intro to wgss final

Gender and Sexuality in the Labor Market,

minimum-wage workers are disproportionately female

The Second Shift: A term for the significant hours of unpaid household and childcare labor women perform in addition to paid employment, which limits their leisure and career advancement

In 29 states, workers can be legally fired for sexual orientation or gender identity;

The Gender Pay Gap

Women earn roughly 79–84% of what men earn. This gap is wider for women of color:
horizontal segregation (men and women working in different fields)

vertical segregation (gender stratification within the same field, such as fewer women in leadership)

Marlene Kim, "Policies to End the Gender Wage Gap in the United States,"

• Disputes that the pay gap is due to women's "choices"; research shows the gap persists even when controlling for education, college major, and GPA

• Focuses on collective liberation through systemic change

1. Strengthening Title VII

2. Paid parental leave

3. Ensuring equitable pay for jobs requiring similar skills.

4. Increasing union density and prohibiting pay secrecy

Catherine Rottenberg – The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism

Individualization: Neoliberal feminism makes women responsible for their own well-being and "market value"

Prioritizes privatization and deregulation, framing gender equality as something to be achieved through personal consumption

“The Politics of Control: Body Weight and Eating Disorders,”

• Fatness is frequently perceived as a sign of a failed neoliberal subject

• fat women frequently earn significantly less than non-fat women, a disparity that does not apply to men in the same way.

• few laws in the United States that protect individuals against size discrimination in the workplace

Relating to Bodies Through a Commodity Discourse,”

“third shift”: Neoliberalism expects women to treating their physical appearance as a project for constant investment
“love your body” narrative is a form of commodity feminism that sells self-love and empowerment through the purchase of products

“Body Talk, Body Hack: Agency and the Body as a Site of Resistance,

“body talk”: involves using the body as a medium to talk back to power and challenge dominant narratives

body serves as an instrument of resistance in street protests (e.g., human barricades

Body hacking (biohacking) uses modification to decolonize the normative body, social rebellion

Kimberly Dark – "Big Yoga Student"

critiques a fitness industry that equates "hot bodies" with social status and making fat bodies feel unwelcome

a good life is about acceptance rather than attainment

Joanna Gordon – "Sketches"

• Poem radical representation of the female body, celebrating "rolls of thick flesh" and "soft folds" over idealized media images

• The poem describes a woman’s body using natural metaphors, such as "hips a country-side of soft hills" and a "landscape not yet seen"

• Gordon suggests drawing the body as a "revolution".

“Beyond Realness: Deconstructing Essentialism,”

• Essentialism: A theory that innate biological "essences" define groups and make them naturally different from others, which is often used to justify discrimination.

• Measuring a person's success by their ability to "pass" as a "real" woman or man reinforces a hierarchy of realness that leads to violence and exclusion
  

Knowing and Experiencing Bodies

"unknowingness" regarding women’s sexual pleasure and anatomy is not a lack of information but a systematically constructed erasure

Gender is a social performance with specific "scripts" (dress, talk, movement) that are not necessarily tied to genitalia

Medicalization of Bodies

• Medicalization: The process where physicians are granted ultimate authority to diagnose symptoms, effectively turning individuals into "patients" in need of intervention.

• Pathologization: The categorization of non-normative identities or behaviors (such as asexuality) as "deviant" or "abnormal" to eliminate or control them.

• medicalization labeled middle-class women as "frail" to discourage them from seeking education or work outside the home.

Robert McRuer – “Compulsory Able Bodiedness and Queer/Disabled Existence,”

• "compulsory able-bodiedness" and "compulsory heterosexuality" work together to reproduce the "normal" body and orientation

• Rich argued that heterosexuality is established as the "natural" order by treating lesbian existence as a marginal or "alternative" lifestyle.

• able-bodied status is always temporary.

• Able-bodied identity is even more "naturalized" than heterosexual identity;

•  The definition of being "able-bodied" emerged alongside industrial capitalism,

• Normalcy is naturalized through the repetition and visibility of the "non-normal" (queer/disabled),

Da’Shaun Harrison – Health and Black Fat

When fatness is associated with Blackness, it is coded as "greed and ungodliness".
The category of "Black" is often placed outside the category of "health," meaning Black individuals with marginalized identities are viewed as "always already unsafe".

L. Ayu Saraswati, "Cosmopolitan Whiteness: The Effects and Affects of Skin Whitening Advertisements in Transnational Indonesia,"

• Definition: A virtual and affective construction of whiteness that signifies transnational mobility and high social status rather than a specific Caucasian racial identity.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, from Americanah,

• The protagonist Ifemelu views chemical relaxers as a "prison"; her decision to "go natural" (the Big Chop) serves as a rejection of white beauty standards.

• The text references the "paper-bag test" and notes that dark-skinned women remain largely invisible or stereotyped as "mammies" in U.S. pop culture.

