WMS* 403 ~ Fall 2011
TOPICS in
FEMINIST & GENDER
THEORIES
Time T.B.A.
Location T.B.A.
3 Credits
Instructor:
Office:
Email:
Phone:
Office Hours:
Anne-Marie Poole
GRUE 603
ampoole@alaska.edu
474-5477
T.B.A.
Course Description and Goals:
This class will explore the intellectual history of women's and gender studies. We will start our
exploration in the late 18th century, and follow feminist theoretical ideas about women and
gender through to the present. Although we will mostly focus on western theoretical work,
we will also delve into non-western ideas, especially as these critique western ideas about
women and gender.
We will conduct the class as a seminar and spend the semester systematically analyzing
feminist and gender theories for socio-cultural, racial/ethnic, western, and other biases;
universalizing tendencies and/or recognition of the importance of difference between and
among women; gaps in vision; and other problems inherent in theoretical work. Our approach
is historical in order to emphasize that theories emerge from specific historical contexts and
shift as those contexts change.
Student Learning Outcomes:
Our learning outcomes include:
 to understand and explain the depth, breadth, and elasticity of feminist theories
 to develop, hone, practice, and demonstrate our critical thinking skills
 to participate in our own feminist theory building
Prerequisites:
WMS* 201 or permission of instructor.
Required Readings:
All readings are on a Course Page created for this class on the Rasmuson Electronic Reserves
System (ERes). To access them, go to http://eres.uaf.edu/courseindex.asp.
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Course Requirements:
You can earn up to 100 points in this class.
1) Ordinary Participation:
This is called “ordinary participation” because it should be just that: ordinary, routine, and
regular, and it is the most important element for the success of this class. Attendance is, of
course, a prerequisite for participation, and you must come to class fully prepared to be an
active participant in our discussions of the readings. For that, you are required to study the
readings thoroughly for every class and I suggest that – again, for every class – you put
together a bulleted list of points you can use as a basis for participation. 20 points
Due date: every class meeting
2) Three Critical Commentaries on readings of your choice:
Each critical commentary should be 3-5 pages typed, double-spaced, using 12-point type and
1”-inch margins all around, and should include all of the following elements: 1) summary of
the main points; 2) analysis of the strengths; 3) discussion of weaknesses; 4) an assessment of
the value and continued importance of the work. In your assessment, you might want to
consider how the author’s time period or material conditions might have affected her/his work,
and how her/his ideas developed from an earlier theoretical approach. Your creativity and
critical thinking are encouraged, but avoid over-using your personal experience. Critique,
synthesize, and assess the ideas presented in the article/chapter/book to demonstrate your
understanding of its theoretical dimensions and your ability to think critically.
Please note: I always consider the quality of writing – including organization, style, grammar,
and punctuation – as well as the content when I grade papers! 3 @ 15 points = 45 points
Due dates: Since you have the opportunity to choose which readings on which to write
commentaries, the due dates for this assignment will not be the same for every student.
There are, however, guidelines for the due dates for everybody:
 Each critical commentary is due no later than one week after we have discussed the
relevant reading in class (e.g., if we discuss your chosen reading on Monday, September 1st,
your critical commentary is due on or before Monday, September 8th).
 You must have submitted at least one critical commentary by September 30th, two by
October 31st, and all three by December 3rd.
3) One term paper and an in-class presentation of it:
Term papers should be about 12-15 pages (again: typed, double-spaced, using 12-point type
and 1”-inch margins all around) and in-class presentations should be about 15 minutes. For
topics, I will give you some guidance but ultimately the choice will be yours. We will discuss all
details of this assignment, including when each student’s presentation will take place, later in
the semester. Presentation = 10 points + Paper = 25 points = 35 points
Due dates:
 In-class presentations: either Tuesday 8 December or Thursday 10 December; we will
assign dates later on in the semester.
 Term paper: no later than midnight on Monday 14 December.
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Other Important Notes:
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Please be courteous to your colleagues and to me: come to class on time, give your full
attention to this class while you’re in it (e.g., don’t work on an assignment for another
class!), and refrain from gathering up your belongings before our class is over.
