Communism and Gender in the U nited S tates

Abstract

This entry examines the context of the United States after World War II as a case study for understanding how the discursive constructions of gender and political systems can be mutually constitutive. The discourse surrounding communism as a looming and insidious threat was not only mirrored by but informed by postwar handwringing about the state of American masculinity and the fear of homosexuality. This entry looks to popular and influential texts of the postwar era that shaped the conversations around political and gendered subjectivity, including Arthur Schlessinger's “The Vital Center” and the Kinsey Report, and traces how popular suspicion surrounding gender expression and communism grew as “commonsense” knowledge of normative gender and sexuality was undermined.