Women and Gender Studies Notes

Terms, Concepts, and Quotes from the Slides

1. Transnational, Global & Postcolonial Feminisms

• Transnational Feminisms: A contemporary feminist paradigm and activist movement concerned with how globalization and capitalism affect people across nations, races, genders, classes, and sexualities. It critiques traditional white, classist, western models of feminist practices.

• Global Feminism: Addresses the challenges and choices globalization presents for women, with major concerns including women's health, education, and welfare. It emphasizes human and women's rights and encourages a sense of connectedness among women worldwide.

• Postcolonial Feminism: Actively combats the ongoing effects of colonialism, cautions against re-colonization, and challenges Eurocentric standards. It focuses on economic and political issues, the "double day," and the export of poor workers to developed countries for care work.

• Savior Complex/White Savior Complex: The belief that people from Western countries need to "save" people from developing countries, viewing women in some parts of the world as inherently "oppressed" and Western women as superior.

• Global Sisterhood: The idea that all women are connected by their gender and share common experiences of oppression. Transnational feminism critiques this idea, arguing for the recognition of differences and inequalities among women.

• Intersectionality: Acknowledgment of the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, creating overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage.¹

• Autonomy: The emphasis on choice and independence, a liberal feminist idea that is not universally valued by women in other parts of the world who may prioritize family and community needs.

2. Media & Body Images

• Body Image: A person's perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body, involving how a person sees themselves compared to societal standards.

• Male Gaze: The act of depicting women and the world from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents women as sexual objects for² the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer.

  • Quote: “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object and most particularly an object of vision: a sight” - John Berger

  • Quote: "You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting 'Vanity,' thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure."³ - John Berger, Ways of Seeing

• Postfeminism: The idea that feminism has achieved its goals and is no longer necessary. It is not a type of feminism but rather a response to feminism that suggests feminism is in the past.

• Fatphobia: Fear or prejudice against fat people.

• Person of Size: A non-offensive term used to refer to fat people.

• Media Literacy: The ability to critically analyze and evaluate media messages to identify bias, sexism, and racism.

3. Masculinities & Patriarchy

• Masculinity: A set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with boys and men, socially constructed and varying across cultures and historical periods.

• Patriarchy: A social system in which males hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege, and control of property.

• Hegemonic Masculinity: The form of masculinity that is culturally dominant and associated with authority and leadership.

• Toxic Masculinity: Harmful manifestations of traditional masculinity, such as misogyny, homophobia, and the promotion of violence.

• Multiple Masculinities: The understanding that there is no single way to perform masculinity and that different cultures and periods construct masculinity differently.

• Quote: “In the United States, black masculinity is a manhood that, in the main, has braced itself against the onslaught of a biased and bigoted society. Racism constantly threatens our well being and our very existence. This defensive posturing often leaves us detached from our feelings. In a society that views us as predator and prey, we are inclined to be on guard at all times. Yet our selfprotective posturing often manifests in a hypermasculinity that is predicated upon domination and that sees violence as a primary option to resolve problems.” - Ewuare X. Osayande

4. Afro-Canadian, African-American, and Black Identities

• Overt Racism: Racism that is open and obvious, such as name-calling, violence, and exclusion based on race or ethnicity.

• Covert/Subtle/“Polite” Racism: Racism that is subtle and indirect, making a person feel different and that their race is their most salient characteristic.

• Structural Racism: Racism that is embedded in everyday society, often unconscious and deliberate, such as hiring practices that favor those who are known or who look alike.

• Person of Colour/Woman of Colour: Person-first terminology used to refer to people of non-white backgrounds.

• African-Canadian/Afro-Canadian/African-American/Afro-Caribbean: Terms that preface African heritage to reclaim ancestry and identity in the Western Hemisphere.

• Black: A term largely reclaimed to indicate a shared experience amongst descendants of African, Caribbean, or Spanish slaves/indentured servants.

• Afro-futurism: A movement in literature, music, art, etc., featuring futuristic or science fiction themes that incorporate elements of black history and culture.⁴

  • Quote: “An intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation.” - Ytasha L. Womack

  • Quote: “A way of imagining possible futures through a black cultural lens.” - Ingrid LaFleur

• Cyborg: A term from Donna Haraway's "The Cyborg Manifesto," referring to a being that blurs the boundaries between humans and animals and humans and technology, challenging oppressive dualisms.

