Gendering the Nation Online Museum Exhibit

While at first they may seem that they don’t fit, together each of these topics represents how gender is influenced by and influences social institutions. Sexuality, gender performance and medical schools and practices are all explored through artifacts and images of these exhibits. Within the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, women were institutionalized due to their opinions and disobedience of not conforming to the idea of an “ideal women”, for behaving in ways that the male society did not agree with. “Women in Asylums” aims to bring light to the social and medical treatments of these women, and their individual and collective experiences.When it came to higher education, women had to negotiate their place in this male dominated space. “Skirts in Schools” focussed on the women of Queen’s University and their experiences with admission, student life, and residence. The opposition they faced from male students and the moral regulations placed on them in a private yet public sphere on campus made their experiences distinctly different from men. “Prostitution and the Nation” demonstrates how the American military used prostitution as a gateway to discussion of venereal disease in order to enforce sexual health of soldiers and the health of the nation. The Japanese military used forced prostitution to spread their Empire and control foreign populations, tying prostitution to the nation. Straying from the topic of women’s history, “The All-American Boy” will look at masculinity and nation within the boy scouts of America. This exhibit examines how the BSA shaped active citizens among young American boys in the first half of the twentieth century. These exhibits demonstrate the place of gender in everyday life and society’s response. Though 

diverse topics, they are connected by their relationship to gender and nation.