Joan Wallach Scott

Joan Wallach Scott

Joan Wallach Scott (right) with Kristen Ghodsee
Born Joan Wallach
(1941-12-18) December 18, 1941
Brooklyn, New York
Nationality American
Fields History
Institutions Institute for Advanced Study
Spouse Donald Scott
Children 2

Joan Wallach Scott (born December 18, 1941),[1] is an American historian of France with contributions in gender history and intellectual history. She is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Among her publications was the article "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis", published in 1986 in the American Historical Review. This article, "undoubtedly one of the most widely read and cited articles in the journal's history",[2] was germinal in the formation of a field of gender history within the Anglo-American historical profession.[3]

Biography

She was born Joan Wallach in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Lottie (née Tannenbaum) and Sam Wallach, high school teachers.[4][5] Her family was Jewish, and her father was born in Dolina, Poland.[6] During the Red Scare, her father who been active in various left-wing causes was fired for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into activities of the American Communist Party, an event that helped to seal his daughter's sympathy with the left.[7] She graduated from Brandeis in 1962 and received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1969.

Academic career

Before joining the Institute for Advanced Study, Scott taught in history departments at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Brown University.[8] At Brown University she was founding director of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, and the Nancy Duke Lewis University Professor and professor of history. She serves on the editorial boards of Signs, Differences, History and Theory and, since January 2006, the Journal of Modern History. In 2010, she helped to found History of the Present: A Journal of Critical History.[9] Scott has written that it was during her time at the Pembroke Center that she first started "to think about theory and gender".[10]

Scott has also played a major role in the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)[11] as the chair of its Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure.[12]

Research

Scott's work has challenged the foundations of conventional historical practice, including the nature of historical evidence and historical experience and the role of narrative in the writing of history. Drawing on a range of philosophical thought, as well as on a rethinking of her own training as a labor historian, she has contributed to a transformation of the field of intellectual history.[13] Her current work focuses on the vexed relationship of the particularity of gender to the universalizing force of democratic politics.[14]

Scott's work has been mostly concerned with modern French history and with the history of gender. According to Scott, the mostly male and white Western historians have over the centuries promoted the idea of one "Truth" in history, which was tied to the idea of a "centre".[15] For Scott, the idea of a "centre" by necessary meant a policy of exclusion as the "centre" has been defined as consisting of well-off white heterosexual men and anyone not belonging to the "centre" such as all non-white people, women, gays, the poor and so forth have been ignored by historians.[16] Scott further maintains the centre created by historians "rest on-contains-repressed or negated material and so is unstable , not unified", but despite this, historians have tried to promote the idea that the study of the "centre" is the only "natural" area of study.[17] Greatly influenced by the French deconstructionist Jacques Derrida, Scott sees her historical work as attempting to challenge what she sees as the fraudulent nature of the historical profession by seeking to study the history of the excluded groups and to challenge the androcentric, "white privileged" view of history which holds that the deeds of white, straight men are the "centre".[18] Citing Derrida, Scott argues that "historical deconstruction":

"...undermines the historian's ability to claim neutral mastery or to present any particular story as if it were complete, universal, and objectively determined. Instead, if one grants that meanings are constructed through exclusons, one must acknowledge and take responsibility for the exclusions involved in one's own project".[19]

Another major influence on Scott was the British Marxist historian E. P. Thompson, especially his 1963 book The Making of the English Working Class which she has cited as an example of "socially relevant history".[20] Scott's own work on French history as often been "history from below" dealing with the lives of ordinary French people instead of the high and mighty.[21] In her 1974 book The Glassworkers of Carmaux, Scott challenged the popular theory that industrial unrest in the French city of Carmaux in the 19th century was due mainly to economic change, but was rather due to ownership of land and the workers' identification of social success with their jobs and city.[22]

