HIS 72B Short Essay

Topic : Experiences of Intersex Individuals, Examples

• Hopkins Protocol

• Two-sex body Model

• Lydia Otero

Topic : Experiences of Intersex Individuals, Thesis/Main Argument

Experiences of intersex individuals revealed how Cold War America enforced, rigid binary gender norms through medicine, social expectations and heteronormative family ideas

Topic : Experiences of Intersex Indivuals, Context/Topic Sentence

During the Cold War, American society connected traditional gender roles and heterosexual nuclear families to morality, stability, and national identity. People who challenged binary gender expectations were often viewed as threats to social order.

Hopkins Protocols

• John Hopkins Researchers developed protocols for intersex children

• Doctors assigned children as male or female early in life

• Gender was viewed as a learned social role rather than purely biological

• Believed children could be raised into “Appropriate” gender identity

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• Surgeries preformed on infants/children

• Bodies altered to fit binary expectation

• “gender role” considered socially learned

• Parents encouraged to raise children accountable to strict gender norms

Medial experts tried to fit intersex people into strict female/male gender categories

Two - Sex Body Model

Society believed :

• Biological sex = strictly male/female

• gender = man/women

• sexuality = heterosexual marriage

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• No space for ambiguity

• Heteronormativity tied to social stability

• Binary treated as “natural”

Explains why intersex individuals were pressured to conform

Lydia Otero

• Otero’s memoir shows the pressures faced by gender-nonconforming individuals in Cold War America.

SPECIFIC DETIALS :

• pressure to fit feminine expectations

• conflict with traditional gender roles

• queer identity marginalized

• Chicana identity + sexuality intersected

Demonstrates real-life effects of rigid gender norms.

Topic : Reproductive Rights & Reproductive Justice, Examples

• No mas Bebes

• Roe v. Wade (1973)

• Committee to End Sterilization Abuse

Topic : Reproductive Rights & Reproductive Justice, Thesis/Main Argument

Struggles over reproductive justice revealed how race, gender, and class shaped women’s bodily autonomy, healthcare access, and reproductive freedom.

Topic : Reproductive Rights & Reproductive Justice, Context/Topic Sentence

During the women’s liberation movement, feminists increasingly challenged restrictions on reproductive freedom while exposing racial and economic inequalities within healthcare systems.

No Más Bebés

• Documentary about forced sterilizations of Mexican American women in Los Angeles during the 1960s–70s.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• women sterilized during childbirth

• many signed forms while in labor

• language barriers prevented informed consent

• doctors believed poor Latina women had “too many children”

• women sued Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center

Shows how racism and sexism shaped reproductive healthcare.

Roe v. Wade (1973)

• Supreme Court legalized abortion nationwide.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• based on 14th Amendment right to privacy

• major feminist legal victory

• expanded reproductive rights nationally

Represents liberal feminist focus on legal equality and bodily autonomy.

Committee to End Sterilization Abuse

• Activist organization challenging forced sterilization.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• fought sterilization abuse targeting women of color

• demanded informed consent protections

• linked reproductive rights to racial justice

Demonstrates intersectional feminism.

Topic : Sexual Harassment & Gender-based violence, Examples

• Anita Hill

• Joan Little

• Recy Taylor

Topic : Sexual Harassment & Gender-based violence, Thesis/Main Argument

Women challenged sexual harassment and gender-based violence by publicly exposing abuse, organizing politically, and demanding institutional change.

Topic : Sexual Harassment & Gender-based violence, Context/Topic Sentence

By the late twentieth century, feminist activists increasingly argued that violence and harassment against women were political issues connected to sexism and inequality.

Anita Hill

• Anita Hill testified during Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• accused Thomas of workplace sexual harassment

• testified before an all-male Senate committee

• received national media attention

• many women identified with her experiences

Brought workplace sexual harassment into mainstream national politics.

Joan Little

Black woman jailed after killing a white prison guard who sexually assaulted her.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• argued self-defense against rape

• major feminist and civil rights case

• highlighted race + gender inequality in legal system

Connected sexual violence to racism and state power.

Recy Taylor

Black woman abducted and assaulted by white men in Alabama in 1944.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• Rosa Parks helped investigate case

• Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor organized activism

• attackers never convicted

Demonstrates early Black women’s anti-violence activism before mainstream civil rights movement.

Maternalism & Gender-Based Politics, Examples

• Kitchen Debate

• Betty Friedman /Feminine Mystique

• Phyllis Schlafy & STOP ERA

Maternalism & Gender-Based Politics, Thesis/Main Argument

Maternalism shaped both conservative and progressive politics by connecting motherhood and family life to morality, citizenship, and national identity.

Maternalism & Gender-Based Politics, Context/Topic Sentence

During the Cold War and conservative resurgence of the 1970s–1990s, ideas about motherhood and the nuclear family became central to American political culture.

Kitchen Debate

• 1959 debate between Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev at an American kitchen exhibit in Moscow.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• suburban kitchen symbolized American superiority

• women portrayed as homemakers/consumers

• linked capitalism to domestic comfort

• reinforced traditional family roles

Shows how Cold War politics relied on gender and domesticity.

Betty Friedan / Feminine Mystique

• Criticized suburban domestic expectations.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• “problem that has no name”

• women isolated in suburban homes

• dissatisfaction despite economic comfort

Shows feminist resistance to domestic ideology.

Phyllis Schlafly & STOP ERA

• Conservative women opposed feminist reforms.

SPECIFIC DETAILS :

• defended traditional motherhood/family roles

• opposed Equal Rights Amendment

• major New Right organizer

Demonstrates conservative women’s activism.