainly better than the prernature
death pronouncements that were being given to feminist scholarship in the 1980's
(Lather, 1991).
To hope that the debate may be tuming in favour of histories of women
might be premature, Thatcher Ulrich's Pulitzer pnze winning history aside. At the
very least. the debate is on the table without any evidence that it will be swept
away by the antagonists. The debate itself will add to the knowledge, theoretical
frameworks and approaches taken to research and writing history. When the
paradigm shift occurs, it will be result of decades of work of feminist scholarship,
work which has been wrestling with the questions of women's agency and
subjective position within history (Lather, 1991 ). Without a fundamental
transformation of the way history is researched and written, women will never
share the stage with men. That would be a great loss to all of us as Laurel
Thatcher Ulrich's brilliant history of Martha Ballard has shown. Histonans would
lose out on the opportunity to better inform the present if they could not see the
past included wornen. They would not be writing significant histones. The
challenge now is to ascertain how the Social Studies curriculum can create
spaces for and encourage leaming about women's history.
CHAPTER FIVE
Implications for British Columbia Social Studies
If women are to be included in the study of history within Social Studies in
significant ways then several changes rnust take place. The curent male-defined
historical paradigm needs to be replaced by a gendered historical paradigrn.
Gendered history which explores the relationships between men and women in,
and to, society and their relationships to institutions and power configurations, will
inform students' understanding of the present more thoroughly than the limiting
traditional histories which place men at the centre, universalizing their actions and
thoughts in uncritical (with respect to their gendered identies) ways. The poverty
of male-defined histories illustrated in chapter two coupled with the inadequacy of
trying to fit women into the paradigm that created male-defined history, through
either contribution or bifocal history, leads to the conclusion that the historical
paradigm shift requires constructing history using gender as one of its analytic
categories. What such a paradigm shift would look like in practice for high
school Social Studies is the focus of this chapter.
Bringing a gendered analysis to secondary Social Studies necessitates
changing three main elements of the curriculum: 1) topics, the content which is
taught and leamed; 2) approaches, the means by and through which specific
content is taught and learned; and 3) lenses, the underlying viewpoints from
which content and content rneaning are constructed. Supporting these three are
resources that teachers and students would use everyday in the classroom. A
gendered history would transform al1 four of these aspects by making explicit the
constructed gendered identities of men and women and their relationships to
power and institutions within society.
For the sake of clarity, 1 separately detail the changes envisioned to al1 four
but the implementation of each should occur in an integrated manner. Exampies
are used in each of the four subsets, to illustrate how they can be incorporated
into secondary Social Studies classrooms. My purpose is to present a vision of
Social Studies that is transfomed through a gendered analysis.
Changing the Topics
The first recommendation made in the Gender Equity Review (Healey,
1996) of the new Social Studies curriculum was to "lnclude topics, examples,
events or changes which include or highlight women's lives or activities. Do not
artificially include women (tokenisrn)". There are two main ways that this non-
token inclusion can be successfully implernented.
First, topics that focus on womenJs historical activities must be sufficiently
valued to warrant substantial time be spent on them - the time needed to include
women in non-token ways (Turner & Clark, 1997). Often this rneans looking at
the 'flip side' of a topic. For example, along with studying war. peace should be
should be a focus in secondary Social Studies (Noddings, 1992). Topics from
grades eight to eleven that can be reconfigured by valuing the activities of women
are equally compelling and interesting to students (Coulter, 1989). Studying the
govemed as well as those who govem would bring to life the social and legal
history of an era. lnvestigating micro-economics. those of the home or family
should be an integral part of the topic of immigration. The topic of citizenship
should also be viewed through its antithesis. exclusion. The criteria by which
people were excluded from citizenship, those of ethnicity, gender and disability
would provide as much insight to our nation's history as the information presented
through a study of those with citizenship (Ekdahl, 1996). Although the curriculum
devotes a great proportion of time to the development of dernocracy in Western
society, very Iittle is said of enfranchising half of the population. A substantial unit
on women's suffrage is a way to include women into the topic of democracy.