• representation from obamas

Aleichia Williams, "Too Latina To Be Black, Too Black To Be Latina,"

• rigid categories of "black," "Mexican," or "white"

• critiques assumptions that she must eat certain foods because she speaks Spanish or listen to specific music because of her "kinky hair"

• She rejects the binary of being "too Black" or "too Latina,", right to multiple identities

Reena Kukreja, “Colorism as Marriage Capital: Creating a New Form of Gendered Violence in India,”

• In India, fair skin functions as a form of currency that increases a woman's value and desirability in the marriage market

• he obsession with fairness is linked to the oppressive Hindu caste system (fairness = higher caste)

• Unilever and L'Oreal exploit these deep-seated prejudices to market skin-lightening products

“Social Construction of Science,”

• Rather than representing "absolute truth," science is socially constructed and shaped by the dominant ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality held by researchers

• Standpoint Theory: Developed by Sandra Harding, acknowledges that a researcher’s social location and relationship to power inevitably shape their worldview

• Feminist objectivity requires researchers to be accountable for what they know from their particular standpoint

“Situated Knowledges and Feminist Objectivity,”

• Donna Haraway uses this term to describe the practice of producing situated knowledge, which rejects the traditional scientific ideal of an all-knowing, disembodied observer

• Haraway emphasizes that including a diverse range of women as both researchers and subjects is necessary to prevent a single, "universal" perspective from distorting results.

“Emily Martin,The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles,”

• Argues that medical textbooks portray reproductive biology as a romance based on gender stereotypes\

• When research revealed the egg is the active party that captures and tethers the sperm, scientists often shifted to the "femme fatale" or "spider" stereotype to describe it.

Liam Lair, "Navigating Transness in the U.S.: Understanding the Legacies of Eugenics,"

In the early 20th century, sexology (the study of sexuality) and eugenics (the management of population through "breeding a better white race") were deeply connected.

• Eugenics: A movement focused on managing populations by "breeding a better white race."

• Hirschfeld is credited with coining the term "transvestite" in 1910, referring to people who dressed as or desired to be the opposite sex (a precursor to the term "transsexual").

• Degeneracy: A term eugenicists and early sexologists applied to people seen as "deficient" or a threat to established race and gender hierarchies.

• Transvestite - describe "intermediaries" who failed to embody white, middle-class norms of masculinity or femininity.

“Technofeminist Approaches and Technology as Gendered Practices,”

Technology refers to the tools of production and reproduction (e.g., vitamins, shoes, or computers), while science is the process of knowledge production.

the telephone only became profitable when marketed to women for social use, and the sewing machine was specifically adapted for home use by housewives

Technofeminism (Judy Wajcman): technology affects women’s lives differently based on their social location

• advantages for some (Western) women often come through the exploitation of others

• WOC or global south

“Digital Media,”

users have become "prosumers" who simultaneously consume and produce digital content

Corporations like Facebook profit from “free labor,” where users generate the social interactions and content that attract advertising revenue.

“Cyborg, IA, and Posthuman Bodies,”

Cyborg Theory (Donna Haraway): hybrid of machine and organism that challenges the binary of "nature" versus "technology”
Embodiment vs. Disembodiment: “click theory” argues cyberspace as an embodied space because it requires physical senses and produces tactile satisfaction

Clare C. Jen, "Oppositional Scientific Praxis: The 'Do' and 'Doing' of #CRISPRbabies and DIY Hormone Biohacking,"

The "Do" and the "Doing": This praxis yokes together the "do" (scientific technique, methods, and protocols) with the "doing" (the methodology, ethics, and cultural contexts that inform those methods

#CRISPRbabies: This lens is used to ask if genetic editing improves the lived experiences of children or simply advances capitalist wealth and individual careers

Sandy Sufian and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, "The Dark Side of CRISPR,"

• The authors argue that CRISPR (the “genetic scissors”) has the potential to eliminate human diversity by cutting "abnormal" genes and people out of existence.

• Describes genome manipulation enforced by market-driven commercialism.

• The authors assert that their quality of life has been improved more by social progress and political equality (like the IDEA act) than by the prospect of genetic editing.

“Intersectionality, Coalitions, and Community Building,” pgs. 516-518

• movements that focus on a single issue risk reinforcing some social hierarchies (like heterosexism) while attempting to dismantle others (like sexism).

• True solidarity requires working across difference;

Lila Abu-Lughod, "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Anthropological Reflections on Cultural Relativism and Its Others,”

The image of the "oppressed Muslim woman" was mobilized to gain public support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, framing military intervention as a form of liberation.
The burqa is a regional convention of “portable seclusion” symbolize modesty

Beenash Jafri, "Not Your Indian Eco-Princess: Indigenous Women's Resistance to Environmental Degradation,”

Jafri critiques the "Indian Eco-Princess" trope, which portrays Indigenous women as being “naturally” or biologically in tune with nature
Indigenous relationships with the land are cultural practices and forms of resistance to colonialism, not personality traits.

