A History of "Gender"

Author(s): Joanne Meyerowitz

Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 113, No. 5 (Dec., 2008), pp. 1346-1356
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association
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 AHR Forum
A Historyof "Gender"

JOANNE MEYEROWITZ

SCHOLARLY ARTICLES TEND TO HAVE LIMITED SHELF LIVES, but twenty

yearson, Joan
Scott's"Gender:A UsefulCategoryof HistoricalAnalysis"has no discernibledate
of expiration.A cursoryGoogle searchleads to dozens of syllabithatfeatureit as
andthefigures
requiredreading, fromJSTORattestto itsdurablepopularity.Of
alltheAmericanHistorical
Review
articles
onJSTOR,Scott'shashadbyfarthemost
traffic.
SinceJSTORfirstbeganposting articles
scholarly onlinein 1997,usershave
accessed"Gender"morethan38,000timesand printedmorethan25,000copies.For
thepast fiveyears,it has consistentlyrankedin thetop spot as themostfrequently
viewedand mostfrequently printed JSTOR's AHR articles.1
of
Whatelevatesone articleabovetherest?Whatcreatesthereputationthatmakes
an articlerequiredreadingformorethantwenty years?In part,it maybe a matter
of architecture.
Scottbuilt"Gender"withan artfuluse of argument.In one brief
essay,she managedto summarizethe adventofgenderhistory, providecritiquesof
earliertheoriesofwomen'ssubordination, introducehistorians to deconstructionist
methods,and lay out an agenda forfuturehistoricalstudies.But as we all know,
academic reputationrestson more than compellingly structuredargument,even
whenthe argumentis displayedwell in a top-tierscholarly journal.2For historians,
thesurestwayto explaina textis to place itinhistoricalcontext.Thus,a shorthistory
of "Gender"thearticlemighthelpus assess itsriseto prominenceand itsinfluence
withinthefieldofU.S. history. And an evenshorterhistory of"gender"theconcept
mightsuggest the article'slonger-lastingcontribution to American social thought.

As SCOTrNOTED,BY 1986,feminists had alreadyadoptedtheterm"gender"to refer

to the social construction
of sex differences,and theoristshad alreadyposed "gen-
For helpfulcommentson earlierdrafts,manythanksto MargotCanaday,Regina Kunzel,Christina
Simmons,and the editorsof and anonymousreviewersfortheAHR.
1 JoanW. Scott,"Gender:A UsefulCategoryof HistoricalAnalysis," AmericanHistoricalReview
91,no. 5 (December1986): 1053-1075.Thanksto RobertB. Townsend,AssistantDirectorforResearch
and Publicationsof theAmericanHistoricalAssociation,forsupplying thesefigures,whichwerecom-
piled on December 27, 2007. The exactfiguresare 38,093viewingsand 25,180printings.The closest
competitors(based on totalviewingsplus totalprintings) were RobertFinlay,"The Refashioningof
MartinGuerre,"AmericanHistoricalReview93, no. 3 (June1988): 553-571,with21,558viewingsand
11,183printings, and MelvynP. Leffler,"The Cold War:WhatDo 'We NowKnow'?"American Historical
Review104,no. 2 (April 1999): 501-571,with22,075viewingsand 9,495printings.
2 For an attempt to theorizethesourcesofscholarly see, forexample,MichbleLamont,
reputations,
"How to Become a DominantFrenchPhilosopher:The Case ofJacquesDerrida,"AmericanJournalof
Sociology93, no. 3 (1987): 584-622.

1346

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 A History
of "Gender" 1347

der" as an analyticcategory,akinto class and race. A fewhistorianshad begunto

use the term"genderhistory"in additionto "women'shistory," and a handfulhad
looked at men and masculinity as partof a genderhistorythatdid not focussolely
on women.Scottintervened in thishistoriographicprocessat a criticalmoment.For
some historiansof women,the shifttowardgenderhistory was mostlyunwelcome.
To replace "women'shistory"with"genderhistory"and to includemen and mas-
culinityseemed to some at the timelike a conservativeretrenchment, a quest for
or an abandonmentof the studyof marginalizedand oppressed
respectability,
groups.Scottrecognizedthe pitfallsand offeredreassurance.She directlyrepudi-
ated the use of "gender"as a de-politicized,social-scientizedsynonym forwomen
or sex,and she promisedto reinvigorate feministhistorybyexpandingitsrealmof
influence.In thisway,she helped historiansof womento approve(and otherhis-
toriansto discern)an emergingshiftin historiography.
Scottoutlineda problemfacedbywomen'shistoriansand proffered a solution.
Two decades afterthelaunchingof thefield,women'shistorywas,she implied,stuck
in a descriptiverut,relegatedto thelimitedbywaysof social historyinquiry.It had
failedinitsearlierclaimsto rewrite
themasternarrative
ofhistory,
andithadnot
yetadequatelyexplainedthe"persistent inequalitiesbetweenwomenand men."Ex-
istingtheories,Scottsaid,wereahistoricaland reductionist.She offereda different
for and
approach rethinking rewriting history.Influenced byDerrida'sdeconstruc-
tionismand Foucault'sformulation of dispersedpower,she asked historiansto an-
alyzethelanguageofgender,to observehowperceivedsexdifferences had appeared
as a
historically natural and fundamental opposition. These perceiveddifferences,
she wrote,had oftensubordinatedand constrainedwomen,yes,but theyhad also
provideda "primary wayofsignifying" otherhierarchical Thiswas the
relationships.
heartof her contribution:she invitedus to look at how "the so-callednaturalre-
lationshipbetweenmale and female"structured, naturalized,and legitimatedre-
of
lationships power,say, between rulerand ruled or betweenempireand colony.
Thehistory
ofgendercould,itseems,inhabit
moreofthehistorical
turfthancould
thehistory ofwomen.It couldevenenterand remapthemostresistant domains,such
as the historyof war,politics,and foreignrelations.3
Althoughshepromisedto expandtherealmoffeminist Scottcouldnot
influence,
deflectthe criticsfromwithinher own fractiouscamp. Her embraceof poststruc-
turalismand herconsequentemphasison the languageof sex difference provoked
a numberofpointedrejoindersfromprominent women'shistorians.JudithBennett,
for example,worriedthat "the Scottianstudyof gender ignore[d]women qua
women,"avoidedreckoningwith"materialreality,"and "intellectualize[d] and ab-
stract[ed]the inequality of the sexes." Likewise, Linda Gordon suspectedthat a
"focuson genderas difference in itself"as "a kindofparadigmforall otherdivides"
had replaced"genderas a systemofdomination"and therebysubstituted a pluralist
visionof "multipledifferences" forthe studyof "powerdifferentials." Joan Hoff
wentfurther, even overboard.She accused poststructuralist genderhistorians, and
Scottin particular,of nihilism,presentism, ahistoricism,obfuscation,elitism,obei-
sance to patriarchy,ethnocentrism, irrelevance,and possiblyracism.Poststructur-