Second. rnany of the topics that are traditionally included need only to be
expanded to allow women into the space currently reserved for men. The topic of
the fur trade is a case in point. The role First Nations women played in the fur
trade was integral to its success (Van Kirk, 1977), yet women are usually left out
the study altogether. There are several topics that would benefit greatly from
expansion for the inclusion of women. A study of medieval society loses an
immense opportunity for insight if the role of wornen and the subsequent
witchhunts are omitted. The transfomative nature of the industrial revolution
cannot be fully understood without a cornpiete understanding of the role played by
women and children in the changing rnethods of production under industrial
capitalism. Students who do not cornprehend the magnitude of total war, which
by necessity must include the efforts of the women and men who served on the
homefront as well as those who served in battle, will never understand the full
demands of a wartime economy and culture.
By including women's history through the expansion of traditional topic
boundaries and through valuing the areas of women's activities female students
gain a crucial understanding of their pasts. Coulter (1 989) notes the importance
of including wornen's history, asserting the ernancipatory and empowering
potential of it for young wornen who comprise half of the student population.
Without a sense of their foresister's past, female students will lose the opportunity
to understand that they too can be agents in social change. A study of
economics or the labour movement that does not include women's work denies
young women the true sense of women's historic role in developing the wealth of
our nation or improving the standards under which al1 people work (Heller, 1984).
Women's roles in the dernocratic and industrial revolutions of our past not only
convey a richness of understanding of the 'facts', but more importantly cumpletely
identify their role in changing history. The French Revolution would not have
moved into its radical phase if not for the agency of Parisian women (Scott, 1987;
Piercy, 1996). Perhaps because women's activities and lives have not been
valued in the past topics have been presented with distorted understanding and
meanings (Coulter, 1989). The images of prohibition in the United States or
ternperance in Canada, have been usurped to represent a period of conflict
between the male law enforcers and law breakers. Temperance was really an
issue of farnily cohesion and economics as articulated by the women who felt and
knew the results of alcohol abuse by their husbands and fathers. These women
wanted to put a stop to the erosion of family income and unity. Their tireless
efforts culminated in legislation being passed which outlawed the sale of alcohol.
In each of the above examples, whether through expansion of topic
boundaries or by valuing women's activities, the history that is suggested for
inclusion meets the test of signifieance. It respects the waming given in the
Gender Equity Review (Healey, 1996) of the new Social Studies curriculum to
avoid tokenism - the addition of women in rneaningless or trivial ways (Noddings.
1992). Our present need to avoid war in the nuclear age would be greatly
supported and enhanced by focusing on historic peace initiatives. The primary
focus of the cuvent curriculum on war does little to support the world's search for
peaceful solutions to confiict situations. It would be difficult to argue that
wornen's suffrage was an issue of little consequence to people given that half o f
those considered 'people' were the potential recipients of the right to vote. Our
understanding of the present is also more fully developed by knowing about
women's roles in the fur trade. The mediating roles played by native women in
issues of language, culture and business provide valuable lessons for the
multicultural social needs of today.
The quest to make history meaningful and relevant to our contemporary
lives would be well served by the inclusion of topics in the Social Studies
curriculum that make space for women along with men. I recognize the necessity
of curriculum developers to make choices around which topics should be included
in the study of Social Studies, but choices that do not include wornen are not
defensible when judged by the criteria of historical significance and relevance to
the students who study it.
Approaches to the Curriculum
I have chosen to use the word 'approaches' because it conveys a broader
context for my purpose than 'rnethod' or methodology. Methodology in
educational parlance often is interpreted to mean the teaching and learning
activities and strategies that go on in a given iesson. Methodologies can become
mechanistic. redoced to skills and processes. Skills and processes along with
methodologies are often viewed as separate or devoid of content. The
connection between what is studied and how it is studied becomes arbitrarily and
unproductively divorced. Approaches, on the other hand, imply a connection to
something. In the case of education, approaches are linked to the content being
studied. Promoting gendered history necessitates appropriate and quite offen
different approaches to the content (Tetreault, 1987; Coulter, 1989). The three
approaches I rewmrnend for the teaching of Social Studies are: (1) eliminating
the authontative voice in the presentation of history by replacing it with a
constnictivist approach to creating historical meaning; (2) using critical thinking
pedagogy as a prirnary rnethod of implementing constructivism; and (3) looking at
history from a muiti-focal perspective.
The first thing that must be changed in our approach to teaching the
content is the use of the authoritative voice in the presentation of history. In his
discussion of Bakhtin's work on authontative text, Wertsch (1 991) noted that
authoritative texts discourage the possibility of exchange between the reader and
the text. The words of the text are meant for transmission, rnust be accepted
absolutely and are not open to question. Wineburg (1991) commented on this
phenornenon when he interviewed bright high school history students and noted
they believed that what was presented in the classroom text was the most valid
and reliable information they received. The students held this belief even when
confronted with alternative sources of information which refuted or changed some
of the information presented in their texts.
