Term
"Being the Bridge"
Kimberly Springer
p. 6-11 |
|
Definition
| Springer, a black woman in a mainly white context, served as a "bridge between cultures, races, and theories." Advocated black feminism and believed study of gender must involve activism in order to produce social change. |
|
|
Term
"White privilege and Male privilege"
Peggy McIntosh
p. 11-17 |
|
Definition
Argues that like male privilege, white women has privileges every day that they take for granted due to their dominant social status. By documenting the benefits in her own life as a white woman she shows racist beliefs cannot change through individual beliefs solely, but through institutions.
How do other factors besides race and gender affect inequality? |
|
|
Term
"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House"
Audre Lorde
p. 22-23 |
|
Definition
| Argues that narrowing defining feminist and women's studies to a single category without taking into consideration their vast differences from class, race, to sexuality is undermining the effectiveness of its attempts. Using these "tools" of difference will help dismantle the patriarchal oppression of women. |
|
|
Term
"The Mountain"
Eli Clare
p. 24-29 |
|
Definition
The mountain is a metaphor for the way Americans emphasize personal struggle and triumph, especially for disabled people who have "overcome" them. Impairment means a physical defect while disability refers to the alienation from mainstream society due to an impairment. Difference is not the problem, inequality due to difference is.
How do place, community, and culture affect your own sense of self and your body? |
|
|
Term
"'Night to His Day': The Social Construction of Gender"
Judith Lorber
p. 33-49 |
|
Definition
| Dines gender as a social institution (social constructionist view) that creates the gender binary between men and women - although some cultures have more. People "do gender" by abiding by social expectation and rituals (change over time and in cultures). Transvestites dress opposite gender while transsexuals have physical sex-change operations; both construct a gender in order to feel "normal" or fit in. Lorber discusses the components, creation, and how it remains to control our lives. |
|
|
Term
"The Medical Construction of Gender"
Suzanne Kessler
p. 49-63 |
|
Definition
| Kessler argues that the medical world has a large impact on the social construction of gender. Intersexed babies are assigned male or female through corrective surgery, while parents are encouraged to socialize them according to that gender. There are many ethical issues and problems intersex children must deal with as they grow. |
|
|
Term
"Transgender Feminism"
Susan Stryker
p. 63 - 69 |
|
Definition
| "Transgender phenomena" is "anything that disrupts or denaturalizes normative gender" exposing the processes that make gender seem normal. Discusses how our bodies are used to justify inequality and why it should be included in gender studies. |
|
|
Term
"Theorizing Difference From Multicultural Feminism"
Maxine Baca Zinn & Bonnie Thornton Dill
p. 70-75 |
|
Definition
| Differences like race, class and gender are related to one another and key to understanding gender (intersectionality). As they intersect they create a system of hierarchy with oppression and opportunity. |
|
|
Term
"Gender in the Borderlands"
Denise Segura & Patricia Zavella
p. 75-86 |
|
Definition
| People who overlap their borders cannot identify with the mainstream and expand our view of intersectionality. Can be physical border or symbolic and deals with identity: Mex - US border or gay and straight cultures. Borderlands can be places to bring people together or exploitation. |
|
|
Term
"Masculinities and Globalization"
R. W. Connell
p. 87-98 |
|
Definition
| Relates to Segura and Zavella's argument that transnationalism and gender affect one another. Masculinity is defined differently according to place, culture, and time period; hegemonic masculinity = most desired/honored masc. in context. Globalization has created a World Gender Order (WGO): hegemonic masc. today is the transnational business masc. |
|
|
Term
"Sexing the Internet"
danah boyd
p. 108-115 |
|
Definition
| Sex is a marker of identity online; allows flexibility to define oneself (in utopian vision). However this function often alienates those who do not conform to gender labels, and by creating these personas we are still relying on stereotypes to understand one another. |
|
|
Term
"Feminist Consumerism and Fat Activism"
Josée Johnston & Judith Taylor
p. 115-128 |
|
Definition
Compare and contrast different approaches to feminist activism between Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty and the fat activist group PPPO. While Dove's international campaign challenged body size beauty it still reinforced beauty as central to women's identities and the positive feelings they should have about their bodies. PPPO's radical grass-root approach reached less people but celebrated resisted image as defining identity with angry feelings toward beauty culture.
Beauty = global business supporting social inequalities. |
|
|
Term
"Cosmetic Surgery: Paying for Your Beauty"
Debra Gimlin
p. 128-141 |
|
Definition
High rates in cosmetic surgeries are some of the consequences of the cultural messages sent to women. Risks and costs are criticized as well as the increasing pressure women feel to change themselves.
