Time and Location

Next taught in Fall 2015

MWF, period 7 (1:55-2:45) in Flint 119

Description

This course surveys recent scholarship in the history of women in U.S. national politics, culminating in the Presidential elections of 2008 and 2012, and the Congressional elections (Senate & House) of 2010 and 2012. The course also examines black and white women’s political involvement as office-holders, policymakers and voters in relation to political movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, second-wave feminism and women’s involvement in the Democratic and Republican parties. One of the course’s central objectives is to understand how American women wielded political power before they could vote and before they gained prominent offices. Another objective is to understand how recent the current partisan-polarization of Congress is—and to analyze the impact this polarization has had on issues that are often deemed of particular importance to women (reproductive rights, abortion, contraception, health services, sexual harassment, laws pertaining to divorce and alimony, etc.)

Objectives

To increase students awareness of and appreciation of how U.S. women’s involvement in the political process has changed over the last hundred and fifty years.

To increase students’ knowledge and understanding of how women run current campaigns and the factors that contribute to their political success.

To increase students’ ability to think critically by introducing students to the methods that political scientists have used to study women’s political roles and campaigns, making students better able to assess the value of this research.

 

Syllabus

Syllabus.pdf (not yet available)