Berkshire Conference on Women’s History, Toronto, Canada, May 22-25, 2014, Website

Call for panelists from Tarah Brookfield: I am putting together a panel for the Berkshire Conference on Women’s History. I am looking for co-panelists who analyze experiences or representations of young people who engage with or accompany their parents in political activism. Possible panel themes include the effects of having children present during public forms of activism (i.e. strikes, protests or marches), the way gender norms may shift when the mother is the most predominant activist parent, and how children and youth find spaces to develop and express their personal political beliefs. Continue reading →

Deadline for Proposal: 31 January 2013

In a 1993 article in *Sciences*, biologist and historian Anne Fausto-Sterling provocatively argued that human sex could not be neatly divided into two simple categories, men and women. Instead, she recommended a five-part system of categorization, including men, women, merms, ferms, and herms. At the time of publication, Fausto-Sterling’s tongue-in-cheek proposal provoked more criticism than applause, but in the past two decades scholars in a wide range of disciplines, from neuroscience to gender studies, have added evidence to her assertion that binary sex categories are not a biological rule. With a few exceptions, however, historians of early America have been slow to question the binary of man and woman. In the uproar provoked by her proposal, few recall that Fausto-Sterling began her article not with a headline grabbed from the daily papers, but with an historical example dating to 1840s Connecticut. Continue reading →

Berkshire Conference on Women’s History, Toronto, Canada, May 22-25, 2014, Website

Call for panelists from Helen Zoe Veit : I would like to propose a panel for the 2014 Berks on food, gender, and poverty, broadly defined. I hope that the panel will put questions about food and eating into conversation with a range of themes such as gendered definitions of labor, voluntary or involuntary dietary austerity, the changing acceptability of various food practices in times of economic hardship, gendered taboos and prohibitions related to food, shifting definitions of health, and consumer culture.

My paper will examine how women’s eating and cooking changed as a result of Continue reading →

Berkshire Conference on Women’s History, Toronto, Canada, May 22-25, 2014, Website

Call for panelists from Julia Smith: I am putting together a panel on bodies in the workplace for the 2014 Berkshire Conference on Women’s History. One paper will examine flight attendants‘ grievances pertaining to body issues, e.g. grooming, weight, uniforms, etc. and another will discuss issues related to bodies and work in the banking industry. I am still looking for 1 or 2 more papers, as well as a chair and a commentator. If you would like to be a part of this panel, please contact me: juliasmith@trentu.ca. Continue reading →

Berkshire Conference on Women’s History, Toronto, Canada, May 22-25, 2014, Website

Call for panelists from Natalie Rose: I am interested in organizing a panel that explores gendered ideas about entries into adulthood from childhood/adolescence for young women. However, I am also interested in perhaps organizing a panel more generally about childhood and adolescence if that fits with other panelist’s work. My own paper examines how Mormon women, aged between twelve and twenty, dealt with changing ideas of adulthood, womanhood, sexuality, and rites of passage in their religious culture after the long end of polygamy from 1890 to the early 1920s. I anticipate submitting the panel to the Sexualities, Genders/LGBTIQ2, and Intimacies subtheme. I am looking for two other presenters as well as a commentator and a chair within the next few weeks. Continue reading →

Berkshire Conference on Women’s History, Toronto, Canada, May 22-25, 2014, Website

Call for panelists from Jennifer Macias: I would like to propose a panel for the upcoming Berks (22-25 May 2014, Toronto) on transnational understandings and experiences of family structures. This may include work on family planning such as birth control, adoption, abortion, religious doctrines or government policies. This may also include scholarship on the influence of nationalism or assimilationist policies on the family structure. Finally, this may include work on twentieth-century religious movements and/or policies, as well as their influences on the family structure overall.

My own paper will look at Mexican-American families in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States from 1945-1960. I am interested in the ways in which Continue reading →