Pursuit of beauty has real costs. |
|
|
Term
"Hair Still Matters"
Ingrid Banks
p. 142-150 |
|
Definition
For African American women, hair has complex meaning. Their hairstyles make statements about gender, sexuality, and culture. Hair relates to global issues of beauty and body image because different cultural groups have different beauty ideals they feel the need to conform to.
Hierarchies of beauty/bodies based on race/ethnicity, class, age, size, ability, nation, etc. |
|
|
Term
"Hetero-Romantic Love and Heterosexiness in Children's G-Rated Films"
Karin Martin & Emily Kazyak
p. 153-164 |
|
Definition
| While claiming to be free of sexuality, children's films promote heterosexuality and heteronormativity - the assumption that everyone is heterosexual. It glorifies heterosexuality as magical and at the same time natural. . Girls begin to understand the importance of the male gaze and how to use their bodies to attract sexual attention. Boys ogle and objectify women's bodies in return allowing gender inequalities to be taught and persist. Racism-sexism-heterosexism: bodies of women of color are hypersexualized and seen as "exotic." Additionally, same-race couples reinforce gender norms and racism ideals |
|
|
Term
"Pretty Baby"
Catherine Newman
p. 165-167 |
|
Definition
| Narrowly gendered expectations for children stifle individual personalities and emotional development. Her son Ben loves pink, and while she accepts him, he is often gender misassigned. Newman questions gender roles and their functionality and defies gender socialization (school). |
|
|
Term
"'We Don't Sleep Around Like White Girls Do': Family, Culture, and Gender in Filipina American Lives"
Yen Le Espiritu
p. 178-192 |
|
Definition
| Gendered sex-norms in Filipina-Am families are a strategy used to resist oppression while limiting the autonomy of Filipina girls. By emphasizing the promiscuity of white girls Filipina families claim superiority and counter prominent stereotypes of Filipinas as prostitutes or submissive mail-order brides. Espiritu looks at the conception of "whiteness" rather than "others" and how it is perceived (accurate?). |
|
|
Term
"Doing Desire"
Deborah L. Tolman
p. 284-294 |
|
Definition
| Sexuality is simultaneously a source of oppression/danger AND means of expression and power. Women/girls often suppress their desires because of social stigmas, fear, and real danger: violence, homophobia, good-girl v. slut, STI's, pregnancy, disappointing parents, etc. There is a sexual double-standard where girls are the "gatekeepers" who must say no and boys always want sex. |
|
|
Term
"Shopping for Love"
Sophia DeMasi
p. 295-301 |
|
Definition
| Why have dating websites become more popular than ever? They offer an alternative way to seek partnership, but they also have downfalls: categorizes sexuality, desexualized (imp. part of relationships), promotes heteronormative ideals, etc. They making dating a shopping/consumer experience and promise fast success (what is success?). Promotes the trilogy of love: love, romance, monogamy. |
|
|
Term
"Is Hooking Up Bad For Young Women?"
Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Laura Hamilton & Paula England
p. 301-305 |
|
Definition
| Compares and contrasts hooking up and relationships - finding that both have pros and cons. College students today are not having more sex than previous generations, relationships are not disappearing, and their sexual interaction is not entirely new. Fundamental problem: continuing sexual double standard. |
|
|
Term
"Straight Girls Kissing"
Leila J. Rupp & Verta Taylor
p. 305 - 309 |
|
Definition
| Asks why girls kissing has become so popular in today's party scene: male attention or sexual fluidity? The hook-up culture provides an atmosphere for girls to experiment with their sexuality ("heteroflexibility") in a predominantly heterosexual culture - but the same is not true for men (in public spaces). |
|
|
Term
"Doing Gender, Doing Heteronormativity"
Kristen Schilt & Laurel Westbrook
p. 309-322 |
|
Definition
Examines the different ways in which nontransgender ("cisgender") people react to transgender people in public and private spaces. What determines a "real" man or woman is linked to heterosexual hegemony - aka gender roles. Men are more likely to accept transmen in the workplace than women because of the possibility of a heterosexual relationship. However, men are more likely to react violently to transwomen - especially in intimate encounters.
Transphobia = homophobia and desire to perpetuate gender binary system. |
|
|
Term
"Waking Sleeping Beauty"
Carolyn Herbst Lewis
p. 244-257 |
|
Definition
| Cold war physicians and politicians feared rising divorce rate and "sexual chaos" of promiscuity and homosexuality. In an attempt to fix the problem, doctors encouraged healthy heterosexual relationships in marriages by preparing the woman for the wedding night (important for the marriage). Women who could not orgasm through vaginal penetration were deemed "frigid" and doctors only focused on the male orgasm for reproduction. |
|
|
Term
"What if Marriage is Bad for Us?
