HS1894: Gender, Power and Subjectivity in Twentieth-Century Britain

School History
Department Code SHARE
Module Code HS1894
External Subject Code 100310
Number of Credits 30
Level L6
Language of Delivery English
Module Leader Dr Tracey Loughran
Semester Double Semester
Academic Year 2014/5

Outline Description of Module

This module examines the relations between gender, power and subjectivity in twentieth-century Britain, with a particular focus on women’s experiences. Following Joan Scott, gender is viewed as both ‘a constituent element of social relationships’ and ‘a primary way of signifying relationships of power’.  In the opening years of the twentieth century, suffragettes believed if women were granted the vote, they would build a new social order of equality, justice, and greater happiness for all. Half a century after women were admitted to the franchise on the same terms as men, feminists realized that formal political representation was only half the struggle: the slogan ‘the personal is political’ neatly encapsulated the view that all aspects of life have a political dimension, and change must be enacted at the level of the self and personal relationships, as well as at the level of law. The module investigates the operations of relations of gender and power at different locations, including home, the workplace, and the family. It considers the sexed body as a site of struggle and freedom, and emphasises the importance of sexuality to fraught debates about British society and its future. Finally, it explores the thoughts and feelings of women as active agents of history, rather than as passive victims of patriarchal power. Throughout the module, we will grapple with the twin problems of retrieving voices ‘hidden from history’, and attempting to access individual subjectivity, in relation to a range of source material including autobiographies, Mass-Observation diaries and surveys, medical texts, and popular magazines.

On completion of the module a student should be able to

  • analyse key events in the history of twentieth-century Britain which illuminate the relations of gender, power and subjectivity;
  • discuss with reference to modern historical scholarship selected topics in the history of gender  in modern Britain, including women’s involvement with formal politics; gendered representations and experiences of war, the body, and sexuality; and women’s experiences of work, home and family;
  • assess different historical approaches to retrieving voices traditionally ‘hidden from history’ and accessing individual subjectivity;
  • critically evaluate the interrelation of political, social, cultural, and technological change in determining different kinds of gendered experiences and the limits of individual and collective agency;
  • demonstrate a critical understanding of the potentialities and problems of different kinds of evidence (demographical, textual, ‘scientific’, personal, visual) for understanding subjective experiences, and the ways in which these are embedded within broader relations of gender and power.

How the module will be delivered

A range of teaching methods will be used in each of the sessions of the course, comprising a combination of lectures, seminar discussion of major issues and workshops for the study of primary source material. The syllabus is divided into a series of major course themes, then sub-divided into principal topics for the study of each theme.

Lectures:

The aim of the lectures is to provide a brief introduction to a particular topic, establishing the salient features of major course themes, identifying key issues and providing historiographical guidance. The lectures aim to provide a basic framework for understanding and should be thought of as useful starting points for further discussion and individual study. Where appropriate, handouts and other materials may be distributed to reinforce the material discussed.

Seminar and Source Workshops:

The primary aim of the sessions will be to generate debate and discussion amongst course participants, focused in particular on primary source material. Seminars and source workshops for each of the course topics will provide an opportunity for students:

(a) to discuss topics or issues introduced by the lectures,

or(b) to discuss related themes, perhaps not directly addressed by the lectures, but drawing on ideas culled from those lectures.

and(c) to analyse different types of primary sources available, discussing the principal ways in which they can be used by historians.

Seminars and source workshops will provide the student with guidance on how to critically approach the various types of primary source material. Preparation for seminars and workshops will focus on specific items from the sources and related background reading, with students preparing answers to questions provided for each session. Both seminars and source workshops will provide an opportunity to discuss and debate the issues with fellow students. Classes will be divided into smaller groups for discussion purposes, with the results presented as part of an overall class debate at the end of the session.

Skills that will be practised and developed

  • communicate ideas and arguments effectively, whether in class discussion or in written form, in an accurate, succinct and lucid manner;
  • formulate and justify arguments and conclusions about a range of issues, and present appropriate supporting evidence;
  • an ability to modify as well as to defend their own position;
  • an  ability to think critically and challenge assumptions;
  • an ability to use a range of information technology resources to assist with information retrieval and assignment presentation;
  • time management skills and an ability to independently organise their own study methods and workload;
  • work effectively with others as part of a team or group in seminar or tutorial discussions.   

How the module will be assessed

Students will be assessed by means of a combination of one essay relating to primary sources [20%], an assessed essay [30%] and an examination paper [50%].

Course assignments:

  1. The Assessed Essay relating to primary sources will contribute 20% of the final mark for the module and must be no longer than 1,000 words.
  2. The Assessed Essay will contribute 30% of the final mark for the module. It is designed to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to review evidence, draw appropriate conclusions from it and employ the formal conventions of scholarly presentation. It must be no longer than 2,000 words.
  3. The Examination will take place during the second assessment period [May/June] and will consist of an unseen two hour paper that will contribute the remaining 50% of the final mark for this module. Students must write 2 answers in total.

Assessment Breakdown

Type % Title Duration(hrs)
Written Assessment 20 Assessed Essay 1 N/A
Written Assessment 30 Assessed Essay 2 N/A
Exam - Spring Semester 50 Gender, Power And Subjectivity In Twentieth-Century Britain 2

Syllabus content

The module covers a wide range of topics which explore the relations of gender, power and subjectivity in twentieth-century Britain. Potential topics include:

  • feminist movements throughout the twentieth-century;
  • militant suffragettes, hunger strikes and force-feeding;
  • pacifism and militarism in the First World War;
  • male nervous breakdown and “shell-shock”;
  • nursing, care-giving, and healing the body in wartime;
  • love, marriage, and the family;
  • Working-Class Wives(1939), hunger and health;
  • work, state, and war;
  • childcare and psychological advice to mothers;
  • mother-daughter relationships;
  • experiences and representations of menstruation;
  • beauty ideals, consumerism, and self-fashioning;
  • heterosexuality, “permissiveness”, and “liberation”;
  • homosexuality and “queerness”;
  • single mothers and problem families;
  • second wave feminism and the relations between the personal and political;
  • Thatcher and her legacies.

Essential Reading and Resource List

Adrian Bingham, Family newspapers?: Sex, Private Life, and the British Popular Press 1918-1978 (2009).

Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: English Feminism and Sexual Morality, 1885-1914 (1995).

Lesley Hall, Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880 (2000).

Nicoletta Gullace, “The Blood of Our Sons”: Men, Women and the Renegotiation of British Citizenship During the Great War ((2002),

Jane Lewis, Women in England 1870-1950: Sexual Divisions and Social Change (1984).

Jane Lewis, Women in Britain since 1945: Women, Family, Work and the State in the Post-war Years (1992).

Elizabeth Roberts, A Woman’s Place: An Oral History of Working-class Women 1890-1940 (1984).

Elizabeth Roberts, Women and Families: An Oral History, 1940-1970 (1995).

Penny Summerfield, Reconstructing Women’s Wartime Lives: Discourse and Subjectivity in Oral Histories of the Second World War (1998).

Jeffrey Weeks, Sex, Politics and Society: the Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800 (third rev. edn, 2012).

Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska (ed.), Women in Twentieth-Century Britain: Social, Cultural and Political Change (2001).

Background Reading and Resource List

Please see Essential Reading List.


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