The authoritative vo i e of text is highly problematic for teaching a
gendered history. Given that gendered histories are themselves a challenge to
traditional male-defined history, they inherently challenge the authoritative voice
of that history. Gendered history demands an opening up of previously closed
ground because of the new insights and understandings to be learned from
women's experiences and activities. Gendered history has been and is being
constructed around the gaps in men's history, gaps that are being questioned by
both male and female historians (Noddings, 1992). Authoritative text does not
allow questions to anse (Wertsch, 1991) so it would be highly duplicitous to break
down the means by which women's history has been kept to the margins only to
invoke it as support for the legitimacy of women's history.
As a replacement for authotitative text, I advocate a constructivist
approach to history (Thayer-Bacon, 1995). By this I mean that students construct
meaning for themselves through the use of historical accounts and traces,
through questioning what is presented and most importantly, through
establishing and understanding the positions or subtexts of the history under
study.
History is not neutral; it is created by historians who write history from a
particular position and from a conscious or unconscious set of assurnptions.
Wineburg (1 991) describes subtext in two parts. The first is a reading of text that
tries to reconstruct authors' purposes, intentions and goals but secondly, the texts
also "frame reality and disclose information about their authors' assumptions,
world views, and beliefs . . . a reading that sees texts not as ways to descnbe the
world but as ways to constnict it" (p. 499). If students approach the study of
history from a constructivist position, they not only reject the transmission model
of study, the memorkation of names, dates, places and events but they broaden
their study tc incorporate critical thinking about history.
The cal[ for critical thinking, my second recornrnended change to the
approach taken in the study of history, can easily becorne an integral part of a
constructivist approach to histov. Students are given the opportunity to sift
through the data of history, evaluating information, positions and assertions with
respect to critical questions of history. This is a far cry from the memorization of
endless facts and the thoughtless acceptance of positions and conclusions often
presented in the authot-itative text or voice of the teacher. Thinking cntically
about history is by its nature constructivist in its approach to the study of the past.
Critical thinking pedagogy is not a radically new idea. For most of this
century, history and social studies educators have asserted that the basis of a
sound Social Studies program is critical thinking (Sears & Parsons, 1997; Case &
Wdght, 1997). But the approach to critical thinking I suggest will be best suited to
gendered history is one that is holistic in its conception, not mechanistic in its
application. It is not rny intention to describe here a concept of critical thinking
that can and should be incorporated into Social Studies classrooms. (See, for
example, "Taking Seriously the Teaching of Critical Thinking" by Roland Case &
lan Wright ,1997). Case and Wright's view of the pedagogy of critical thinking is
one that encompasses and alleviates my concerns about critical thinking and its
use in the classroorn.
My apprehension about "critical thinking" stems from the assumptions
regarding objectivity and truth implied in some traditional paradigms of critical
thinking (Thayer-Bacon, 1 996). These are the epistemological issues that can
bring gendered history into conflict with critical thinking. It is necessary, in
cntically approaching gendered history, to reject the assumption that a person
can separate herself from what she is thinking about and that what is true for one
must be true for all. Sears and Parsons (1 997) nicely frame this issue by stating,
None of us can escape our backgrounds, nor should we want to.
We cannot approach an issue from a tnily neutral position. Our
genetic and cultural background, combined with our persona1
expenences, give us a perspective through which we see the world.
(pp. 1 74-1 75)
Gendered history necessitates beginning frorn a position of subjectivity. It calls
into question the truths that have been presented about some men's activities
and experiences as universal and absolute for ail people. For example, critical
questioning of the gains made by the people of France during the French
Revolution would encourage students to understand that although many of the
men in France made absolute gains through the Declaration of the Rights of Man,
these nghts did not extend to most of the women. A conclusion might be reached
that al1 men made political and legal gains but that women were left out of the
process because of the sexist attitudes of the law makers.
Recognizing the value-laden framework from which history is approached
and apprehended does not mean we need to fall into the abyss of absolute
relativism, that there is nothing that can be stated with conviction. The concept of
a gendered history is one that assumes the subjects' gendered identity is causal
to specific actions (Scott, 1988). The truth that is developed is one that is located
within a gender-specific identity and therefore may not be truth for those with a
different gendered identity. History, after all, does not write itself. It is wntten by
histonans (traditionally male) with purposes, aims, assumptions and values.