Laurie Essig & Lynn Owens
p. 258-260 |
|
Definition
| Exploits common myths about marriage like increased wealth, happiness, etc. Meaning of marriage has changed through historical and cultural contexts: 18th century based on economic and social advantages rather than love; 20th century creation of nuclear family increasing isolation from extended family (and friends). With longer life expectancy, marriages are lasting longer than before making them harder to maintain than before (a lifetime of monogamy is restricting for some). |
|
|
Term
"Moral Dilemmas, Moral Strategies, and the Transformation of Gender"
Kathleen Gerson
p. 261-270 |
|
Definition
| The relationship between work and children has become an increasing issue especially for women. The idea that women are responsible for others while men take care of the work is the problem. Even if the women brings in more income, she is still expected to do the majority of the housekeeping and childrearing. These stereotypical gender roles are changing somewhat, but ever so slowly. |
|
|
Term
"For Better or For Worse: Gender Allures in the Vietnamese Global Marriage Market"
Hung Cam Thai
p. 271 - 282 |
|
Definition
| Thai shows how the ideas of gender shape marriage strategies in from Vietnamese women to women of the US. Vietnamese women are encouraged to "marry up" but if they pursue higher education they may lose their their opportunity to - too old and too highly educated to do so. Not wanting to marry down, they seek more equal partnerships in men who have immigrated to the US, only to discover they are lower class citizens and a V wife means respect and tradition they have lost. |
|
|
Term
"A Way Outa No Way"
Becky Wangsgaard Thompson
p. 340 - 349 |
|
Definition
| Examining social factors that create health problems, Thompson argues that compulsive eating, dieting, anorexia, and bulimia are all forms of coping stratefies that women employ in response to sexual abuse, poverty, heterosexism, racism and "class injuries." They are not attempts to conform to social norms but a "serious response to injustices." |
|
|
Term
"Google Babies"
France Winddance Twine
p. 365 - 372 |
|
Definition
| Discusses the prominence of gestational surrogacy and the help of the internet to do so ("reproductive tourism"). These ads downplay the physical and emotional work and emphasize financial gains. Racism issues: white women will not carry black babies, white couples seek non-white carrier to evade custody battles, Indian women in search of alternate income. Need to understand in terms of historical use of bodies of women of color to benefit white women with slavery as well as the global economic and racial inequality when trying to regulate it. |
|
|
Term
"Beyond Pro-Choice versus Pro-Life: Women of Color and Reproductive Justices"
Andrea Smith
p. 372 - 384 |
|
Definition
| Limitations of the pro-life/pro-choice dichotomy marginalize women of color, poor women, and women with disabilities. Reinforces the white supremacy and capitalism which control women's "reproductive justice" and simplify the issue to a question of criminalizing abortion. Relates to failure of the prison industrial complex, and what would happen if abortion were illegal: increased criminalization disproportionately affects women of color. Women should have access to or the choice of a contraceptive. Women's Health Center and Planned Parenthood seem to help women, but still have goals of population control - mainly geared towards communities of colored or poor women. |
|
|
Term
"Violence Against Girls Provokes Girls' Violence: From Private Injury to Public Harm"
Laurie Schaffner
p. 386 - 398 |
|
Definition
| Girls who have experienced sexual, physical, and emotional abuse are more likely to respond to their experiences by being violence themselves, as a sort of coping strategy to survive in such a violent culture. We must understand girls' violence as a combination of poverty/discrimination and psychological pathology. |
|
|
Term
"My Strength is Not for Hurting"
N. Tatiana Masters
p. 398 - 705 |
|
Definition
| Masters looks at the different websites geared towards men to prevent rape. There are different representations of good/bad masculinity, the rapist, and of consensual sex. Some redefine masculinity not about power or sexual conquest and others use slogans like "Real Men Don't Rape." They "other" the rapist and distance readers from associating their own behaviors to the problem. Essentially, all these websites reinforce the idea of masculinity and the gender dichotomy. |
|
|
Term
"Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color"
Kimberlé Crenshaw
p. 484 - 494 |
|
Definition
| Violence against women is shaped by the intersections between race, class, and gender - Crenshaw examines the relationship between gender and race in domestic violence. Women of black communities are discouraged from publicizing out of fear of reinforcing the stereotype that black men are violent. Efforts against domestic violence often exclude women of color as well as shelters due to language barriers or lack of colored leadership within such shelters. |
|
|
Term
"Sex Segregation in the US Labor Force"
Christine Bose & Rachel Bridges Whaley
p. 197 - 207 |
|
Definition
| Examines prominence of females in certain jobs and males in others. There are different ways of sex segregating in white-collar, pink-collar, clerical, and blue-collar jobs, and why they persist today. It matters because it causes inequalities in earnings, tokenism, and inhibits occupational mobility. |