3 Scott,"Gender,"1066, 1067,1073.

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1348 JoanneMeyerowitz

alism,she found,"erased womanas a categoryof analysis,"underminedthe "tra-

ditionalstageofhistoricalfact-finding" forthosegroupsofwomenwhosehistory had
notyetbeen written, and damagedpoliticalactivismforwomen'srights.She titled
her essay "Gender as a PostmodernCategoryof Paralysis."4
The criticalcommentary also came fromhistorianswho did notwritewomen's
history,especiallythosewhoquestionedthelinguistic turn.CritiquesofScott'swork
came fromboththe leftand the right.BryanPalmer,forexample,decriedher re-
pudiationofhistoricalmaterialism, and GertrudeHimmelfarb complainedaboutthe
undermining of fact,reality,and objectivity."
In the UnitedStates,as othershave
suggested,"feminist historians" were"inthevanguard"ofpoststructuralist historical
practice,especiallyin its manifestations outside of intellectualhistory,and Scott
stood out at the front.In thissense,"Gender"came to representsomethinglarger
thanitself.Scottservedas thewhippinggirlnotonlyforgenderhistory butalso for
thechallengesofpoststructuralism, therevisionism ofthelatestnewhistory, and the
vogue-the "intellectualhaute couture"-of imported French theory.6 maynot
She
haveenjoyedthepublicflagellation, butitno doubtplayeda partin attracting read-
ers to her essay.

DESPITE THE MISGIVINGS gender soon took on a lifeof its own.

OF SOMEHISTORIANS,
WithinthefieldofU.S. history, muchofthenewworkon genderhad littledirect
connection withScott'sessay.Case studiesoftheintersections
ofrace,class,and
for
gender, example, and accounts
of how various
groups ofwomen andmenpar-
ticipated inpolitics,
differently labor,andconsumption didnotnecessarily
drawon
Scott'sDerridean,Foucauldian model.Somenewhistories ofgenderinpubliccited
JiurgenHabermasandNancyFrasermoreoftenthantheycitedDerridaandScott.'
ButScott'sarticledidhaveunquestionable evenamongthoseauthors
influence, who
did not adopt the deconstructionist
methodwholesale.In the 1990s,it inspireda
cohortofscholarswhowrotegenderhistory in a rangeofformsandfields.Within
thiscohort,a numberof authorsfollowed
Scott'sproposalto foreground
thedis-

4 Judith M. Bennett,"Feminismand History,"Genderand History1, no. 3 (1989): 258; Linda Gor-

don,reviewofJoanWallachScott,Genderand thePoliticsofHistory, Signs15,no. 4 (1990): 858; Joan
Hoff,"Gender as a PostmodernCategoryof Paralysis,"Women'sHistory Review3, no. 2 (1994): 149,
162. For additionalcriticalcommentaries, see, forexample,Sonya O. Rose et al., "Gender History/
Women'sHistory:Is FeministScholarshipLosingIts CriticalEdge?" Journalof Women'sHistory 5, no.
1 (1990): 89-128. Some of theseauthorsaddressedScott'sessaysmoregenerally, notjust the article
"Gender."
5 BryanD. Palmer,DescentintoDiscourse:The Reification of Languageand the Writing of Social
History(Philadelphia,1990), esp. chap. 5; GertrudeHimmelfarb, "Some Reflectionson the New His-
tory,"AmericanHistoricalReview94, no. 3 (June1989): 661-670.
6 Joyce Appleby,LynnHunt,and MargaretJacob,TellingtheTruthaboutHistory (New York,1994),
226; SandraM. Gilbertand Susan Gubar,"Sexual Linguistics:Gender,Language,Sexuality," NewLit-
eraryHistory16,no. 3 (1985): 521. On the"linguistic turn"in history,
see, forexample,JohnE. Toews,
"IntellectualHistoryafterthe LinguisticTurn: The Autonomyof Meaningand the Irreducibility of
Experience,"AmericanHistoricalReview92, no. 4 (October1987): 879-907; KathleenCanning,"Fem-
inistHistoryaftertheLinguisticTurn:Historicizing Discourseand Experience,"Signs19,no. 2 (1994):
368-404.
7 See, forexample,MaryRyan,Womenin Public:BetweenBannersand Ballots,1825-1880 (Bal-
timore,1990),and Glenda ElizabethGilmore,Genderand JimCrow:Womenand thePoliticsof White
Supremacy in NorthCarolina,1896-1920(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996).

