Article Analysis: "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis"

Valerie Koury

AMST 300

September 27, 2011

                                    “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis”

            Joan W. Scott’s main points in the article “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis” is how gender is defined, what gender is used to described, and how gender has been shifted from historical change. To make the gender analysis, Scott looks to three sources for support: feminists and their efforts to “explain the origins of patriarchy” (1057); Marxism and how gender is influenced by the economy (1061); French post-structuralist and Anglo-American use “psychoanalysis to explain the production and reproduction of the subject’s gendered identity” (1058).

            The key terms Scott relies on are gender, masculine, man, and feminine, and female. There are several different ways of interpreting and defining gender, as seen in each different source. On 1056, a definition of gender is offered to be a synonym for “women.” However, using gender in this ways misses out on the “inequality or power” the word “women” carries and thoughts it evokes. Gender is also “denot[-es] ‘cultural constructions,’” then making it a “category imposed on a sexed body” (1056). Every definition seems to be lacking some element, and there is no clear distinction between what gender is and is not because of all of the interpretations. Masculine, feminine, and terms to describe males and females are “not inherent characteristics but subjective (or fictional) characteristics” (1064). Another aspect of defining “women” is the fact that it can also seem to mean information about men, and that a definition of one is used to describe the other.

            Methods that Scott uses are studying history, such as looking at Marxism and feminist history to make sense of gender. Scott uses the qualitative analysis of researcher Carol Gilligan to delve deeper into the roots of moral development in school children; she relies on the work of anthropologists in their kinship studies. She references journals, fieldwork, and directs the audience in the footnotes to further discussion. In all these methods and scholarly sources, Scott’s investigation of gender’s history will answer questions of the past and clarify gender’s present and future in terms of usage, definitions, and inclusions (1075).

            I thought the article was fascinating! Gender is one of my favorite topics to research, and my research paper is about how the media influences society’s perception of gender. Reading the article allowed me to gain a better understanding of the history of the term “gender” and the many perspectives in defining and understanding gender. Though the article seemed repetitive and was difficult to interpret at times with all of the terminology and various standpoints, it was still interesting and furthers my interest in gender development. Questions I posed at the beginning of the article were answered slightly at the end, but I would still like clarification. At the end of 1063, Scott writes that “the idea of masculinity rests on the necessary repression of feminine aspects—of the subject’s potential for bisexuality—introduces conflict into the opposition of masculine and feminine.” I was confused as to what exactly what the sentence meant, so I did not paraphrase to avoid the risk of misinterpretation of what Scott means. However, my interpretation of the quote is that bisexuality is problematic, and I pose the questions of why does bisexuality have to be seen as a conflict? How can the author and theorists be so sure that “potential for bisexuality” is a threat? Why is it a threat? Maybe bisexuality is supposed to be acceptable, and everyone else is wrong; it is an interpretation of right and wrong. Where the hell did hetero-normative practices come from?