Reflecting her interest in European working class history, in 1980 Scott co-wrote with the British Communist historian Eric Hobsbawm in an article in Past and Present entitled "Political Shoemakers", which noted that a disproportionate number of 19th century revolutionaries and radicals were shoemakers.[23] Scott and Thompson noted that shoemakers were often the leaders of protests in 19th century European cities, that shoemakers were overrepresented in left-wing parties and shoemakers tended to act as "working class heroes" who served as spokesmen for the working class.[24] Despite the influence of the British Marxist school and Thompson in particular, Scott wrote that in reading The Making of the English Working Class, she became aware of how androcentric the book was as Thompson largely ignored the experiences of working class English women.[25] In a review of The Making of the English Working Class, Scott accused Thompson of not only ignoring women, but also of creating a working class identity that was exclusively androcentric, writing:

"the organisation of the story and the master codes that structure the narrative are gendered in such a way as to confirm rather than challenge the masculine representation of class. Despite their presence, women are marginal in the book; they serve to underline and point up the overwhelming association of class with the politics of male workers".[26]

Even as Scott praised Thompson for writing a book that put the English working class at the center of English history instead of the traditional focus on the upper and middle classes, she criticised him for maintaining the focus on men as the primary historical agents.[27]

At the same time, Scott has been very critical of historians who focus on women's history, which she argues merely reinforces the traditional idea of the male "centre" in history as women's history treats the experience of women as being on the "periphery" of history with leaving the "centre" to the men.[28] Scott argues that the two forms of women's history, namely social history and "herstory" histories are completely inadequate for explaining the experience of women in history.[29] Scott contends that social historians, most of whom are Marxists of varying shades of red treat women as just another group exploited by capitalism and as such questions about the uniqueness of women as historical actors are ignored as the focus is on the economic and social forces.[30] Likewise, Scott maintains that writers of "herstory" histories of naively treating everything women did in the past as positive and by focusing only on the experiences of women of "ghettoising" women's history as something completely separate from the broader story of history.[31] Thus in Scott's view, social historians integrate the experience of women too much into the broader story while "herstory" historians do the opposite.[32] Scott argues that only proper way of writing women's history is using the concept of gender.[33]

Sex refers to the biological differences between men and women, whereas gender refers to the social roles assigned to the sexes. One's sex is biologically determined whereas gender is a more fluid category as ideas and ideals of masculinity and femininity differed from society to society and from time to time. In Scott's view, too many historians have confused sex and gender, taking the viewpoint that gender roles are all "natural" as the biological differences between male and females bodies have determined the roles of the sexes.[34] Scott argues that historians who take this viewpoint are all grossly sexist as such a viewpoint assumes that men are "naturally" the dominating sex and women are "naturally" the dominated sex.[35] Using transsexual people as an example, Scott maintains that connection between biology and gender is not "natural" and people's sexual identities are "constructed" by society and culture, not biology.[36] Another example Scott has used in support of her thesis is how different societies have defined their ideals of femininity by noting that 17th century Europe was a patriarchal society where the ideal women was seen as submissive and docile to men whereas at the same time, the Iroquois Indians had a matriarchal society where the ideal woman was seen as self-sufficient and strong.[37] Likewise, 17th century European women always wore dresses in public while Iroquois women went topless in public from the spring to the fall because for the Iroquois breasts were not sexualised in the same manner as was in Europe. In this way, Scott argues that the concept of gender is the best way of explaining women's history.[38]

In her 1986 article "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis", Scott argued that by studying gender not explains women's history, but all history as well.[39] Scott argued that the three existing approaches to gender were all flawed. Scott dismissed the "patriarchy theory" and psychosexual theories under the grounds that both theories assume that gender is based upon fixed biological differences between the male body and the female body while Marxist feminist historians like Sheila Rowbotham subsume women's struggle for liberation too much into a broader struggle against capitalism.[40] Scott argues that ideas about gender are not fixed and are open to change.[41] Citing the work of the French historian Michel Foucault who famously argued that all history is nothing more than a Nietzschean struggle for control of the human body, Scott argued that gender "is a primary field within which or by means of which power is articulated".[42] Scott maintains that gendered language is the main means in which inequality has been and still is upheld in Western societies.[43] In this vein, Scott wrote:

"...concepts of gender structure perception and the concrete and symbolic organisation of all social life. To the extent that these concepts establish distributions of power (differential control over or access to material or symbolic resources), gender becomes implicated in the conception ad construction of power itself".[44]

