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gender theory
deborah gerish
Gender theory explores ways in which humans describe and socially
organize sexual difference. All societies engage in this process, thereby
establishing definitions of normality and deviance. In many instances, the
process also rests on perceived relationships between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’,
or the arrangements people have crafted to control and counteract the
natural world, with culture seen as both superior and masculine. Almost
universally, these social organizations and norms have led to patriarchal
systems that favour males over females. Political institutions, law and
language inscribe and enforce patriarchy.
Two examples of this process became the cornerstones for later
developments in medieval Europe. First, the creation account in Genesis
explained male superiority by deriving (at least in English translation) the
term ‘woman’ from the word ‘man’. Then, in the story of the Fall, Yahweh
reinforced Adam’s dominance when punishing Eve. Generations of Jews
and Christians could look back to these texts as they established customs,
formed states, developed theology and wrote laws. Second, in fourthcentury Athens, Aristotle turned his observations about sexual differences
into theories wherein females were defective males, lacking physical and
mental characteristics that defined the free male citizen. Once European
scholars rediscovered Aristotle’s works in the mid-twelfth century, they
had classical proof to further support what they found in the Bible,
which they had already incorporated into their society. Language, social
arrangements, theology and philosophy formed a positive feedback loop
that touched every facet of human existence. Thus gender studies can
examine any and all areas of medieval society – from sexuality, marriage
and childrearing to economic, legal, political and military arrangements.
While historians of the crusades have explored all these areas, not many
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H. J. Nicholson (ed.), Palgrave Advances in the Crusades
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2005
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have incorporated gender theory into their work. The field is wide open
for ground-breaking research that will also appeal to scholars in other
disciplines as well as to medievalists.
Gender theory has its roots in women’s history, itself a product of
women’s movements since the nineteenth century. Nineteenth- and
twentieth-century activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton wanted to draw upon examples from the past, but they found
little historical research on women to support their liberal proposals. They
quickly filled the gap by producing several histories of women; the earliest
study of women in crusading, by Celestia Bloss, dates from this period.1
When feminism resurfaced in the 1960s, a new generation of liberals rediscovered earlier women’s histories and expanded upon them. Because these
scholars aimed at raising consciousness and came from various disciplines,
their historical treatment of women’s issues sometimes lacked sophistication. Such researchers wanted to write women back into history, in what
was often called ‘herstory’, and these studies typically celebrated extraordinary women who operated within existing social arrangements.
Not all feminists were liberals, however, and the liberal approach did
not sit well with radical and Marxist/socialist feminists, who felt that
because various social arrangements caused sexism, women’s conditions
could not improve until these systems were dismantled. Again, historical
studies of women served the agendas of activists.
Radical feminists distinguished between sex and gender in their work
– a development that has shaped nearly all studies of women since. Sex
was determined biologically, delineating someone as male or female,
but societies constructed masculine and feminine gender roles. This
important theoretical breakthrough was soon sidetracked into discussions
of men’s and women’s essential natures, or the attributes rooted in
biology. Questions like ‘Are women naturally more nurturing than
men?’ and ‘Are men naturally more aggressive than women?’ interested
radical and psychoanalytical feminists, but often led to dead ends in
historiography. Essentialist assumptions in historical studies now invite
scorn, no matter what else the researcher does well. Yet the sex/gender
distinction has proved extremely valuable for historians, since it caused
them to question fundamental assumptions about sex differences and
simultaneously allowed for the influence of societal components. The
realization that ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ might mean different things
in different times and places opened a floodgate for anthropologists,
sociologists and historians, who could now see societies building and
then reinforcing patriarchal systems. Scholars also realized that gender
roles could change over an individual’s lifetime, and that a person’s