Educational Activism: Creating an AP U.S. Women’s History Course
We represent a large group of teachers and students working together to lead a national campaign to create an advanced placement (AP) course on women: an AP U.S. women’s history course known as “WAPUSH.” After gathering thousands of signatures on a petition, we successfully secured widespread public support as well as encouragement from executives at the College Board to work towards the pilot for this course, which would be the first national course on women’s history. Our campaign comes at an historic moment in our country’s history with an increased amount of attention on women in politics, in STEM, and in athletics. It also comes at a time where states are increasingly banning topics related to sex and/or gender in K12 classrooms.
With a combined forty years of teaching experience, we decided to launch a national campaign consisting of high school teachers, students and scholars for the creation of the first stand alone women’s history course. The College Board, which runs the SAT as well as the AP program, is the institution most well suited to host a national course on women’s history because we believe it should take a public stand to say women’s issues are worthy of college level study in high school. We have created a detailed framework for the course, which would provide educators with a safe way to accurately cover a comprehensive story on a wide range of topics related to women’s history.
We believe the creation of an AP U.S. Women’s History course is essential because it is an opportunity for girls to see themselves in the historical narrative. Access to a comprehensive understanding of women’s history can act as an empowering agent that will allow the youth of America to enter positions of power knowing their worth and potential impact. We know first-hand that students only truly learn history when they see themselves in the narrative. It is essential students learn how women have always been historically important to society and how their stories deserve to be shared.
In our course proposal, we suggest the following themes: women’s political agency, intersectionality, women’s labor, industry and technology, settler colonialism, women in American culture, women in the world and violence against women, the pacifist movement and women in war. Throughout, our course demonstrates to students that women have utilized a variety of strategies to enact agency and challenge the patriarchy throughout American history. It also exposes students to the fact that women have not had a monolithic experience; their lives have been directly impacted by intersecting identities including race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, religion, region and age. In this course, students would also learn how race and gender are social constructs that have been closely tied to women’s political and social development. Because the course begins in the pre-Columbian era, it would teach students the numerous ways Indigenous women had agency in the Americas before colonization and how European colonization as well as the expansion of coverture led to a direct decline of women’s rights in North America.
Importantly, our course proposal would be one of the only AP courses to tell a comprehensive story about the ways in which state and private violence have impacted women. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), high school students have an increased awareness about restrictions on women’s rights and the state’s role in regulating pregnancy, birth control, and IVF. These topics are insufficiently covered in existing AP courses. For example, the Comstock Law was passed in the 19th Century and is still on the books and the government could potentially use this law to ban birth control and abortion pills sent in the mail. This story is not explicitly included in the AP U.S. history course. If educators teach Comstock at all, it is likely to be included in the section on “Politics of the Gilded Age,” topic 6.13 in the Course and Exam Description published by the College Board. Teaching the history of the Comstock Laws would serve as a developmentally appropriate way for teachers to discuss with their students about state regulation of women’s bodies, legislative campaigns to regulate morality and the many different ways women have navigated pregnancy, childbirth, and abortion care as well as the concept of reproductive liberty so brilliantly explained by legal scholar Dorothy Roberts.
It is also notable that the women’s suffrage movement, an over seventy-year innovative women-led political struggle, is understudied in the current AP U.S. History course and often covered briefly under topic 6.11, “Reform in the Gilded Age.” We know there is simply not enough time for teachers to cover these important topics unless they are directly specified in the Course and Exam Description (CED) book. The political strategies used to work towards the passage of the women’s suffrage movement are worthy of serious analysis in the high school classroom. Suffrage leaders and organizations are covered extensively in our course proposal, which is currently under peer review by women’s history scholars and AP history teachers.