|
|
Term
"The Managed Hand: The Commercialization of Bodies and Emotions in Korean Immigrant-Owned Nail Salons"
Miliann Kang
p. 207 - 219 |
|
Definition
| Korean nail salons across the country are a form of gendered and embodied labor. Class, race, and ethnicity are important to Kang's discussion of "body labor," or the expectations of different types of clients - what does that say about racialized gender? Upper white clients desire emotional labor and feeling pampered, middle class colored clients look for expertise and quality, while lower and mixed clients want affordability and reliability. |
|
|
Term
"Maid In LA"
Pierrette Hondagneau-Sotelo
p. 219 - 237 |
|
Definition
| Latina women are the most prominent workers in the domestic labor such as housecleaning and nannying. Problems arise with live-in situations that have terrible pay and never allow the employee privacy. Live-out situations are more desired and house-cleaning can allow Latina women the ability to care and see their own family. It is a gendered and ethnic structured work system that allows inequalities and racial issues to prevail. |
|
|
Term
"Organizing Home Care"
Jennifer Klein & Eileen Boris
p. 237 - 241 |
|
Definition
| Home care jobs for sick or elderly persons has been on the rise since the New Deal and the WPA making jobs for those who needed them and getting others out of hospitals to become more "independent." However they have been largely left out from receiving any sort of benefits - such as health insurance, etc. |
|
|
Term
"Stratified Reproduction and Poor Women's Resistance"
Karen McCormack
p. 430 - 442 |
|
Definition
| Examines how women on welfare view motherhood as well as the popular stereotypes of being unfit, uncaring, and immoral "welfare mothers." The welfare reform of 1996 has forced only single parents that wish to receive welfare into low-paying or domestic jobs that make it difficult for mothers to care for their children. Their situation is difficult because it at once demands they work hard to get out of poverty while simultaneously spending time and energy solely to raising a child. |
|
|
Term
"From the Third World to the 'Third World Within'"
Grace Chang
p. 442 - 454 |
|
Definition
| Chang discusses the impacts of welfare policies in the US and Structural Adjustment Programs forced upon countries in the South. Both cut social services and destroy local economies to the point where many are forced to migrate to the North in order to survive. Globalization is affecting women severely, across the globe, in very different ways. |
|
|
Term
"Gendered selves and Identities of Information Technology Professionals in Global Software Organizations in India"
Marisa D'Mello
p. 454 - 470 |
|
Definition
| D'Mello argues that globalization and the rise of IT is still maintaining distinct gender boundaries in the workplace. Outsourcing shows that there is a constant need for more IT professionals - yet only 25% of women make up that field. Women continue to feel the pressure of maintaining their femininity as well as their role as a mother and wife. Combined, this allows women less mobility - to stay with company longer - yet inhibits their likelihood of raises etc. Underrepresentation and relative immobility of compared to IT male workers, show the masc and patriarchal norms that prevail in such settings.s |
|
|
Term
"Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?"
Lila Abu-Lughod
p. 486 - 496 |
|
Definition
| The West is too presumptuous to assume that Muslim women are in need of being saved. The veil and burqa have varying meaning to them and was not imposed upon them. Instead of addresses actual concerns (around 9/11) women became the obsession - which sounded similar to many colonial conquests and their justifications as well. Every group of women around the world has a different history of activism - one should not assume a "missionary" role to save someone who is simply different. |
|
|
Term
"Forever Feminisms"
Alison Dahl Crossley, Verta Taylor, & Nancy Whittier
p. 498 -516 |
|
Definition
| Three waves of feminism: first ranges from abolitionist struggle of 1830s - suffrage victory in1920s also called "individualist" or "equity" feminism because it relates women's sameness to men; second began in 1960s with social discontent and losing strength in the 1980s; third emerged in 1990s with an identity and ideology more contested. |
|
|
Term
"Feminists or 'Postfeminists'? Young Women's Attitudes Toward Feminism and Gender Relations"
Pamela Aronson
p. 516 -527 |
|
Definition
| Scholars have begun to think feminism is dead because present generations seem to lack the concern that their elders had. However it is a "quiet period" that happens after a wave usually. |
|
|
Term
"Young Women, Late Modern Politics, and the Participatory Possibilities of Online Cultures"
Anita Harris
p. 527 - 536 |
|
Definition
| Considers young women's use of online DIY culture and social networking sites as a means of political activism. Websites created by women are allowing them to discuss their point of view and become cultural producers rather than cultural consumers - which they are normally assigned to be. They are "generating public selves" which allows them to think more creative about what it means to be political. |
|
|
Term
"Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens"
Cathy Cohen
p. 596 -612 |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
"We're the Ones We've Been Waiting For"
Moya Bailey & Alexis Pauline Gumbs
p. 553 - 555 |
|
Definition
|
|