In Scott's view, all social structures such as the family, the workforce, religion, class, education and the writing of history itself are caught up in ubiquitous web of gendered theories in which inequality is upheld.[45] Scott has argued that a common feature linking all totalitarian regimes, whatever it be Jacobin France, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and the Islamic Republic of Iran was and is in the case of Iran a rhetoric that emphasizes power as masculine and their enemies as feminine.[46] Furthermore, all four regimes had and still have in the case of Iran an obsession with control over the female body such as imposing dress codes on women, banning abortion, and either forcing women to work in the case of Jacobin France and the Soviet Union or not to work in the case of National Socialist Germany and Islamic Republic of Iran.[47] By contrast, Scott argued that anarchists in 19th century Europe who rejected all political authority were much comfortable with the equality of the sexes.[48] For example, the French utopian Charles Fourier who coined the term feminism in 1837 believed very strongly in the equality of the sexes and had an almost mystical attitude of reverence towards female sexuality. Furthermore, Scott argued that traditional Western concepts of gender have upheld the idea that men are the historical "centre" and women are the historical "periphery", and so the proper task for any historian is to study gender in history, which is the base that explains all.[49] Once historians start writing such histories, Scott argues that it will be possible to expose and change the basically unequal nature of Western society.[50]

Taking her own advice, Scott has sought to write such "gendered" histories in her books Gender and the Politics of History and Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Men.[51] In her essays "Language and Working Class History" and "Women in The Making of the English Working Class", Scott argued that during the Industrial Revolution, working class men created specifically male forms of protest and social organisation such as unions to protect their status as men vi-vis women, which had the effect of pushing women to the margins of society.[52] Scott's most notable work in this regard is her 1996 book Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Men dealing with how French feminists such as Olympe de Gouges, Hubertine Auclert, Madeleine Pelletier, Louise Weiss, and Jeanne Deroin responded to the French Revolution and its aftermath.[53] Scott argued that in 1789, the (male) leaders of the revolution in issuing Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen (The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen) created a contradictory image of "the citizen", an abstract, universal individual who possessed certain innate rights that no power on this earth could rightfully deprive this individual of while at the same time insisting that this individual who personified France was a man.[54] Scott's thesis is that this image of the universal, abstract individual allowed French feminists to argue that Frenchwomen were citizens of France and thus entitled to equality, but at the same time the image of the universal individual as a man allowed Frenchmen to argue that the rights and citizenship itself was limited only to men.[55] Scott argues this "paradox" of The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen as she calls it led French feminists either to making claims of the "sameness" of the sexes in order to claim equality or of the differences of the sexes to advance their rights to be citizens.[56]

Scott's treatment of gender in Only Paradoxes to Offer touches upon a recurring theme in her work, namely how to celebrate the differences between the sexes while allowing equality between the sexes.[57] In general, Scott has argued equality and difference are not contradictory and to achieve equality would mean having to ignore sexual differences.[58] Along the same lines, Scott has been highly critical of historians of the American working class, whom she has accused of being obsessed with the image of "of a single prototypical figure represented in the historical subject: white, Western man".[59]

Scott's theories about gender and history have been controversial.[60] Criticism has centred around her thesis about gendered language as a mean of social control has led her to neglect the experiences of ordinary people, that she has been far too dismissive of the work of social historians and she has "accepted Derridian and literary deconstructionism too uncritically".[61] The Australian historian Marnie Hughes-Warrington wrote that such criticism of Scott "...are not without foundation" and Scott has embraced the theories of French postmodernists like Derrida and Foucault too enthusiastically, writing: "For instance is it true that 'there is no social reality outside to or prior to language'? Is it possible to distinguish between the objects of literary and historical study?".[62]

In addition to her article "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis", Scott has published several books, which are widely reprinted and have been translated into several languages, including French, Japanese, Portuguese, and Korean. Her publications include The Glassworkers of Carmaux: French Craftsmen and Political Action in a Nineteenth Century City (Harvard University Press, 1974); Women, Work and Family (coauthored with Louise Tilly) (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978); Gender and the Politics of History (Columbia University Press, 1988); Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man (Harvard University Press, 1996); Parité: Sexual Difference and the Crisis of French Universalism (University of Chicago Press, 2005) and "The Politics of the Veil" (Princeton University Press, 2007). Scott has also edited numerous other books and published countless articles. She is also one of the founding editors of the journal History of the Present.