The truth of claims are often situated with respect to gender, race and
class. Just as Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America in 1492 from the
European perspective, he made 'contact' with it from the perspective of those
who already knew of its existence because they lived there. Depending on one's
race, Columbus' voyage is viewed differently. The fact that he made the voyage
is not in dispute, but significant history cannot be content to rest with the fact of
the voyage. It must make sense of it for those in the past and present. Truth. as
in the case of Columbus' voyage, must be situated con tex tu al!^ when
approaching history with gender as a focus of study.
Sears and Parsons (1 997) assert the necessity of understanding
conceptions of the world that are different. They daim embracing different
perspectives and voices and respecting alternative views is a necessary
requisite for critical thinking. Case and Wright (1 997) cal1 this fair-mindedness,
committing to open discussion of alternative positions and theories and giving a
fair hearing to different views. Thayer-Bacon's (1 996) concem that critical
thinking positions negate subjectivity can be allayed if critical thinking is
approached from the perspective that awareness of the subject's position is the
beginning of understanding and that quality critical thinking cannot occur if a
plethora of different voices are not considered.
Approaching the cuniculum by using critical thinking that recognizes the
social construction of knowledge and by eliminating the authoritative voice of the
text will do much to enhance the possibility of a gendered history. By
incorporating these approaches, curriculum developers and teachers will offer the
students in Social Studies classrooms the opportunity to constnict historical
meanings that are worthwhile and relevant to their lives.
The last approach that I suggest will offer the best opportunity to reveal
gendered histories is that which Thompson Tetreault (1 987) calls a multifocal
perspective. A m ultifocal perspective reveals the corn plexities, particularities.
commonalities and relationships that exist in history. In order to achieve an
understanding of human experience that is as cornplex and multilayered in the
classroom as it is in life. teachers must reject one-dimensional historical
characterizations. The particular experiences of individuals within a historical
time frame should be investigated and using those particularities, common
denominators of experience can and should be constructed by students.
Students need to see the relational aspects of individuals within a society. The
often false dichotomy of public and private spheres should be replaced by the
relational continuum within which men and women's actions lay. Like Thatcher
Ulrich's (1990) metaphor of the checkered cloth, at many points in the study of
history the scene will be Iight blue and it is those scenes which need to be
exposed as well as the white and dark blue. A multifocal perspective also allows
the question of the relationship between power and gender to surface. Here I
return to A Midwife's Tale to present an example of the relationship between
gender and power which only surfaces through the presentation of the
complexities, particularities, commonalities and relationships that existed in
Ballard's tirne.
The theorizing potential of gender to articulate power and power
relationships is exemplified in A Midwife's Tale around the issue of rape. Martha
Ballard writes in her journal in October, 1789, that "Mrs. Foster has sworn a Rape
on a number of men arnong whom is Judge North. Shocking indeed "(p. 102).
For the next twenty-five pages, Thatcher Ulrich's narrative focuses on the issue
of rape. She explores the position of women in the eighteenth century vis-à-vis
the social, legal and physical power of men.
The reader leams that ten men were tried for rape in Massachusetts in the
first six decades of the 1700's and, toward the end of the century, sixteen men
were tried for attempting rape, ten of whom were convicted. Given that the
population was almost four hundred thousand at the time, if the research stopped
at the statistical evidence available through public records, the relationship
between gender and power would not be revealed. But Thatcher Ulrich pursues
the issue of rape, going beyond the institutional records by delving into the
gendered relationships of the tirne using a multifocal perspective.
Thatcher Ulrich details much of the legai action surrounding the charge of
rape based on the documents that still exist, but it is her exploration of the social
ciimate surrounding rape accusations that reveals the complexities of rape cases.
In 1771, a satire on rape cases was published, showing the accused to be a wise
and sober man, an object of sympathy; the accusers were silly and ignorant,
objects of ridicule. Thatcher Ulrich comments that there is a great similarity
between the play, The Trial of Afticus. and the rape case reported by Ballard.