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 of "Gender"
A History 1349

cursiveuse ofperceivedsexdifferences and trackhowtheyconstituted relationships

ofpower.In U.S. history,thecase studiesof"women'sworlds"and "femalecultures"
thathad proliferated in the 1980s dwindledas accountsrose of the waysin which
the languageof genderhad shoredup hierarchiesof race, class, region,politics,
nation,and empire.
A quick(and,forgive me,incomplete)surveyofjusta fewsubfields ofU.S. history
establishesthepoint.In southernhistory,Jacquelyn Dowd Hall endorsed thegender
projectearlyon. "The South,"shewrotein 1989,"providesa primeexampleofhow
gendersignifiesrelationsof powerin hierarchicalregimes."Otherhistorianstook
up the task.StephanieMcCurryfoundthatproslavery ministers and politiciansre-
peatedlydrewanalogiesbetween"thesubordination ofwomen"and "thatofslaves,"
and thereby"endow[ed]slaverywiththelegitimacy ofthefamilyand especiallymar-
riage."Theyused thelanguageofgender"to naturalizeothersocialrelations-class
and race,forexample."Laura Edwardsreportedsimilaranalogies-betweenwomen
and other"dependent"groups-in the Reconstruction-era writingsof elite white
southernmen,whoused thelanguageofgenderto legitimate theirbidto monopolize
politicalpower.Historiansalso notedhowthesouthernstatesthemselves werecoded
as femininewithinthe United States.Nina Silber,forexample,pointedto a post-
bellumnorthern languageofgenderthatportrayed theSouthas a "submissive" wife
and helped to enable the "romance"of sectionalreunion.8
In otherareas,historiansalso attendedto thewaysthatpoliticaltheorists, gov-
ernmentofficials,and otherwritersused thelanguageofsex difference to construct
and sustainpoliticaland social hierarchies.In earlyAmericanhistory, MaryBeth
Nortondescribedhow seventeenth-century Britishmale colonistsestablishedgov-
ernmentsbased on a gendered,hierarchicalmodel of the family,and Kathleen
Brownsuggestedthatgenderdiscourseshaped theemergingpoliticalorderin Vir-
ginia fromthe firstconflictswiththe Indians throughthe course of Bacon's Re-
bellion. JenniferMorgan illustratedhow earlyEuropean narrativesof the New
World"reliedon gender,"especiallyon accountsof monstrousIndianand African
women,"to conveyan emergentnotionof racializeddifference," and Toby Ditz
delineatedhoweighteenth-century Philadelphiamerchants stabilizedtheirownfrag-
ile masculinestatusbyfeminizing and thereby stigmatizingtheirfailedand dishonest
and
colleaguesas "weepingvictims harpies."9 At the other end ofthechronological
span, historiansof twentieth-century U.S. politicsexaminedhow male politicians

8 JacquelynDowd Hall, "PartialTruths,"Signs14, no. 4 (1989): 910; StephanieMcCurry, Masters

ofSmallWorlds:YeomanHouseholds,GenderRelations,and thePoliticalCultureoftheAntebellum South
CarolinaLow Country (New York,1995),214,224; Laura Edwards,GenderedStrife and Confusion:The
PoliticalCultureofReconstruction(Urbana, Ill., 1997), esp. chap. 6; Nina Silber,TheRomanceofRe-
union:Northerners and theSouth,1865-1900(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1993), 10.
9 MaryBethNorton,FoundingMothers and Fathers:GenderedPowerand theFormingofAmerican
Society(New York, 1996); KathleenM. Brown,Good Wives,NastyWenches, and AnxiousPatriarchs:
Gender,Race, and Powerin Colonial Virginia(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1996); Jennifer L. Morgan,"'Some
Could SuckleoverTheirShoulder':Male Travelers,Female Bodies,and theGenderingof Racial Ide-
ology,1500-1770,"Williamand MaryQuarterly 54, no. 1 (1997): 168; TobyL. Ditz, "Shipwrecked; or,
MasculinityImperiled:MercantileRepresentations of Failure and the GenderedSelf in Eighteenth-
CenturyPhiladelphia,"JournalofAmericanHistory81, no. 1 (1994): 54. On gendermoregenerallyin
earlyAmericanhistory, see TobyL. Ditz, "The New Men's Historyand thePeculiarAbsenceof Gen-
dered Power: Some Remedies fromEarlyAmericanGenderHistory,"Genderand History16, no. 1
(2004): 1-35.

