2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This roundtable brings together scholars and teachers to discuss the latest research and materials relating to the struggle for women's suffrage  - globally, and in the United States. The women's suffrage movement is included in the national curriculum in Social Studies Education both in the US and in most European countries. However, the study of women's suffrage is usually relegated to a paragraph in a textbook, with just one or two leaders mentioned and one question on a standardized test. Issues of women's participation in suffrage struggle, class, race, empire, women of color in particular  participating in suffrage and electoral politics, various strategies for winning the vote, suffragists use of militancy, spectacle, theater will be addressed in this roundtable. Finally the roundtable will look at the challenges teachers face when trying to bring gender into the Social Studies curriculum (especially in the era of statndardized testing and Common Core) as well as the various ways  they bring the complexity and excitement of women's suffrage and other feminist movements to life in the K -12 classroom.