Wild Women, Part 1
Saddle up, dear reader, as we deconstruct the "Wild West." Just call me Kaye-lamity Jane (sorry not sorry) ...
Hello and happy Thursday to you!
Since October, I’ve been working with the fabulous Access Project (please show them some love) and teaching some A-Level history. It’s so good to be working with young people again and getting a chance to really reflect on my practice.
So, let’s get into it.
You don’t need me to tell you that, by and large, the A-Level specifications (whichever you end up teaching) are pretty sparse when it comes to women’s history. I’m not making this point to be call anyone out or to denigrate any particular board. You and I know that this is symptomatic of A) a wider social problem in which the experiences and actions of men are prioritised over those of women and B) the broader problem of female invisibility in the past. Remember: it's not that women weren’t there or weren’t active participants in either day-to-day life or big events, but that their experiences were usually not considered worthy for inclusion in the records.
Etc, etc, etc …
We’ve said this a zillion times before. You really don’t need me to go into any depth here.
Anyway, with two of my groups, I’m teaching U.S. history after the end of the Civil War in 1865. You can’t talk about this period without referencing Westward Expansion, so that’s where we’ve focused our attention over the past couple of weeks. And this is something that we – all of us – need to talk more about. Even if you might think, “Well, I’m British, I don’t really see how this relates to me.” BUT – and it’s a big ‘un - Trust me when I say that it does. Oh, it really does.
“The Wild West.”
I’m not the first person to say this but it needs saying again …
There’s this persistent and extremely problematic view that runs through this “American West/Westward Expansion” content and that is not being challenged anywhere near enough. (I suspect the reason is because it didn’t happen here and so there’s this idea that it’s not really our problem.
Anyway, the idea is that the West of what would eventually become the U.S. we know today was this ‘vast and untamed wilderness’ that … well … needed taming. By white people. Because only white people could do it.
Forgetting, of course, that this ‘vast, untamed wilderness’ was 100% already taken and had been for thousands of years. Neither was it untamed, nor wild.
I don’t want to understate the consequences of this view for Indigenous Americans because there have been many and continue to be many. Just think about reservations, for example, and how they continue to impact communities today.
I also want to draw attention to this time and place because it really solidified so many facets of traditional white masculinity. And if you think that particular brand of masculinity just applies to the U.S., let’s not forget that white Europeans were, around the same time, “scrambling” for Africa – as disgusting as that phrase is.
What I’m talking about is this idea of going forth and conquering, of man as a self-sufficient, resource-driven leader of destiny. Just look at this painting from the late 19th century that shows a couple of cowboys in the U.S. It’s called Buccaroos and was painted by Charles Marion Russell. Is it just me or can you smell the testosterone from here:
As an aside, I gave this image to my groups to analyse as part of my efforts to get them thinking critically about this idea of the “Wild West.” Their responses were just fabulous.
Again, I’m not here to poke fun or to criticise men and certain types of masculinity. Rather, it’s about drawing attention to that connection between past and present. Presenting these ideas to anyone, particularly young people, as somehow separate from or irrelevant to contemporary life is not only an intellectual crime (surely a capital offence??) but it’s massively irresponsible.
“Wild Women.”
Now, let’s switch focus to the other 50%.
As I said earlier, women are pretty much non-existent in this topic, and that needs to be addressed so that it can change.
One of the amazing things about looking specifically at women in the context of Westward Expansion is that you can ask entirely new questions. (And I’m 100% here for that. If we’re ever going to truly integrate women into history – any history - we need to accept that it will mean throwing out old paradigms and analytical models).
Anyway, one of the big debates around this topic, for example, is how did women fit into this macho wilderness. Did the West afford women certain social, economic or other opportunities that were not available to them in the eastern states?
Straightaway, the opportunity for richness is apparent. Let me show you what I mean with this quote from historian, Virginia Scharff:
“Let’s begin with one of those invisible, obvious facts of history: Women had been living in what became “the West” centuries before anyone arrived from “back East.” We have plenty of evidence of the ways they claimed homes and made communities, from the remnants of the Cahokia Mounds to the majestic ruins of Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon, where archaeologist Patricia Crown has found evidence of chocolate and macaws from the 12th century. With the advent of European contact, Spanish and Mexican and Indigenous women lived in—and came from—all directions.”
In other words, we can break down “women” as a group and just look at the richness that comes through. What Westward Expansion meant for them would have been very different to white women who came in their droves from the East.
Scharff goes on to talk about this contrast:
“(The recent immigrants who came from the eastern U.S. and from across the globe, particularly in the 19th century). In the years after the Civil War, those women found plenty of opportunities in the West that were not available in the East: everything from the right to vote to equal pay for women teachers to more liberal divorce laws. Wyoming Territory passed a series of such laws in 1869, partly in an effort to attract more white settlement, which, of course, was also intended to unsettle indigenous people. The West was the first home of women’s suffrage in the U.S., with nearly every western state or territory enfranchising women long before women won the right to vote in eastern states.”
And we could go on to talk about many more groups of women who also experienced expansion in myriad ways. Whichever group we’re talking about, those stories are not always easy to read (or even easy to find), but we need to reconstruct expansion authentically. Remember: Authenticity is not romantic nor is it one-sided.
I hope you’ll stick with me next week as we dive a bit deeper into this topic. I’m learning so much as I think about how best to support my students in deconstructing it, and I can’t wait to share more with you.
Until next time,
Kaye x
P.S. If there’s a historical concept that’s been niggling away at you and you’d like me to deconstruct it, just hit reply. Let’s see what we can do.
I was being ironic with the sex work comment...I hope that's apparent!!
So easy to be misconstrued!