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1350 JoanneMeyerowitz

usedthelanguageofgenderto createa hierarchy inwhichtheystoodabovetheir

maleopponents. Intheearlytwentieth century,theycastmalereformers as feminine
andtherefore lacking,andinthelatetwentieth century, theyattacked maleliberals
insomewhat similar form. GailBederman andArnaldoTestishowedhowTheodore
Rooseveltshookoffthegenderedsmearbycombining hisreform agendawithan
imperialist,racisthypermasculinity, and RobertDean andK. A. Cuordileone elu-
cidatedhowJohnF. Kennedy to the
attempted repel aspersion withan aggressive
expression ofliberalism.10
Perhapsmostsurprising, genderhistory alsomadesignificant intothehis-
forays
of
tory foreign the
policy, fieldof U.S. historythat had seemed most immune tothe
women'shistory enterprise. Scotthadspecificallycalledforsuchan intervention; in
1990,EmilyRosenberg responded andmadethecase forthepotential benefitsof
genderanalysis.Genderedimagery, she said,pervadedaccountsof international
affairs,
legitimating foreignrelationsofdomination anddependence. Andrew Rotter
pursued the lead and showed how mid-twentieth-century U.S. policymakers had
imagined Indiaas feminine andIndia'smaleleadersas passive,emotional, andlack-
ingin virility.In thiscase,the"feminization" undermined theopportunity foral-
liancebetweentheU.S. andIndia.In othercases,though, the"masculinization" of
nationsand theirleadersdamagedinternational relations, while"feminization"
eased them.FrankCostigliola, forexample, investigated thewritings ofColdWar
architectGeorgeKennan, who shiftedfrom feminizing a beloved Russia inthe1930s
toportraying Sovietleadersas "monstrously masculine" andrapaciousinthepost-
WorldWarII years.PetraGoeddetracedtheinverse shift withregardto Germany.
During World War II, American soldiersvilifiedthe Nazi leaders,whomtheyun-
derstood as brutallymasculine, butafter thewarthey"developed a feminized image"
ofGermans as a population inneedofprotection, andthus,Goeddeclaimed, "paved
thewaytowardreconciliation."1
Historians also beganto suggestthatdiscourses ofgenderhad promoted and
sustained American militaryinterventions.In FightingforAmerican Manhood, Kris-
tinHogansonexplored"howgenderpoliticsprovoked theSpanish-American and
Philippine-American wars,"as thesubtitle ofherbookstatedplainly. As theyad-
vocatedwar,jingoesandimperialists expressed heightened concern withmasculinity
andlookedto themilitary to buildandproveAmerican manhood. Theyposedthe
Gail Bederman,Manlinessand Civilization:
o10 A CulturalHistoryof Genderand Race in theUnited
States,1880-1917(Chicago,1995),chap. 5; ArnaldoTesti,"The Genderof ReformPolitics:Theodore
Rooseveltand the Cultureof Masculinity,"JournalofAmericanHistory81, no. 4 (1995): 1509-1533;
RobertD. Dean, ImperialBrotherhood: Genderand theMakingof Cold WarForeignPolicy(Amherst,
Mass., 2001); K. A. Cuordileone,ManhoodandAmericanPoliticalCulturein theCold War(New York,
2005).
11 EmilyS. Rosenberg,"Gender,"Journal
ofAmerican 77,no.1 (1990):116-124;Andrew
History J.
Rotter,"GenderRelations, Foreign TheUnitedStatesandSouthAsia,1947-1964,"
Relations: Journal
ofAmerican 81,no.2 (1994):518-542;FrankCostigliola,
History "'Unceasing Pressure forPenetration':
Gender, Pathology,andEmotion inGeorgeKennan'sFormation oftheColdWar,"Journal ofAmerican
History83,no.2 (1997):1333;PetraGoedde,"FromVillainstoVictims: Fraternization andtheFem-
inizationofGermany, 1945-1947,"Diplomatic 23,no. 1 (1999):2, 20. See also theessayson
History
genderin theWinter1994issueofDiplomatic History,especially
Geoffrey S. Smith, "Commentary:
Gender,
Security, andtheHistoricalProcess,"
Diplomatic 18,no.1 (1994):79-90;PetraGoedde,
History
GIs and Germans: Culture,Gender,andForeignRelations,1945-1949(NewHaven,Conn.,2003).For
a usefulreviewessay,see Kristin
Hoganson,"What'sGenderGottoDo withIt?WomenandForeign
RelationsHistory,"OAHMagazine ofHistory19,no.2 (2005):14-18.

