Writing Homework Help

How did gender constructs influence the social, economic, political, legal, religious, or cultural history of a specific society? Choose a specific time period and location as the context for explaining the significance of using gender as a category of historical analysis.

Examples:

• How did women and men exercise agency in determining the course of their lives and the lives of their families and communities? How did they respond to, conform to, or challenge gendered ideals about comportment? Within what particular historical context(s)? With what effect or significance?
• What is the relationship between ideal and practice? Did women’s and men’s daily activities correspond to the purposes and principles that emerge from the record of elite male intentions as found in prescriptive sources (e.g., law codes, religious texts, conduct books)? Are people more than just passive players in seemingly elite, male-dominated strategies?
• How do prescriptive dictates intersect with class? Are gender identities and roles constant across class and race lines? Why or why not?
• How does gender intersect with political power? What constitutes political power? Can it be understood and exercised in multiple ways? By whom? For what purposes? With what results?
• How do religious or moralistic precepts affect gender roles, identities, and expectations? With what broader significance?
• How is “appropriate” sexuality defined? By whom? For what purposes? With what effect? Are definitions of proper sexual comportment gender neutral? Are they class neutral? Are they race neutral? Why or why not?
• How were gender roles and relationships impacted by the experience of colonialism, anticolonialism, or decolonization? How were relationships of power defined according to ideas about gender? How did challenges to colonial or imperial power structures relate to ideas about gender? How does postcolonial theory intersect with gender analysis?

The Final Research Paper

• Must be seven to ten double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style or Chicago Manual of Style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center (Links to an external site.) or Chicago Manual of Style, respectively.
• Must include an introductory paragraph with a succinct analytic thesis statement. If you need assistance in developing your thesis, please visit the Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.) page provided by the Ashford Writing Center and/or the Writing a Thesis and Making an Argument (Links to an external site.) resource from the University of Iowa.
• Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.
• Must address contemporary discussions among historians (historiography) regarding the selected topic.
• Must end with a formal conclusion that reaffirms (but does not merely repeat) the key main points and the thesis.
• Must use at least five scholarly secondary sources in addition to the course text and two primary sources. Students are encouraged to research scholarly articles using the Ashford University Library (e.g., through the JSTOR database) and scholarly books (e.g., through the ebrary database), in accordance with university policy on acceptable source use.
  • The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
  • The Course Bibliography, located in the Course Home section in the left-hand navigation, provides numerous titles available via the Ashford University Library relevant to the subjects and issues relevant to this course. Students are encouraged to utilize books and chapters in books assembled in this resource.
  • Many links to relevant primary sources can be found in the Ashford University Library Primary Source Materials for History.
• Must incorporate attention to instructor critique or comments received in prior feedback on the topic.
• Must document all sources either in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center or according the Chicago Manual of Style.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to either APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center or according to the Chicago Manual of Style.