Religious topics are also sorely lacking in current course offerings available to high school students. Women and religion are deeply intertwined in American politics, society, and culture, shaping both the roles women play and the values that influence public and private life. For example, the debate over female ordination in the Catholic Church highlights the complex intersection of gender and religion, revealing how women’s roles within religious institutions influence broader political, societal, and cultural dynamics in America. Using this debate as a case study, our course proposal aims to address ongoing discrimination against women that remains overlooked in current AP curricula. This includes examining the political activism of Catholic Church leaders opposing women’s ordination, abortion, and expanded access to birth control, as well as the particular discrimination faced by Muslim women, especially in the post-9/11 context. Students who take AP U.S. Women’s History would also learn how in the mid-1970s, there was an organization called Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights and a pro-choice faith based organization, Catholics for a Free Choice, belonged to this organization. Through their study of this story, students would also learn a more complete story about notable civil rights activist Dorothy Height, who was the legendary President of National Council of Negro Women, and how she was part of this religious coalition. And since our course proposal approaches these topics using a variety of intersectional viewpoints, students would learn how in August 1974, Gerald Ford wrote to the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee in Defense of Life stating he believed the Constitution should be changed to add a Human Life Amendment. Learning in depth about these stories would provide students the opportunity to be exposed to a much broader perspective regarding women and religion.
To understand the need for a national course on women, it is helpful to hear from high school students themselves. According to high schooler Clara Robinson, a national leader of the WAPUSH campaign,
Studying women’s history is especially important to me because the topics are, somewhat unfortunately, still very relevant today. I became particularly interested in the state of women’s bodily rights following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. I’ve thus decided to pursue women’s health research through a biomedical engineering major in college. I’ve chosen to study women’s health research because I want to create positive advancements in a field where misdiagnosis, mistreatment, and lack of research are prevalent both throughout history and today. Learning about the history of women’s health through the WAPUSH curriculum has allowed me to become a more informed scientist by gaining a greater perspective of how the government’s regulation of women’s bodies affects my future career as a bioengineer. With the recent election results giving women across the U.S. heightened feelings of fear, worry, and disappointment, I feel even more certain that an AP U.S. women’s history course is an essential addition to the high school curriculum.
The WAPUSH course proposal ends with an emphasis on the modern-day women’s movement and the numerous transnational connections amongst a variety of women’s groups that have intensified through the expansion of technology, globalization, increased cultural exchanges and international organizations. One of the specific stories in our proposed final unit is the ongoing campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This Amendment was originally written in 1923 and many organizations, including the American Bar Association, argue it should have been ratified because it has met all of the constitutional requirements. Former President Joe Biden agreed with the ABA and issued a public statement confirming the ERA should be considered the 28th Amendment. Offering students the opportunity to learn about the century-long struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment would give girls and boys the understanding that the right to vote is not the only amendment that applies to women. In addition, many of the young women at the forefront of the modern day struggle for the ERA have been women of color so by including this story we hope to offer students a broader understanding of intersectional political work.
Students graduating in high schools today will be entering into the workforce in an increasingly interconnected society, so they should study the work of transnational women’s activists of the past to learn how those lessons could be applied to their future. The creation of an AP U.S. Women’s History course is a great first step. We invite you all to learn more about the WAPUSH campaign at teachwapush.org.
Featured image caption: Agricultural workers in Edinburg, Texas in 1939. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
Serene Williams earned her B.A. degree from Purdue University and her M.A. from San Francisco State University, both in political science. For 20 years she has taught courses at the high school and collegiate levels. Serene teaches numerous AP courses and has written curriculum for many women’s history courses. She frequently presents about teaching intersectional feminist political history at national conferences. Serene is also an independent historian who publishes about the political history of women. She volunteers as a Wikipedian and is currently working on a campaign to improve articles about the Equal Rights Amendment.
Kristen Kelly has a M.A. in Cultural Historical Religion from the Graduate Theological Union-Berkeley and teaches all high school levels. She created a popular “Gender & Sexuality in the Bible” course and co-taught the interdisciplinary Women’s Studies courses as well as AP Government & Politics courses with Serene. Kristen loves collaborating with scholars and teachers and has presented at The National Women’s Studies Association Conference, The National Council for Social Studies, & The Berkshire Conference of Women’s Historians. Kristen loves teaching religion and history from an intersectional lens, focusing especially on gender and sexuality issues.
At the time of writing this essay, Clara was a student in an AP History course.
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