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 A History
of "Gender" 1351

Spanishsoon-to-beenemiesas both distastefully feminineand repulsively mascu-

line-"effeminatearistocrats" and "savagerapists"-and sometimesalso feminized
the Cubans and Filipinosas well as theirown domesticopponents.Mary Renda
outlineda somewhatdifferent masculinediscourseof "interventionist paternalism"
thatunderwrotethe Americanoccupationof Haiti. The genderedlanguageof fa-
therhoodhelpedU.S. policymakers and marinesto justifyimperialist violenceas a
to
manlyattempt protect,educate, and the
discipline allegedly childlike Haitians.
And RobertDean wroteof the threatsto the "imperialmasculinity" of the mid-
twentieth-century U.S. foreignpolicyelite. Politiciansand policymakers used the
of
language gender to defend theirown manhood and diminish thatof their rivals,
and therebyengaged,Dean suggested,in a "politicsof manhood"that"crucially
shaped the tragedyof the VietnamWar." Hoganson,Renda, and Dean (and the
otherauthorsmentionedabove) did notconfinetheiranalysesto thedeconstruction
of binaryoppositions,but theyprovidedevidenceof how the languageof gender
constructed and legitimatedAmericanimperialism and itsviolentmanifestations.12
Taken together, thesevariousworkspoint,as Scottpredicted,to themultiplicity
ofmeaningsthatgenderedlanguageconveyed.In different historicalcontexts,mas-
culinity represented strength,protection, independence,camaraderie,discipline,ri-
valry,militarism, aggression,savagery,and brutality, and femininity represented
weakness,fragility, helplessness,emotionality, passivity,domestication,nurturance,
attractiveness,partnership,excess, and temptation. The so-callednatural differences
betweenthesexeshad no fixedand unchangeablemeaning,and in theirvarietythey
providedpotentialmeaningfora rangeof otherrelationships. As otherhistorians
haveprotested, though, theultimate impact ofthelanguage genderremainedhard
of
to discern.13 When (and how), as Scottasked,did the languageof gendercrucially
structure experienceand actuallyinfluence behaviorand decision-making, andwhen
did it simplyadd a convenientrhetoricalflourishor embellishwitha hollowclich6?
When (and how), as Scott asked, did the languageof genderconstituteotherre-
lationsofpower,and whenwas itjust a minorparagraphor a supplemental example
withinthenarratives ofsocial and politicalorder?Even all
without theanswers,the
growingnumberof studiesof genderdiscoursepushed historiansto recognizeits
thediversedomainsinwhichperceived
pervasiveness, sexdifferencesappearedas
model,analogy,andmetaphor forhierarchical
relationships,andthe wide-ranging
and changingmeaningsofmasculinityandfemininityin themodernera.
Thestudiesalsoenhanced
thereputation
ofScott'sessayandinjecteditsmessage
intotraditional
subfields
ofhistorical Almostalloftheworkscitedabove(and
study.
manyotherbooksandarticlesas well)mentioned"Gender," inthefootnotesifnot
inthetext.Someofthemquoteditdirectly.
Itbecamea validating behind
authority
themonographic worksthatmovedgenderto thecenterofspecializedsubfieldsin
whichithad earlierstoodat themargins.14
Bytheend ofthe1990s,through
a process

12 KristinL. Hoganson,Fighting forAmericanManhood:How GenderPoliticsProvokedtheSpanish-

Americanand Philippine-American Wars(New Haven,Conn.,1998), 11; MaryA. Renda, TakingHaiti:
MilitaryOccupationand theCultureof U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2001); Dean,
ImperialBrotherhood, 243.
13See, forexample,MelvynP. Leffler, "NewApproaches,Old Interpretations, and ProspectiveRe-
configurations,"DiplomaticHistory19, no. 2 (1995): 195.
14 Scott'sarticlealso had a significant
impacton U.S. labor history.
See especiallyAva Baron,ed.,

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1352 JoanneMeyerowitz

of repetition,"Gender" had reshapedthe commonplacewisdomof the discipline.

As a measureof itssuccess,Scott'sessayincreasingly
servedas a voicefromthe
recentpast statingeloquentlywhateverybody,
it seems,alreadyknew.
Meanwhile, Scottherself
movedinnewdirections.In 1999,shequestioned
the
ongoing oftheterm"gender."
vitality In the1980s,shewrote,genderhad"seemed
a usefulcategoryof analysispreciselybecause it had an unfamiliar, destabilizing
effect."Now, however,it had "lost its abilityto startleand provoke."In everyday
usage,genderhad become "a synonym forwomen,forthedifferences betweenthe
sexes,forsex." The word"gender"had creptintowomen'shistorywithoutneces-
sarilytransforming thefield.It appearedoftenin "predictablestudiesofwomen,or
... of differences in the status,experience,and possibilitiesopen to womenand
men."Manyaccountsfailedto "examinehowthemeaningsof 'women'and 'men'"
were "discursively established"or to addressthe "variationsof subjectively expe-
rienced'womanhood.'" Theytherebyimposeda falsesolidityon the unstableand
variablecategoriesof "women"and "men." Scottnow avoided theword"gender"
and wroteinsteadabout "differences betweenthe sexes and about sex as a histor-
icallyvariableconcept."She turnedmoreconcertedly to psychoanalysis, to thefan-
tasiesthatenable identities,includingthe "phantasmatic projections that mobilize
In
individualdesiresinto collectiveidentifications." her 2005 book,ParitY!Sexual
Equalityand theCrisisofFrenchUniversalism, and her2007 book,ThePoliticsofthe
Veil,she enteredinto currentdebates in Frenchpolitics.She focusedless on the
languageof sex difference and more on the languageof universalism in contem-
poraryFrance.In thesebooks,she did notrenouncethestudyof "gender,"butshe
positionedFrenchgenderrelationswithina discursiveanalysisof "the abstractin-
dividualism"thatanimatesFrenchrepublicantraditions.15
As one would expect,otherhistoriansalso venturedintonew territory. In U.S.
women's-and now gender-history, in and
theybrought race,sexuality, nationality
as equallyusefulcategoriesof historicalanalysis,and theyborrowedfrompostco-
lonial,criticalrace,queer,and politicaltheory.Otherformsofperceiveddifference
seem to have constituted genderas muchas genderconstituted them.In particular,
thecall to addressrace had at least as muchimpacton U.S. women'shistory as the
call to attendto gender.Historiansofwomenand genderalso turnedto the policy
history ofwelfareand wages,thelegal history of marriage,and thesocial history of
thosewho questionedand transgressed gendernorms. Historians ofwomen shifted
away fromthe local community studiesthathad characterizedsocial historyand
focusedmoreon individualor collectivebiography, questionsoflaw and citizenship,
and transnational circulationsofwomenand ideas aboutwomanhood.Theyrewrote
the historyof women'smovementswitha closereye to differences amongwomen
and conflictsamongcompetingschoolsoffeminists. At thesame time,historiansof
manhoodproduceda seriesofstudiesofshifting conceptions, multiplevariants,and

WorkEngendered:Towarda NewHistory ofAmericanLabor (Ithaca,N.Y., 1991). The articlealso had

influenceoutsideU.S. history, of course,but I will leave thatto the otherparticipants
in thisforum.
15JoanWallachScott,Genderand thePoliticsofHistory, rev.ed. (NewYork,1999),xi-xii,204; Scott,
Paritd!SexualEqualityand theCrisisofFrenchUniversalism (Chicago,2005); Scott,ThePoliticsof the
Veil(Princeton,N.J.,2007), 154. See also Scott,"FantasyEcho: Historyand theConstruction of Iden-
tity,"CriticalInquiry27, no. 2 (2001): 284-304.

