HIST 252: Women’s Work: Paid & Unpaid, Past & Present

Why should we study women's work? Is work the key to women's power or to their continuing subordination? What defines "women's work" and do only women do it? Are gendered divisions of labor an inescapable fact of nature, or can we discover their origin? What types of work have women performed from society to society, across time and space? How have historical and cultural contexts affected women's work? In this course we will examine women's work in a variety of geographical regions in the past and the present, asking how women's lives were shaped by their work, and how their work in turn made a difference in shaping their societies. We will also attempt better to understand what features and meanings may be common to women and their work in different places and times, and how to account for the many differences.