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Kwolek-Folland, Angel.  "Gender as a Category of Analysis in Vernacular Architecture Studies." Gender, Class, and Shelter: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, V. E. Cromley and C. Hudgins, eds., Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995. 3-25.

This essay is a call to action in our scholarship, for it seriously considers gender as an important category in material culture study. Kwolek-Folland argues that "we have the methods [to employ a gendered reading]…what is needed is the sense that gender matters…that it can reveal important aspects of the history of the built environment that otherwise would go unexplored" [8].  She proposes that attention to gender helps our work become more comprehensive (by including material culture and ephemera), accountable to varied perceptions of a place, understood in a contemporary context and language, and applicable to the larger scene of scholarship.  The article is short, but to the point and comprehensive.  It provides clear definitions and useful examples of how some existing scholarship might have looked had it considered gender.  Kwolek-Folland defines gender as a system based in a historical continuum that acts on four levels: structural (e.g. patriarchy); chronological (i.e. it has a history), fragmented (i.e. it has multiple layers of experience), and experiential (i.e. it is personal and unique).  [S. Dangelas.]