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 A History
of "Gender" 1353

repeatedcrisesof masculinity.
Genderhistory,
then,continued(and continues)to
thrivein severalincarnations,
and despitethefearsof early(and later)critics,
it
coexistsand overlapswith,insteadofsupplanting or displacing,thehistory
ofwom-
en.16Amidtheprofusion, Scott'sarticlehas takenon theemblematicroleofa foun-
dationaltext.

SCOTT'SESSAY HAD ITS MOST OBVIOUS INFLUENCEin the fieldsof women's and gender
butitalsoplayeda significant
history, partinthebroadershift
from
socialtocultural
history,fromthe studyof the demography, experiences,and social movementsof
oppressedand stigmatizedgroupsto the studyof representations, language,per-
ception,and discourse.In U.S. history,theriseof genderhistory was similarto and
roughly simultaneous withchangesinotheridentity-based fieldsofhistory,including
AfricanAmerican,Latino/a,AsianAmerican,immigrant, gayand lesbian,andwork-
ing-classhistory.Genderhistoryand the historicalconstruction of masculinityhad
theircounterparts inthehistoryofraceand theconstruction ofwhiteness, thehistory
ofethnicity and theconstruction ofnationalidentity,
thehistory ofsexualityand the
construction ofheterosexuality,and thehistoryofclass and theconstruction ofmid-
dle-classness.To a certainextent,the same left-leaning politicalenergiesthathad
informedmuchof the newsocial historyinformedthe newculturalhistoryas well.
The ironyis thatsocial history,
theallegedsourceofcentrifugal fragmentation, had
spunout intoa culturalhistory thatseemsto have gravitated back-in thehistories
of masculinity, whiteness,national identity,heterosexuality, and middle-class-
ness-to return,witha new and criticaltorque,to the pre-social-history centerof
historicalinquiry."7
"Gender,"and Scott'sotherwritings as well,provideda keypiece
of the theoreticalgroundingforthishistoriographic trend.
Likeall historiographic thisone,too,willno doubtpass.Andwhenit
moments,
does,whatwillwe remember?We mightconsideranothercontextforunderstanding
the significance
of Scott'sessayand its largercontribution
beyondhistoriography.
We haveonlybegunto historicize"gender"-thatis,to writethehistory ofthecon-
ceptofgenderitself.Scott'sessaybelongsinthathistory;
itrepresents
a turning
point
whenU.S. feministscholarspulled"gender"awayfromitsscientific andsocialsci-
entific reworked
origins, its and
meaning, suggested itsbroader social,
cultural,and
historical
impact.
Scottdatedtheterm"gender," initscontemporary usage,to the1970sfeminist
movement, butthewordhas a longerhistory, evenas a referenceto thenon-bio-
logicalcomponentsof sex.Before the used
1950s,linguists "gender," as Scottac-
knowledged, torefertoa form ofgrammatical classification.
Theconceptofsocially
constructedsexdifferencesdidnotyethavea wordtoconnoteit.Nonetheless, the-
oriesofthesocialconstruction ofsexdifferencesemerged in tandem with theories
ofthesocialconstructionofotherforms ofgroupdifference. Fromtheearlytwen-

16 For morerecentconcernsthatgenderhistory willsupplantwomen'shistory,see Alice Kessler-

Harris,"Do We StillNeed Women'sHistory?"ChronicleofHigherEducation54, no. 15 (December7,
2007): B6.
17 For a recentaccountofthistrend,
see Daniel Wickberg,
"HeterosexualWhiteMale: Some Recent
Inversionsin AmericanCulturalHistory," JournalofAmericanHistory92, no. 1 (2005): 136-157.