Awards and Honors

She has received various awards, accolades, and honorary degrees for her work, including the American Historical Association's Herbert Baxter Adams Prize, the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize, the Hans Sigrist Award for Outstanding Research in Gender Studies, and the Nancy Lyman Roelker Prize of the AHA for graduate mentorship. She holds honorary degrees from Brown University, SUNY Stony Brook, The University of Bergen (Norway), Harvard University,[63] and Princeton University.[64]

Students

Scott's influence within the Academy has been extensive. She has played an influential role in establishing the careers of a number of prominent academics, winning the prestigious Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award in 1995.[65] Among the students who completed their dissertations under Scott's supervision are Leora Auslander at the University of Chicago, Mary Louise Roberts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Dagmar Herzog at the City University of New York. The Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University annually awards the Joan Wallach Scott Prize for an outstanding honors thesis in Gender and Sexuality Studies.[66]

Family

Previously married to Donald Scott, a professor of American history at CUNY, she is the mother of A. O. Scott, a film critic for the New York Times, and the artist Lizzie Scott. She is the niece of actor Eli Wallach (her father was Eli's brother).[67]

Bibliography

Books

Edited books

Chapters in books

Articles

References

  1. ↑ "Scott, Joan Wallach". Library of Congress. Retrieved 13 August 2014. (Joan Wallach Scott) data sheet (b. Dec. 18, 1941)
  2. ↑ Robert A. Schneider, American Historical Association, December 2008.
  3. ↑ Bioraphical note, "Princeton awards six honorary degrees", June 5, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Scott, Joan Wallach (1941–) - French Social History, History of Gender".
  5. ↑ Jennifer Scanlon, Shaaron Cosner, American Women Historians, 1700s-1990s: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press, 1996, p. 201.
  6. ↑ "Sam Wallach (1909 - 2001)". Dreamers & Fighters.
  7. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 276.
  8. ↑ "Joan Wallach Scott | School of Social Science". www.sss.ias.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-09.
  9. ↑ History of the Present.
  10. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 276.
  11. ↑ Joan Wallach Scott on Academic Freedom.
  12. ↑ "The Politics of Academic Freedom is the Subject of Joan Wallach Scott's Lecture at the Institute for Advanced Study", Institute for Advanced Study, March 11, 2011.
  13. ↑ "Joan W. Scott", Stanford Presidential Lectures in the Humanities and Arts.
  14. ↑ Harvard Honorary Degree Profile of Joan Wallach Scott.
  15. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 277.
  16. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 277.
  17. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 277.
  18. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 277.
  19. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 277.
  20. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 pages 277-278.
  21. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 278.
  22. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 278.
  23. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 278.
  24. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 278.
  25. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 278.
  26. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 278.
  27. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 278.
  28. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 278.
  29. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  30. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  31. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  32. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  33. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  34. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  35. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  36. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  37. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  38. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 279.
  39. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  40. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  41. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  42. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  43. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  44. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  45. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  46. ↑ Wallach Scott, Joan "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis" pages 1053-1075 from American Historical Review Volume 91, Issue # 5, December 1986, page 1072.
  47. ↑ Wallach Scott, Joan "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis" pages 1053-1075 from American Historical Review Volume 91, Issue # 5, December 1986, page 1072.
  48. ↑ Wallach Scott, Joan "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis" pages 1053-1075 from American Historical Review Volume 91, Issue # 5, December 1986, page 1072.
  49. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  50. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  51. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 280.
  52. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  53. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  54. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  55. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  56. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  57. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  58. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  59. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  60. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  61. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 page 281.
  62. ↑ Hughes-Warrington, Marnie Fifty Key Thinkers On History, London: Routledge, 2000 pages 281-282.
  63. ↑ Honorary Degree Recipients 2007.
  64. ↑ "Honorary Degrees Awarded by Princeton".
  65. ↑ Past Recipients - Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award.
  66. ↑ Joan Wallach Scott Prize.
  67. ↑ "Eli Wallach, BA '36", Texas Alcalde, March/April 2000, p. 28.

External links

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