79-722 War: Gender, Family, and Women
12 units, Carnegie Mellon University
This course focuses on the crucible of war and its impact on gender relations, social conceptions of masculinity and femininity, economic production, women, and families. War starkly divides society by gender through the mass mobilization of men into military service. In this sense, it heightens gender roles and polarities. At the same time, it also pushes women into occupations and positions previously filled by men, and opens new opportunities for women in the economy, within the household, and even the military. It upends traditional power relations and creates new hierarchies at home and at the front. It also leaves women and children to the mercy of invading armies, alters childrearing patterns, and fractures the family. Mass rape, displacement, homelessness, and refugee movements have accompanied war from time immemorial. Certain wartime practices may be seen as universal, persisting from one war to the next, while others are historical and consonant only with specific conditions. War provides a heightened lens through which to view gender because it both erodes and intensifies the gender conceptions and social practices of peacetime. In this course we will examine 300 years of war in the United States, Europe, and Russia beginning in the 18th and ending in the 20th century. We will focus on specific wars in an attempt to understand how war changes gender and family relations, and how it affects the experiences of women. We will explore the differences between the experiences of men and women at the front, in the rear, under occupation, and as victims of genocide and terror.
Prerequisites: none listed
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