5. Intersectionality

• Intersectionality: The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

• Privilege: Unearned, unasked for, and often invisible benefits and advantages readily available to dominant groups.

• Intersectional Feminist Frameworks (IFFs): Analytical tools used to assess how various social and political identities combine to create different experiences of discrimination and privilege.

• Gender-Based Analysis (GBA): An analytical tool used to assess the differential impact of policies, programs, and legislation on women and men.

6. What Does a Feminist Look Like?

• Stereotype: A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

• Binary: A way of categorizing information into two mutually exclusive categories (e.g., male/female, black/white).

• Binary Opposition: A concept of structuralism that sees opposition as fundamental to language and thought.

• Binaric Hierarchy: The ranking of one side of a binary as dominant over the other.

• Performativity: The idea that gender is not an innate quality but rather a performance of behaviors and norms that are repeated and reinforced over time.

• Quote: “We ought not to deny to them, what we are conceding to everybody else” – John Stuart Mill

7. Queering the Terrain

• Gender Expression: The external representation of gender, on a spectrum.

• Sexuality: The internal feelings of attraction, not determined by one’s gender expression.

• LGBTQ2S: An acronym referring to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Two-Spirit.

• Queer: An umbrella term for various gender identities and sexual orientations, as well as a term for people who experience fluidity in their gender or sexuality or dislike specific labels.

• Two-Spirit: A term referring to Indigenous people who embody both male and female spirits.

• Sexual Orientation: A person’s feelings of attraction toward other people.

• Agender: Describes a person who does not identify as having a gender identity that can be categorized as man or woman.

• Asexual: Describes a person who does not experience sexual feelings or associations.

• Androgynous: A combination of masculine and feminine traits or a nontraditional gender expression.

• Heteronormativity: The societal and institutional structures which make heterosexuality normative and assume that heterosexuality is the "regular" or "normal" orientation.

• Cisgender: A term to describe a person whose gender identity matches the biological sex they were assigned at birth.

• Gender Binary: The idea that gender is strictly an either-or option of male/man/masculine or female/woman/feminine based on sex assigned at birth, rather than a continuum or spectrum of gender identities and expressions.

• Gender Conforming: A person whose gender expression is consistent with cultural norms expected for that gender.

• Genderfluid: Someone whose gender identity or expression shifts between man/masculine and woman/feminine or falls somewhere along this spectrum.

• Gender Identity: A person’s deep-seated, internal sense of who they are as a gendered being; the gender with which they identify themselves.

• Genderqueer: Someone whose gender identity is neither man nor woman, is between or beyond genders, or is some combination of genders.

• Transgender: An adjective used to describe a person whose gender identity does not match the biological sex they were assigned at birth.

• Gender Dysphoria: The medical diagnosis for being transgender as defined by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5).

• Transsexual: An older term that has been used in the past to refer to a transgender person who has had hormonal or surgical interventions to change their body to be more aligned with their gender identity than with the sex that they were assigned at birth.

• To Be Misgendered: When someone fails to use your pronouns.

• To Pass: When a trans person is identified by others as their performed gender, rather than their assigned sex.

• To Be Clocked: To be recognized as trans in public.

• Crossdreamer: A person who dreams about expressing their gender differently but can’t do so in the ways they want to.

• Deadname: To use someone’s old name, especially if it is done maliciously.

• TERF: Stands for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist; this attitude usually comes from feminists who believe in essential qualities of womanhood.

• Intersex: People are individuals born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies".

8. Indigenous Feminisms

• Resurgence: A process of renewal or awakening from a period of dormancy, referring to Indigenous political strategies and cultural practices grounded in Indigenous visions of freedom and autonomy.

• Quote: “At their root, Indigenous feminisms examine how gender and conceptions of gender influence the lives of Indigenous peoples, historically and today. Indigenous feminist approaches challenge stereotypes about Indigenous peoples, gender and sexuality, for instance, as they appear in politics, society and the media. Indigenous feminisms offer frameworks for learning about and understanding these, and other issues, regardless of one’s gender or ethnicity.” - Sarah Nickel and Emily Snyder

• Quote: “The racism and sexism inherent in the high rates of violence against Aboriginal women have been widely acknowledged. Racism and sexism affect the attitudes of violent men who view Aboriginal women and girls as socially unprotected targets because of the depth of discrimination against them” - Jaime Black

9. Introduction to Women and Gender Studies

• Gender Studies: The discipline that critically examines how gender shapes our identities, our social interactions, and our world.