Because of the strict rules of evidence in court, it was difficuit to achieve a
successful prosecution for rape. It was a woman's word against a man's and
unless the man was part of a socially stigmatized group, such as black
Amen'cans, his word was considered more worthy than hers. Women were seen
as silly and spiteful creatures easily influenced by the men around them. Rape,
then. was a contest between men: the accused, the accuser's husband. father or
brother and the jury (p.121). If this was the social n o m of the society in which
Martha Ballard and Rebecca Foster lived, it is no wonder that Martha wrote in her
diary, " . . . I Begd her never to mentin it to any other person. I told her shee
would Expose 8 perhaps ruin her self if shee did" (p. 1 17). Social and cultural
beliefs at the tirne cast wornen and uneducated men as ignorant troublemakers,
an image that ironically, Ballard herself ascribed to when she referred to the
landless famers who harassed and attacked land surveyors.
Judge North's defense at his trial stated he was not in Hallowell on the
night of the alleged rape. There were no witnesses available to corroborate his
absence yet it is offered as a defense presumably because it would be believed
women are too silly or stupid to know who raped them and the word of a Judge is
valid evidence. This is only believable if the gendered norms of sexual power
relationships are such that they presurne credibility for men and deny credibility
for women.
Thatcher Ulrich compared Martha Ballard's and Henry Sewall's diary
entries regarding the charge of rape. Both Ballard and Sewall were residents of
Hallowell and knew the characters involved. The difference in the way Ballard
and Sewall approached the incident was remarkable. The focus in Ballard's diary
was on the character and behaviour of the people involved in the rape and on the
repercussions of a public accusation. In Henry Sewall's diary, the focus was on
the judicial process. He did not even mention the fact that the "North affair", as
he termed it, was about rape.
Judge North was acquitted of the rape charge. in the hands of a historian
not committed to analyzing power relationships in terms of gender from a
multifocal perspective, the conclusion might be reached that this was a charge
h ho ut merit. After reading Ballad's account and Thatcher Ulnch's treatment of it,
however, wntemporaries begin to see that sexual power relations in the
eighteenth century have much in common with those of the twentieth. It came
down to a question of whose word was to be believed.
This rather lengthy example from A Midwife's Tale (1 990) demonstrates
the potential through which students can view history using a multifocal approach.
The history is written from the perspective of individuals whose power
relationships are revealed through the particularities of the people and the tirne
and place. Common denominators between cultural presentations and the law
are surfaced through the particularities presented. Thatcher Ulrich taps into legal,
social and cultural history to explore the issue of rape, demonstrating the need for
a rnultifocal approach if history is to be more richly revealed.
Lenses
Lenses, or the underiying viewpoints from which historical content and
content rneaning are constnicted, are an integral part of the way past is
reconstituted for history. Traditional Maixists use class analysis in their
apprehension of the past. The canonical histofian uses a 'great man' or 'great
event' analysis to portray the past. Humanists focus on the progress of
humankind in areas of political, religious and economic reform. There are almost
as rnany lenses used to apprehend history as there are historians (Jenkins,
1991). This is not to trivialize the various lenses used. Each provides a glimpse
of history not available through the others. In the quest to illuminate the past for
the present, lenses are an integral part of the process. If the actions of men and
women as gendered individuais are to be equally revealed then any analysis of
the past must use a gender lens.
The way in which gender can be used as a lens for the study and
reinterpretation of history is by using it as an analytic category. In addition to
applying Scott's (1 988) four interrelated elements of social relationships, those of
culturally available symbols, normative gender concepts, political and social
organization, and subjective identity (as outlined in chapter four), gender analysis
should also be used as a means to articulate power and power relationships.
lnvoking gendered language or concepts is a primary way that politics legitimizes
power relationships. For example, when highly authoritarian nation states refer to
themselves as the 'fatherland', are they utilizing the concept of father, controlling,
powerful and aggressive to legitimize practices that fit the description? Contrast
this to nation states that refer to their country as the 'motherland'. What is being
conveyed through the use of this terrn is a nurturing land that provides food,
wamth and life for ail. It is interesting to note that fascist Germany used the term
fatheriand while socialist Russia used motheriand to describe themselves.
lnvoking gender as an analytic category allows historians to explore the impact of
these types of gender-based descriptions on political entities.
But it is not only language that invites a gendered analysis. Policy
decisions by niling groups offer fertile ground for using gender as an analytic
category. In constnicting and consolidating authoritarian power, is it wincidental
that regirnes throughout modern history have implemented strict laws that bar or
limit women's access to the public arenas (Scott. 1988)? Consider for example,
Napoleon's repeai of the divorce laws of France, Hitler's relegation of women to
breeding the superior Aryan race and the Ayatollah Khomeini's covering of
women from head to foot. Were these random acts of misogyny or calculated
moves to establish fim control of the state? The power relationships between
the rulers and the ruled constructed in history may be more fully understood and
revealed if subjected to a gendered analysis.