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1354 JoanneMeyerowitz

tiethcentury
on,socialscientists
engagedin a profound ofbiological
questioning
determinismandthecategorieson whichitrelied,notonlywithregardto sexbut
also withregardto race,ethnicity,nationalcharacter,sexuality, and men-
criminality,
tal illness.By the mid-twentieth century,anthropologistsand sociologistswroteof
"sex roles" to referto the culturallydeterminedexpectedbehaviorof womenand
men and "sexual status"to acknowledgethatdifferent culturesaccordeddifferent
social rankingsto womenand men. Psychologists used the phrases"psychological
sex" and "sex-roleidentification" to pointto a person'sacquired sense of self as
femaleor male.1s
In the mid-to late 1950s,JohnMoney,JoanHampson,and JohnHampson,all
thenat JohnsHopkinsUniversity, introducedthe term"gender"intothisscientific
literature.In a seriesofarticleson intersexuality,
theyarguedfortheenvironmental
determinants of "gender,""genderrole,"and "genderrole and orientation," just as
othershad earlierarguedforthe environmental determinants of "sex roles" and
"psychologicalsex." Childrenlearned"gender"in earlychildhood,theyargued,in
the same waytheylearneda language.Biologicalsex,howeverit was defined,did
notdetermine one's"genderroleandorientation."'19Otherscientists
andsocialsci-
entistspickedupthenewterminology. In 1962,psychoanalystRobertStollerandhis
colleaguesat theUniversityofCalifornia in Los Angelesopenedthefirst Gender
IdentityResearchClinic(GIRC), andin 1968,Stollerpublished thebookSexand
Gender, whichseemstohavebeenthefirst American bookwiththeword"gender,"
in itscurrent form,in thetitle.For Stoller,genderreferred
non-linguistic to the
particularbalanceofmasculinity andfemininityfoundineachperson.It had"psy-
chologicalorculturalrather
thanbiologicalconnotations."Stoller
wasnota feminist.
In fact,he worriedabouttheerosionofgenderrolesand thedevelopmental dis-
turbance of"genderidentity," thenewtermhe coinedfor"psychological sex."He
andhiscolleaguesat theGIRC workedto instillmasculinity in feminineboysand
femininityinmasculine girls.Ifgenderwasmostly thensome-
constructed,
socially
one, theyreasoned,had to repairit when it was improperly built.Stollerand his
colleaguessignedup forthejob.20
Influencedby the women's movement,Americanfeministsappropriatedthe
word"gender"in the 1970sand transformed itsmeaning.Like othersbeforethem,
feministsocial scientistsused "gender"to rejectthe notionthatthe perceivedsex
18 On Americansocial scientists and the social constructionof sex differences,
see, forexample,
Rosalind Rosenberg,BeyondSeparateSpheres:IntellectualRoots of ModernFeminism(New Haven,
Conn.,1982);Carl Degler,In SearchofHumanNature:TheDeclineandRevivalofDarwinism inAmerican
Social Thought(New York, 1991); Mari Jo Buhle,Feminismand Its Discontents: A Century of Struggle
withPsychoanalysis (Cambridge,Mass., 1998).
19 For uses of the new terms,see JohnMoney,"Hermaphroditism, Gender,and Precocityin Hy-
peradrenocorticism: PsychologicFindings,"Bulletinof theJohnsHopkinsHospital96 (1955): 253-264;
JohnMoney,JoanG. Hampson,and JohnL. Hampson,"Imprinting and theEstablishment of Gender
Role," AmericanMedicalAssociationArchivesofNeurology and Psychiatry77 (1957): 333-336. Money
laterretreatedfromhis earlyenvironmentalism; bythe end of the 1960s,he speculatedthatearlyex-
posureto sex hormonesand theneurophysiology of thebrain(as well as environment) shapedgender
On Money,theHampsons,and "gender,"see BerniceHausman,Changing
identity. Sex: Transsexualism,
Technology, and the Idea of Gender(Durham, N.C., 1995), chap. 3; JoanneMeyerowitz, How Sex
Changed:A Historyof Transsexuality in theUnitedStates(Cambridge,Mass., 2002), chap. 3.
20 RobertJ.Stoller,Sex and Gender:On theDevelopment ofMasculinityand Femininity (New York,
1968),9. On Stollerand the GIRC, see Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed,chap. 3; PhyllisBurke,Gender
Shock:ExplodingtheMythsofMale and Female (New York, 1996).

