wgs midterm review

Feminist Politics Where We Stand (Hooks)

Feminism is not about hating men, it’s about dismantling systems! Feminism must transform society, not just seek equality. It’s about ending sexism, racism, classism

Feminism (n) Plural (Gay)

Feminism is imperfect, it must allow room for contradictions and diversity. Rejects purity politics, wants feminism to be more accessible.

Feminist Men (Hurt)

The patriarchy constraints men emotionally just as much as women. Men must actively engage in feminism by confronting privilege and toxic masculinity. Men should dismantle the patriarchy

5 things women couldn’t do in the 1960s (McLaughlin)

It was through activism and reform that women were able to gain the rights that they have today

How to start your own consciousness raising group

Personal empowerment and understanding is necessary for collective political action. Created solidarity from lived experience

Frederick Douglass on Women’s Suffrage

Women should have equal rights to men and that they are their own best advocate. Denying women these rights is a “grave injustice akin to slavery.”

Multiracial Feminism (Thompson)

Multiracial feminists should have their efforts appreciated and that white feminists can’t rely on POC to teach them about their struggles. You can’t group everyone into one oppression because of intersectionality!! Challenges the waves approach

Constitutional Argument (Susan B. Anthony)

Modeled off the constitution. The constitution is hypocritical and the patriarchy does not account for half of the population aka women. Women already had the right to vote under the 14th amendment

The very queer history of the suffrage movement (Rouse)

Intersectionality was integral to suffrage activism, and having queer suffragette helps move along the movement. The women’s suffrage movement needed to recognize women that were not the mythical norm of women.

Declaration of Sentiments (Seneca Falls Convention)

Modeled after the declaration of independence. Women should have the same rights as men. Critique was that it never mentions women of color

There is no hierarchy of oppression (Lorde)

Oppressions can’t be ranked and you can’t separate your identities because of intersectionality. Being queer black and female specifically!

Oppression (frye)

Oppression is a system and not isolated events. Birdcage metaphor

Toward a new vision (Hill Collins)

Importance of coalitions for social change. And systems of oppression are interlinked and can’t be linked.

Combahee River Collective Statement

Center the experiences of black women as the key to liberating everyone. Because black women have experienced every angle of oppression.

Patriarchy, the system

It’s a system and not just men vs. women

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (McIntosh, 1989)

If you are born white you have many unearned privileges that can’t be taken away

Misuses of Biological Sex (Karkazis, 2019).pdf 

The misuse of gender in politics/medicine is political and enforces exclusion

Cisgender as a Term (Enke).pdf 

Cisgender is only used in congruence with trans and denaturalizes what goes unnamed. The author is denouncing the idea of the binary between cis and trans. What is “neutral/default” shouldn’t be treated as such because it is all a spectrum.

The Social Construction of Gender (Lorber, 1994).pdf 

Social construction depends on everyone constantly “doing gender”. Gender is an institution built into daily life.

The Five Sexes, Revisted (Fausto-Sterling, 2000).pdf 

Gives intersex scientific definitions that are palatable for the population. Should create new sex categories that are based on biology.

Becoming a Gendered Body_ Practices of Preschools (Martin, 1989).pdf 

By being a body, gender is made to feel natural. But it was hardwired within us when were are young through the hidden curriculum. Dressing up, formal and relaxed behaviors, controlling voice, bodily instructions, and physical interactions. 

The Egg and the Sperm (Martin, 1991).pdf 

The male reproductive system is seen is productive and masculine, the female system is seen as the opposite. These “natural terms” are used for science but reinforced by social norms that are used to describe gender and its roles in society.

Heterosexuality (Ward)

• Heterosexuality has always been changing, it is now tied to patriarchy, white supremacy, and consumerism to frame men as dominant and women as submissive. It can change if people challenged those conditions. Straight sex can be queered through other kinds of sex, but that’s still not enough.

• hetero pessimism → women were only with men for survival but they weren’t fully against heterosexuality, “no one is happy in their marriage”

compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence (rich)

Feminist movements should center lesbian existence as resistance after ignoring it for so long. Heterosexuality enforces male dominance and it needs to be broken down as an institution.

accounting for women’s orgasm and sexual enjoyment in college hookups and relationships (armstrong)

Orgasm gap, sex script in hookups which prioritize male pleasure and lack of partner learning, and partner-specific experience

Policing the Womb (Goodwin)

Anti-abortion policies are linked to broader systemic inequalities: lack of sex ed, punitive welfare rules, the US having a high mortality rate for black women. Black women face adverse effects of this because of historical trauma of chattel slavery. These laws expand, surveillance, and control women. This is not only about reproductive rights but is a constitutional and human rights crisis.

Our Bodies Ourselves Some Reflections (Norsigian)

Highlights its role in transforming women’s healthcare and reproductive justice. Changing it from grassroots to an institutional will take away from individual voices. Achieved concrete policy changes: requiring patient package inserts for birth control pills and regulations against sterilization abuse.

If Men Could Menstruate (Steinem)

If men could menstruate, it would be seen as powerful and the whole narrative would be flipped.

Abortion is a Woman a Person (Willis)

Society cannot allow the fetus to be identified as a person as it takes away from the woman’s real struggles and that abortion is a key issue of feminism and a form of self-defense. Women live in a society that burdens them with child-rearing but then does not support them. The real issue is not life, but control over women’s sexuality.