It is not simply political organizations that warrant a gendered analysis.
Social and economic organizations also utilize gendered concepts for their
purposes. For example, labour unions depict the working class as strong
producers and family providers. Reforrners often portray the people they want to
help as weak or victims in need of succor. The stereotypical gendered images
that are summoned to establish a legitimizing position are pewasive in past and
contemporary societies and using gender as means to analyze those societies
will help explicate them for history.
So much of history is concerned with the establishment and maintenance
of power through war, revolution, mass movements and economics. Given that
"gender is one of the recumnt references by which political power has been
conceived, legitimated and criticized" (Scott, 1988, p.48) it is necessary to use
gender as a lens through which history can be viewed. To ignore gender as a
lens, Iimits our understanding and vision of the past. Using a gendered lens on
the way power has been legitimized in the past can provide insight into the history
that is presented through the various resources used in Social Studies, the most
widely used of which is the classroorn textbook.
Resources
The most commonly used resource in a classroom is the textbook
(Baldwin & Baldwin, 1992; Case, 1992; Clark, 1995). Although 1 recommend the
use of a variety of resources so that the problem of the authoritative text can be
reduced if not eliminated, the reality is that a single text will be the most
consistently accessed resource by students. Therefore, my focus for this
segment is on the type of text that would be most supportive of gendered history.
There are several elernents which, if present in a textbook, make it an
appropriate resource for gendered history. Not surprisingly, these elements
correspond with rny vision for a gendered Social Studies curriculum. The first
deals with the approach the text takes in the presentation of history. The second
element is an inclusive topic list, one that presents both men and women's
activities. The final element is the lens through which the history is constructed.
The text must try to minimalize the problem of the authoritative voice. To
this end, texts must include a variety of sources that approach a topic or an issue
from different positions. The sources can and probably will be multidisciplinary,
including such things as original artwork. government documents. editorial
wntings. historical photographs and rnaps as well as Iiterary selections. A variety
of sources that complement and contradict the central narrative will focus
students' attention on the cornplexities and particularities and allow them to judge
the validity of the author's central narrative which most likely will draw out the
cornmon denominators. Despite the central narrator's voice running tnroughout
the text, that voice must be challenged by the variety of sources presented along
side it.
The multidisciplinary aspect of the text will also corne through its use of a
number of different strands of history such as cultural, social, political, economic,
legal, religious and military history. This increases the likelihood that the focus
will not end up on men's activities exclusively. The space will be provided for
both men's and women's history. The perfect textbook would of course show the
relationship between men's and wornen's history in ways that make clear the
continuum of the sphereç and how they connect or oppositionally position men
and women. This too wili help lessen the impact of the authoritative voice.
The content of the text will be rich enough to allow critical challenges to be
successfully met. The text will not rely on simplistic challenges, was Columbus
good or bad, but provide thoughtful and provocative opportunities for students to
critically think about issues. For example, texis could assist students in their
evaluation of society's use of scapegoats, most notably wornen and immigrants,
in times of economic downturns. They could provide photographs of fashions
for wornen, legislative documents that prohibit the employment of women or the
deportation of immigrants, statistics on the wages and demographics of people
employed in various sectors of the economy and newspaper clippings of public
opinion on the possible sources and solutions to the economic depression.
Students can access the variety of sources provided to enrich their critical
thinking activities, bringing a wealth of background knowledge to the challenges
at hand.
The topics chosen for the text will be ones that are significant and allow a
gendered history to be discovered by students. Topics will incorporate a
multifocal presentation of an issue such as govemment and those who are
govemed. They will present individuals and their gendered identities instead of
unidimensional characters that are impossible for students to apprehend.
Women's activities will be valued highly enough tu deserve their rightfd place in
this textbook. Their contributions to the history of a tirne and place will not be
ornitted in deference to adding more men's history. Topics will be presented in
broad terms so that both men's and women's agency is visible and a multifocal
perspective is available to students. Issues and topics will be presented in ways
that reveal the complexities, particularities and commonalities of gendered
positions.