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 A Historyof "Gender" 1355

differencesin behavior,temperament, and intellectwere simplynaturalor innate,

but unliketheirpredecessors,theyrejectedfunctionalism and questionedwhether
genderand genderroleswerenecessaryor good. If genderwas artifice, thenmany
1970sfeminists saw littlereason to maintainit,especiallywhenit playeda partin
women.Butgender,
subordinating initsmultiple wasnotso easilywilled
variations,
away.It wasbuiltintothestructure andpracticeoffamilies, labormar-
education,
and
kets, government policies,and ithad deep rootsin theeverydaybehaviors and
ofindividual
fantasies womenandmen.Someacademicfeminists, especiallyinthe
turned
humanities, awayfrom thestudy ofgenderroles,gendersystems, andgender
andfocusedinsteadon thereconstruction
segregation, andrevaluationoffeminin-
ities,women'swritings, women'sethics,andwomen'sworlds.21
Otherssearched fortheoretical approaches thatcouldexplicatehowperceptions
ofsexdifference in
operated language, and
psyche, symbolic In thelate1970s
order.
andearly1980s,someAmerican feministliterarycritics
turnedtoFrenchpoststruc-
turalist
theory.Theydrewon theworksof JacquesLacan,RolandBarthes,and
JacquesDerrida,andtheytranslated thewritingsofH616neCixous,LuceIrigary, and
JuliaKristeva.
Theyexpandedtheirpurview from"thewomanreader, women'scul-
ture,andthewoman'stext"to "thewholeofliterature andculture."
Cixouswrote:
"Everytheoryofculture, everytheory ofsociety,thewholeconglomeration ofsym-
bolicsystems..,.
itis all orderedaroundhierarchical oppositionsthatcomebackto
theman/woman opposition."Bytheearly1980s,male literary criticsrecognizedthe
feministaffinityto poststructuralism.In 1983, in LiteraryTheory,TerryEagleton
suggestedthat"the movementfromstructuralism to post-structuralism was in part
a response"to thedemandsof thewomen'smovement.In thisrendition, feminism
stood frontand centeron the poststructuraliststage.22
In 1986,withthearticle"Gender,"JoanScotthelpedto bridgethegap between
the feministsocial scientistswho critiqued"gender"and "genderroles" and the
feministliterarycriticswho deconstructedtextualrepresentations of sex differ-
ence.23She wrotein a moment,as she noted,"of greatepistemologicalturmoil,"
whensocial scientistswereshifting"fromscientific to literary
paradigms,"andwhen
feministswerefinding"scholarlyand politicalallies" amongpoststructuralists. For
Scott,genderwas "a constitutiveelementofsocial relationships based on perceived
differencesbetweenthe sexes,"and also "a primary wayof signifying relationships
of power."Scott'sdual definitionallowedherto bringtogetherthesocial scientists
who rejectedbiologicaldeterminism and questionedthe allegedlynaturaldiffer-
21 On 1970s feminists and "gender,"see, forexample,Suzanne J. Kesslerand WendyMcKenna,
Gender:An Ethnomethodological Approach(Chicago, 1978); see also RosalindRosenberg,"Gender,"
inTheodoreM. PorterandDorothyRoss,eds.,TheModernSocial Sciences(Cambridge,2003),678-692.
22 Elaine Showalter, "Women'sTime,Women'sSpace: WritingtheHistoryof FeministCriticism,"
TulsaStudiesin Women'sLiterature 3, no. 1/2(1984): 35; H616neCixous,"Castrationor Decapitation?"
Signs7, no. 1 (1981): 44; TerryEagleton,Literary Theory: An Introduction(Minneapolis,1983),149.For
Americanfeminist adaptationsofFrenchtheory, see, forexample,Elaine Marksand Isabelle de Cour-
tivron,eds.,NewFrenchFeminisms: AnAnthology (Amherst, and SexualDifference,
Mass., 1980); Writing
SpecialIssue,CriticalInquiry8, no. 2 (1981); Feminist Readings:FrenchTexts/American Contexts,
Special
Issue,Yale FrenchStudies62 (1981). For criticalcommentaries byhistorians,see Buhle,Feminismand
ItsDiscontents, chap. 9; Claire GoldbergMoses, "Made in America:'FrenchFeminism'in Academia,"
FeministStudies24, no. 2 (1998): 241-274.
23 Scottwas soonjoined in thisendeavorbyJudith Butler;see Butler,GenderTrouble:Feminism and
theSubversion ofIdentity (New York, 1990).

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1356 JoanneMeyerowitz

enceson whichitwas based and thephilosophers, psychoanalysts, and literarycritics

whosuggestedthatthelanguageofdifference sustainedWesternsocial and political
order.She was notalone inthiskindofendeavor.A yearearlier,forexample,Henry
Louis Gates, Jr.(and others)had positedrace as a "tropeof ultimate,irreducible
difference" thatnaturalizeddistinctionsbetween"cultures,linguistic groups,or ad-
herentsof specificbeliefsystems."24 Withinthe United States,the scholarlystudy
of difference and inequality,once firmlygroundedin social science,had migrated
to the humanitiesand takenrootin the studyof language.It soon spreadbeyond
the analysisof literatureand into the readingof multifarious texts,includingthe
kindsof textsthathistorianstypically use as evidence.
This abbreviatedgenealogyofgendermighthelpto place Scott'scontribution in
a broadercontext.For historians, Scottsummarizedexplanationsofgenderinequal-
ity,capturedan emerginghistoriographic trend,and importedtheoryto a discipline
ofcommitted empiricists.She promisedbothto expandtheterrainofthenewsocial
and culturalhistoryand to returnto and revivify the traditionalfieldsof historical
In
study. the 1980s and 1990s, her readerssustained her argumentfirstbypublicly
debatingitsmeritsand thenbyapplyingitstheoryand itsmethodofreading.Beyond
the historicaldiscipline,though,Scott'sessayenteredintodecades-longconversa-
tionson thesocial and symbolicconstructions ofsex difference.She helpedto move
theAmericanconceptofgenderbeyonditsscientific and socialscientificoriginsand
nudged the Americanadaptationsof poststructuralism beyondtheirrecognized
place in literarycriticism.She suggestedhow the languageof sex difference had
historicallyprovideda means to articulaterelationshipsof power. In this way,
she tied genderback to otherformsof differenceand pushed us to ponder the
metanarratives that mutuallyconstitutedvarious social and politicalhierarchies.
And ponderwe should.This may,in the end, proveto be the enduringlegacyof
"Gender."
24 Scott,"Gender,"1066,1067;HenryLouis Gates,Jr., "Writing 'Race' andtheDifference It Makes,"
"Race," Writing,and Difference, Special Issue, CriticalInquiry12, no. 1 (1985): 5. Gates's essayis the
editor'sintroduction to theissue;someoftheotheressaysin theissuealso addressthelanguageofrace
difference.See also EvelynBrooksHigginbotham, "AfricanAmericanWomen'sHistoryand theMeta-
languageof Race," Signs17, no. 2 (1992): 251-274.

Joanne Meyerowitzis Professorof Historyand AmericanStudies at Yale Uni-

Sheis theauthorofWomen
versity. Adrift: WageEarners
Independent inChicago,
ofChicagoPress,1988)andHowSexChanged:
1880-1930(University A History
of Transsexualityin the UnitedStates (Harvard UniversityPress, 2002). From
1999 to 2004, she served as the editor of the JournalofAmericanHistory.She
is currentlywritinga historyof the "culture-and-personalityschool," its pop-
ularization,and its impact in the twentiethcentury.

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