• Feminism: The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes; a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes.

• Feminist: A person who believes in feminist theories or an adjective to describe things that may indicate feminism.

• Proto-feminist: A person who exhibited feminist values before feminism the theory was created.

• Waves of Feminism: Theoretical eras of feminism that help explain differences over time and the evolution of feminist thought.

  • First Wave: Late 1800s, early 1900s, focused on the legal right to vote (women's suffrage).

  • Second Wave: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, focused on legal rights not being enough and women fighting for the right to work and work safely, rights to divorce, equal pay, etc.

  • Third Wave: 1990s to now, has expanded its activism to include all women of all races, disabled women, many gender re/presentations, and many sexualities, and intersectionality.

• Types of Feminism:

  • Liberal Feminism: Seeks to abolish political, legal, and other forms of discrimination of women to allow them the same opportunities as men.

  • Socialist/Marxist Feminism: Concerned with class and women's unequal roles in both public and domestic spheres.

  • Indigenous Feminism: Draws on core elements of Indigenous cultures, such as the connection to land and sacred responsibility, and focuses on the spiritual and emotional well-being of Indigenous women.

  • Ecofeminism: Sees the domination of women as stemming from the same ideologies that bring about the domination of the environment.

  • Postcolonial Feminism: Centers on racism, ethnic issues, and the long-lasting effects of colonialism on non-White non-Western women.

  • Black Feminists/Womanists: Created as a response to first-wave feminism, which largely excluded women of color, these movements sought to create feminist spaces that responded to the unique concerns of Black and African women.

  • Radical-libertarian Feminism: Encourages androgyny and supports the regulation of sex work.

  • Radical-cultural Feminism: Focuses on "female nature" or "female essence" and revalidates undervalued female attributes, but is criticized for essentializing women and being trans-exclusionary.

  • I-Feminists/Libertarian Feminists: Oppose government interference and can be socially conservative, with some criticized as anti-feminist.

  • Mainstream Feminism: Often considered most "palatable" and accepted by society, but criticized as commercialized and shallow.

  • Transnational Feminism: Criticizes Western feminism for being ethnocentric and not considering the unique experiences of women from Developing countries.

10. Women and (Dis)ability

• Person-First Terminology: Language that puts the person before the disability (e.g., "women with disabilities").

• Disability-First Terminology: Language that puts the disability first (e.g., "disabled women").

• Inspiration Porn: The portrayal of people with disabilities as being inspirational to able-bodied people, often objectifying disabled people for the benefit or gratification of the able-bodied.

• Medical Model of Disability: Assumes that differences from the norm in terms of physical, sensory, or mental capability produce a defective member of society.

• Social Model of Disability: Views disability as a social identity and locates the problem of disability not in the individual but in the social structure.

• Impairment Model of Disability: Acknowledges that some disabled people experience pain with their disability, but also suggests that much of the negative experience of having a disability is the fault of a society that is preconditioned to think that disability is abnormal.

• Quote: “The feminist movement has restricted its thinking to the needs of nondisabled women. It has had difficulty tackling diversity among women, consequently many women, particularly those of us who have disabilities, have been left out in the cold. Feminism urgently needs to address the issue of diversity and in the process of doing this it must learn from the experiences of disabled women. It is crucial that ‘the personal is political' is not simply used to provide an analysis of the experiences of a select group of women, namely white, nondisabled, heterosexual women, and that it goes beyond understanding immediate experiences to incorporate the needs and wishes of a diverse group of women. Charlotte Bunch explains, 'We cannot depend on our perceptions alone as the basis for political analysis and action – much less coalition. Feminists must stretch beyond, challenging the limits of our own personal experiences by learning from the diversity of women’s lives” - Nasa Begum

• Quote: “In reality, it is the non-disabled gaze which creates abnormality, and actually it is the gaze that is disfigured” - Neita Kay Israelite & Karen Swartz

11. Sexualized Violence

• Sexualized Violence: Any violence, physical or psychological, carried out through sexual means or by targeting sexuality.

• Sexual Violence: Any form of unwanted sexual contact, including sexual assault and sexual harassment.

• Sexual Assault: Unwanted sexual activity, such as touching, kissing someone without consent, or rape.

• Sexual Harassment: Comments, behavior, and unwanted sexual contact, including jokes, threats, and discriminatory remarks about someone’s gender or sexuality.