The relationships between individuals and institutions and power will
explored through the gendered lens of the text. The use of gendered language
as legitimizing power relationships needs to be specifically explored as well. The
perfect textbook will not present a male-defined history with only the occasional
woman gracing its pages. Nor will this text try to universalize men's experiences
and activities. They will be presented as particularized and clearly gendered.
Turning to the practicalities of textbook publishing, many of the sources I
envision for inclusion can be supplied in the teacher resource manual. Rather
than the 'fiil in the blank' or 'find the basic facts in the authofs narrative'
worksheets that are so pervasive in many teacher rnanuals, the textbook should
offer a resource manual that is a wealth of source documents, critical challenges
and student activities that encou rage a m ultifocal perspective.
Can such a miracle resource be produced for high school classroorns? I
think a fairly close facsimile has been published. Clark and Mckay's (1992)
Canada Revisited does not include ali of the elements listed above, but it
contains many of my requirements. From the outset, this text sets a tone that is
missing in the other texts reviewed in this work. The authors list the additional
writings by others contained in the text (p. ii). This presents the possibility of a
disruption of the authoritative voice of the authors. The description of the focus
for the text (p.vii) tells the students that the text is organized around four key
ideas, power, co-operation, decision-making and confi ict. These key ideas are
framed in such a way to allow space for women as well as men to be part of the
history wntained in the text. For example, in their exploration of the expulsion of
the Acadians (p.68)' the authors suggest that students read Longfellow's poem
"Evangeline". The poem is used as an entry point for students to evaluate the
impact, on Evangeline, her family and friends, of the confiict between the French
and Engiish and the decision to expel and confiscate Acadian property. As
exemplified by the way in which the authors treat the Acadian issue, the text
includes political, social and econornic history, al1 of which is focused around
events and individuals. A wide variety of resources is included and student
activities utilize these resources in ways that invoke critical thinking and student-
based construction of historical narrative.
Although there are only twelve specific references to individual women
compared to one hundred and thirty-three references to individual men in the
index, I found something I have never seen before in a secondary Social Studies
text. There is an indexed listing for men's roles under the heading Native Indians.
There is a listing for women's roles in the general index, but note the use of word
roles. The authors' use of 'roles' connotes an understanding of the gendered
identity of women and Native people. It is too bad more listings of men's roles
cannot be found in the index, but the authors do try to include some specifics
elements of personality in their biographical sketches of the men included in the
text. For example, in representing Wilfrid Laurier, the authors note Laurier's
'sunny ways' approach to government. "He always searched for a compromise, a
middle path between French and English interests in order to try to please
everyone" (p. 254). A quote from Laurier is then added to provide depth to their
assertion. These kinds of details help to bring to life the specific personalities of
the men and women in history which helps students understand the subjective
gendered construction of the individuals appearing in history.
There are many other elements present in this text that recommend it as
an exemplar of gendered history. It is not rny intention to cite them all, but I will
outline two that I think support rny claim. At the beginning of the text, the authors
present a consensus model of decision making. They support the model later in
the book by presenting a drawing of men and women in the League of Five
Nations using the consensus model. This specific example presents a female-
friendly decision making model to students (Ekdahl. 1996), and supports women's
sense of agency by offenhg a drawing showing women making decisions along
side of men.
The second example I offer centres around the presentation of Les Filles
du Roi (pp. 52-53). In a story about a fictional young woman, the author extends
a gendered analysis to Genevieve. a Fille du Roi. a term that is repiete with
cultural symbolisrn. Sellers Marcotte, one of the separate contributhg authors to
the text, disrupts the Filles du Roi symbolism by having her central character not
many in the text of the story. Genevieve decides to wait and see what options
are available to herseif. The fixed nature of a woman's role in New France is
broadened to include the possibilities of wife, nursing and teaching aide to the
nuns, or mentor to the new batch of King's daughters who would corne to New
France. Within the narrative, Genevieve's relation to the state and social
institutions is also discussed. Information is presented about the laws regarding
marriage for both men and women and how the organization of a seigneury
affects its inhabitants Finally, Genevieve is presented as an agent of change in
the New World. The story concludes with Genevieve asserting that her future
depends on her own decisions and actions, not the circumstances that Iife thrusts
upon her. This story incorporates Scott's (1 988) four elements of gender analysis
and provides students with an opportunity to dismpt the traditional vision of
women in New France.
