Women’s Rights and the Process Of State Building vs. Homemaking Husbands

TOPIC 1

Understanding American (Democratic) Government through (the long road to) Women’s Rights

OR

Women’s Rights and the Process of State Building (in America)

I have always been baffled by the slow pace of implementing social legislation in the United States, as well as by the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance employed by those opposed to state ‘intervention’, especially as it relates to women’s rights. As a result, I am interested in understanding the relationship between government (at a federal and a state level) intervention and women’s rights in America. 

-       How has government helped and/or hindered the development of issues relating to women’s rights (e.g. suffrage, birth control, abortion, welfare, women in armed forces, gay marriage, affirmative action etc.)?

o   To what extent have women’s rights activists struggled against government intervention?

o   To what extent has government legislation promoted and expanded women’s rights?

o   How have women’s rights been achieved (or not) through (extra-political) activism v. government?

o   How has government intervention, in issues relation to women’s rights (listed above), changed over time?

-       How have women’s rights affected U.S. government intervention (e.g. welfare)?

-       What is the relationship between women’s identity and national identity?

o   How have understandings of the female body coincided with those of the national body politic?

o   How have different women defined themselves with/against the nation, the government, and their own communities?

-       How has conservative (especially female) backlash against issues relating to women’s rights (e.g. the ERA, abortion etc.) not only opposed, but also made use of government intervention/legislation?

o   How have (some) women managed ideological ambiguities?

-       Where does this leave us today: should women’s rights activists work outside or within government to make change happen? 

o   (Extra-political) Activism vs. Women in Washington and Public Policy

Legislation to consider:

Muller v State of Oregon (1908)

New York v. Sanger (1918)

Nineteenth Amendment (1920)

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) (1938)

Hoyt v. Florida (1961)

Equal Pay Act (1963)

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964)

Griswold v Connecticut (1965)

Executive Order 11246 (1968)

Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corporation (1971)

Reed v. Reed (1971)

Title IX (1972)

Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)

Roe v. Wade (1973)

Housing & Credit discrimination (on the basis of sex) outlawed (1974)

Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur (1974)

Women’s Educational Equity Act (1974)

Taylor v. Louisiana (1975)

General Elec. Co v. Gilbert (1976)

Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978)

Hyde Amendment (1980)

Kirchberg v. Feenstra (1981)

Hishon v. King and Spaulding (1984)

Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986)

Johnson v. Santa Clara County (1987)

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)

Harris v. Forklift Systems (1993)

Family and Medical Leave Act (1993)

Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth (1998)

United States v. Morrison (2000)

Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs (2003)

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act (2006)

Affordable Health Care Act (2010)

FLSA extended to home health workers (2013)

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014)

Sources

1)    Bayes, Jane H. Women, Democracy, and Globalization In North America : a Comparative Study. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

2)    Delegard, Kirsten. Battling Miss Bolsheviki : the Origins of Female Conservatism In the United States. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.

3)    Linda K. Kerber, Jane Sherron De Hart, Cornelia Hughes Dayton, and Judy Wu, eds., Women’s America: Refocusing the Past 8^th edition, volume 2 (Oxford University Press, 2011)

4)    MacLean, Nancy. The American Women's Movement, 1945-2000 : a Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.

5)    Orleck, Annelise. Rethinking American Women's Activism. .

Wish list

1)    Debates, reactions and legislation regarding government intervention in women’s lives and rights (primary sources).

2)    Scholarly works on government debate/legislation about women’s health (esp. abortion) and welfare.

TOPIC 2

Homemaking Husbands 

OR 

The History of Fathers Who Serve as the Primary Parent

In 1920s, Crystal Eastman wrote:

… breadwinning wives have not yet developed homemaking husbands. When the two come home from the factory the man sits down while his wife gets supper, and he does so with exactly the same kind of fore-ordained right as if her were supporting her. Higher up in the economic scale the same thing is true. The business or professional women who is married, perhaps engages a cook, but the responsibility is not shifted, it is still hers.

Today, 50 percent of married or cohabiting women report doing more child care than their male partners, whereas just 4 percent of men do more than their female partners. I am interested in the perspectives of the latter 4 percent of men. 

-       What is the history of ‘lead’ fathers? Who are they? How/Why do they become lead fathers?

-       What is the history of family-friendly government and corporate legislation?

-       How do myths about gendered differences, motherhood, and manliness affect individual choices and government legislation? 

-       What are the business/economic and social cases for fathers taking leave to raise their children?

-       Should women issues be considered broader social issues?

Sources

1)    http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/why-i-put-my-wifes-career-first/403240/

2)    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/world/europe/When-Dad-Becomes-the-Lead-Parent.html?_r=0

3)    Handling Paternity Cases Under the Uniform Parentage Act. Denver, Colo.: University of Denver Law Center, 1978.

4)    Skaine, Rosemarie. Paternity and American Law. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2003.

Wish List

1)    First-hand accounts of homemaking fathers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

2)    Evidence of debate about family-friendly legislation in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century

3)    Government documents about (against and for) paternity leave and/or family-friendly legislation