Gender and American Citizenship

This seminar explored the many ways that the U.S. government has managed to institute policies (often discriminatory) specifically based on the concept of gender. The course focuses on women, and starts with the colonial era and goes all the way to the present day. We learned about anything and everything, studying Supreme Court decisions which barred women from becoming lawyers to an article on the implications of women wearing make-up as they served the country during World War II. Sounds like a lot, I know, but Professor Kessler-Harris manages to draw parallels which make a lot of sense. There is a needed focus on labor history, an area which Professor Kessler-Harris is an expert in (see her groundbreaking Out to Work). Your ideas of what it means to be a citizen will be turned upside down as you learn how the government has shaped citizenship, often to its advantage and to women's detriment. Professor Kessler-Harris is brilliant, and avoids lecturing (it's a seminar) but she opens each class and intelligently guides the always provocative discussions. She is a wonderful person and is keenly interested in her students, very generous, and she peppers the class with her own experiences, which are often very personal, and extremely relevant. She lent me her only copy of a brief I wanted to use for my research paper, a brief she was using for her own book. I know few professors who would do that. Very interested in her students' development, both as intellectuals and as individuals. I can't praise her enough! And she had us over to her gorgeous apartment at the end of the semester.