Canada Revisited is not the perfect text. It misses opportunities to present
the fiip side of issues in several places, notably the American Revolution. the
English conquest of New France and the struggle for nationhood in Canada. All
of these topics could have included women, but did not. Nor does it present as
many 'different voices' as I would like. although to be fair, there is a greater
representation of non-white and non-ruling class voices than is usually
represented in texts. However. my criticisms being stated. publishers and future
authors would benetit by using Canada Revisited as a beginning mode1 in the
construction of a gendered history text for classroom use.
Canada Revisited offen a variety of topics that are broad enough to
incorporate women's history and values the contributions of women to ensure that
they are included in the te*. Although more women's history could have been
included, the ways in which it is presented are significant. Students are better
infomed about the present through their study of the rotes of male and female
First Nations people, the organization of society in New France and the impact of
political decisions on men and women living in Canada.
The approaches that are used in the text are more widely inclusive than
the topics. The decision-making models offered ask students to critically think
about the historical issues and define the issues in broad enough terms to allow
space for men and women's history to be explored. For example, a decision
making exercise (p. 21 7) asks students to explore various points of view
regarding the Federal government's desire to take over Rupert's land. Students
are encouraged to investigate various positions through the written information
and the prompt questions at the end of the information summary.
A gendered lens is only occasionally used in Canada Revisited. Where
topics have been chosen that leave space for women's history then the
constituent elements of gender have been presented for scrutiny. The example
previously given of the Filles du Roi is the best example of this. The authors do
not take advantage of many opportunities to discuss the political power invoked
by the use of gendered language, most notably in their coverage of the "Fathers
of Confederation", but that does not preclude teachers from engaging students in
such an analysis.
Resources that are used in the classroom ought to have the means to
support the changes recummended in this chapter. Texts need to include topics
that incorporate women's along with men's history and resist the authoritative
voice of most texts. They should use a critical thinking and multifocal
pedagogical approach which allow students to construct their own meanings in
history. Finally, they should present, among other lenses. a gendered lens to
allow the richness of the past to be adequately viewed by students.
Conclusion
David Lowenthal (1 985) states that an awareness of the past is essential
to the well-being of humanity. Our past is reconstnicted by historians who
shoulder the weighty responsibility of infoming the present about what went on in
previous times and places. History's responsibility of informing the present about
the past must be extended to include women in that past.
Many contemporary scholars are looking at the global world and its
development frorn a viewpoint that includes women (Hill Gross, 1987). The work
that has been done and is being extended by those in the academic community
needs to be included in the secondary Social Studies curriculum of British
Columbia. It is not simply for the sake of fairness that 1 encourage al1 of us to
begin to include women's history in the Social Studies, although that is a strong
enough argument considering that at least half of the students in social studies
classrooms are fernale. In the interests of understanding the world we inhabit
and which we inherited, I think it is imperative we expand our horizons beyond the
world of men.
The draft revision cumculum for Social Studies in British Columbia,
appears to offer no substantial improvement over the old one; it is "the same old
jalopy with a new hood ornament" (Clarke, 1997). There are possibilities
presented within its framework that might allow women's history to corne to the
fore, but only if a radical new conceptualization of how that can be accomplished
is embraced by publishers of textbooks and teachers themselves. Othewise, the
teaching of history will remain in the male-dominated paradigm, only including
women partially at best, or ttiviaily at worst. Contribution and bi-focal histories do
not meet the test of historical significance in many cases and present only a
partial picture of the past.
The new conceptualization that is needed if women's history is to be
included in the curriculum is that of a gendered history. History must become
located in the specificities of the individuals who lived in and created the past.
The identities of these people must be analyzed with respect to their gendered
construction to allow the fullness of histoncal times and places to be revealed. A
gendered history imbues agency in both men and wornen. The events that
changed Our world were created by both men and wornen and a history that
denies that duality of agency is only a partial history.
For too long wornen have been marginalized in the construction of history.
Both female and male students pass through Social Studies classrooms being
unaware that women had any role to play in history (Coulter, 1989). Before 1
retire from teaching Social Studies I would hope that the response to the question
1 pose to students year afier year, that of, "what were the women doing?"
changes from, "there weren't any women in history" to one that is full of rich and
exciting detail. So it is only partially tongue in cheek that I Say, " move over
buster". It is time for women to share the stage with men in ways that are
significant, informative and relational. It is tirne for the secondary Social Studies
cumculum of British Columbia to present a gendered history of men's and
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