Women Have Always Worked

About this XSeries

Without women’s history we have only a partial and incomplete knowledge of our past. The Women Have Always Worked four-part series will explore women’s participation in the economy, politics, and social life of the nation, from Colonial America to the present day. We will challenge old truisms about the past and learn to view American history from a new and rich historical perspective. These four MOOCs investigate the practice of women’s history; they explore how and why we write women’s history, and why it is important that we do so.

Together we will learn how women began to ask for equality and what the word equality meant and still means for different women. But we'll also ask you to consider a more difficult set of questions that revolve around whether equality for some women might limit the freedom of others. Will women demand benefits for themselves that provide a few with equality with men while fomenting inequality with each other? What about sisterhood? Will some of us move forward while others are left behind? These are questions that haunt us today.

What you'll learn

• How women’s participation in, exclusion from, and impact on American economic, political, and social life have altered American history
• How key figures and events have challenged the role of women in the home and workplace
• How ideas, such as democracy, citizenship, liberty, patriotism, and equality have differently shaped the lives of women and men
• How women of different races and classes have experienced work, both inside and outside the home
• How historians of women and gender study America’s past, including hands-on opportunities to practice analyzing primary sources from the present and the past
• How women’s history has developed and changed over time

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