Johanna Hedva, "Sick Woman Theory,” pgs. 569-576

• Theory centers on chronic illness, disability, and vulnerability as political sites of resistance against capitalism and white supremacy.
  
  

• critiques the idea that political action only occurs in public streets, which excludes the sick and disabled

“Creative Expression: Artists as Activists,” pgs.

• Guerrilla Girls: An anonymous collective that uses humor, posters, and billboards to expose gender and ethnic bias in the art market and museums

• Independent labels (e.g., Olivia Records) and movements like Riot Grrrl and Hip-Hop Feminism create spaces for resistance against oppressive gender tropes and the politics of respectability
  
  

“Knowledge Production: Books, Magazines, and Zines,”

•  Historically, the production of knowledge was limited to those who could get published in print, with gatekeepers predominantly representing privileged white men.

• Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press: Founded in 1980 by activists like Barbara Smith to respond to the lack of publications by women of color. They published influential works such as This Bridge Called My Back.

Heather Rellihan, "An Interview with Tarana Burke," pgs. 613-618

• Founder of "Me Too": Tarana Burke started the movement in 2007 (long before it went viral in 2017) as a way to support and center the needs of survivors of sexual violence

• particularly those in marginalized communities

• activists should identify their strengths and ask movements what critical gaps they can fill

• accumulation of individual stories can force a massive shift in cultural perceptions

“Digital Activism,” pgs. 518-

Hashtag campaigns (e.g., #BlackLivesMatter, #GirlsLikeUs) and tools like Hollaback! turn individual experiences into collective awareness, mapping harassment and building intersectional digital communities

“Community Activist Organizations,”

• typically nonprofits or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)

• They offer local solutionsserving where government intervention is limited

• HIPS (Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive) in Washington, DC, provides outreach to those impacted by sexual exchange and drug use

Engaging in the Political Process

• Intentional organizing in civil society is often required to ensure marginalized voices gain seats in national offices
  

• Voting is framed as both a right and a civic responsibility, serving as a powerful tool for social change.

Non-Violent Direct Action

• These acts of protest or civil disobedience are designed to raise awareness and disrupt dominant narratives through spectacle.

• Strategies include marches, sit-ins, die-ins, hunger strikes, and theatrical performances.

• Disability rights activists utilized "The Capitol Crawl" to dramatize how inaccessible buildings limited their civil rights, leading to the passage of the ADA

Humor

• Humor functions as a subversive political tool that can destabilize "self-evident" truths and challenge the binaries of normal versus deviant.

• Comedians like Amy Schumer use parody to expose how our culture trivializes sexual violence, while Margaret Cho uses it to expose racist beauty standards.

Dean Spade – Three Key Elements of Mutual Aid

Mutual aid is a collective strategy for survival and mobilization

• Element 1: Projects meet survival needs

• Element 2: These projects mobilize people and expand solidarity

• Element 3: Mutual aid is participatory and antiauthoritarian

adrienne maree brown, "Spells and Practices for Emergent Strategies,"

• Fractal Strategy: suggests that achieving wholeness in individual organizers will yield wholeness in the future of the movement

• brown defines "spells" as short poems or liberation technologies used to intentionally shift one’s own state of being and power.

• Important practices include Meditation for training attention, Somatics to shift what the body feels and does, and Visionary Fiction to practice the future in our minds.

• Presence: Taking responsibility for one's state of being in the current moment.

“Safer Spaces and Care/ing Collectives,”

• Safer spaces are physical or virtual locations where marginalized people can expect protection from the prejudice and hostility they face in dominant culture.

• spaces allow individuals to explore the nature of their oppression with others who share similar experiences,

Raphael H. Martins, Pedro Vieira, and Cara Snyder, "Introducing the MBB: Brazil's First Trans futebol Team,

• Meninos Bons de Bola (MBB) is Brazil's first trans masculine football team, serving as a model for creating community-based safer spaces in the sports world

• the team provides a site for social and physical advancement while challenging the gender binary

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna- Samarasinha, "Care Webs: Experiments in Creating Collective Access,”

• Argues for "collective care" where organizations are shifted so that having needs, being sick, or being "slow" are accepted without apology

• To be successful, these webs must practice intersectionality, remain alert to inequities in care labor, and have clear plans for dealing with conflict and accountability

Sara Ahmed – "A Killjoy Manifesto"

• A feminist killjoy is someone who makes the "violence of a patriarchal order" perceptible by pointing out inequalities

• often being accused of creating the problem they are merely revealing

• Argues that "happiness" is used as a tool of social control to justify norms like the traditional nuclear family as "social goods".