Introduction: A Special Issue on Women and Gender

• Published in: American Jewish history 2020-04, Vol.104 (2), p.163-166
• Main Authors: Fermaglich, Kirsten, Mendelsohn, Adam, Soyer, Daniel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 20th century; Accountability; Activists; Anthony, Susan B (1820-1906); Archives & records; Demonstrations & protests; Gender; Historians; Jewish Americans; Jewish people; Judaic studies; Police brutality; Political activism; Politics; Race; Racism; Sexual harassment; Sociology; Womens health; Womens suffrage
• ISSN: 0164-0178; 1086-3141; 1086-3141
• DOI: 10.1353/ajh.2020.0016

Beginning with the leaked "Hollywood Access" tapes during the campaign of 2016, continuing with the popularization of the #MeToo movement in 2017 and then the dramatic Senate hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, stories of sexual harassment and assault on women in places both privileged and marginalized have become part of the landscape of national media and politics. [...]for this special issue, we solicited two different special features. When we read the piece two years ago, we were struck by these historians' approach to the contemporary political problem of sexual harassment in the workplace with an historical analysis of American Jewish communal institutions, their use of social science, and their relationship with social scientists. [...]we wanted American Jewish History to contribute to discussions of #MeToo by considering systemic gender inequality in the American Jewish community not merely as a political or sociological problem, but as an historical problem, one shaped by the context of a past that can be excavated and analyzed.