University policies regarding honest, responsible, and respectful behavior will be enforced
in this classroom. For the full text of the UAF Student Code of Conduct, go to
http://www.uaf.edu/catalog/catalog_08-09/academics/regs3.html.
All electronic devices, except computers being used FOR THIS CLASS, must be turned off
and put away before class begins; use of headphones, earbuds, bluetooth, or other
listening devices is also prohibited. If your cellphone rings, or you surf, text, or otherwise
use electronic devices for unauthorized purposes during class, I will ask you to leave the
room. Repeated violations of this policy may lead to permanent dismissal from this class.
Students are responsible for all information (announcements, assignments, course
materials, etc.) included or indicated on the syllabus, on our ERes Course Page, handed out,
or made orally or electronically, in class or otherwise communicated.
I will not accept late assignments and presentations cannot be made up.
Plagiarism is an indefensible offense which I take very seriously. If you submit work that is
not your own, you will fail that assignment and possibly the class. In severe cases,
additional disciplinary action – such as expulsion from the University – may result.
TWO IMPORTANT DIRECTIVES FOR EMAILING YOUR WRITTEN WORK TO ME:
1) Do NOT send .docx documents – save and send your assignment as .doc only, and
2) Do NOT assume that I received your work until you hear back from me.
My grading policy is traditional (i.e., an “A” is reserved for almost perfect work, a “B”
means very good work, a “C” indicates good work, etc.) with a + or – assigned to the letter
grade when appropriate.
 If any student has any sort of complication that may cause her/him to have difficulty in
completing any the requirements for this course and/or requires special arrangements of
any kind, please let me know as soon as possible, to see how we might accommodate your
needs.
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Available Assistance:
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The Writing Center, Gruening 801, for assistance with all aspects of your written
assignments.
Disability Services, Whitaker 208, ext. 5655/TTY 1827, for special needs.
Me, for anything I can help you with! Please come by during my office hours….
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Course Schedule:
We will do our best to stick to the schedule outlined below but, if we end up straying from it,
I will announce any changes in class.
Introductions
Thurs.
09/03
Tues.
09/08
Thurs.
09/10
Introductions to the course and to each other…
 Jane Flax, “Women do Theory” (1979)
 Kirk & Okazawa-Rey, “Theories & Theorizing” (2009)
 Kolmar & Bartkowski, “Lexicon of the Debates” (2005)
 Abigail Adams, Two Letters to John Adams (1776)
 Olympe de Gouges, “Declaration of the Rights of Woman” (1791)
 Mary Wollstonecraft, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” (1792)
First-Wave Feminist Ideas:
The 19th to early 20th Centuries
Sarah Grimké, “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes & the Condition of Women”
(1837)
Flora Tristan, “Passage from The Worker’s Union” (1843)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Keynote Address” (1848)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments” (1848)
Sojourner Truth, speeches: “Ain’t I A Woman?” (1851); “Keeping the Thing Going
While Things are Stirring” (1867)
Tues.
09/15
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Thurs.
09/17
Tues.
09/22
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John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor, “The Subjection of Women” (1869)
Frederick Engels, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, & the State” (1884)
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Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Female World of Love & Ritual” (1975)
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Thurs.
09/24
Tues.
09/29
Thurs.
10/01
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Reminder: Critical Commentary #1 is due no later than September 30th
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “The Woman’s Bible” (1898)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Women & Economics” (1898)
Emma Goldman, “The Traffic in Women” (1910)
Mother (Mary) Jones, “Girl Slaves of the Milwaukee Breweries” (1910)
Olive Schreiner, “Woman & Labour” (1911)
Jane Cox, “Racism & Carrie Chapman Catt Today” (1995)
Philip N. Cohen, “Nationalism & Suffrage: Gender Struggle in Nation-Building
America” (1996)
Theorizing through the “Doldrums”:
1920 through the 1950s
Tues.
10/06
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Jane Addams, “A Belated Industry” (1896); “A Function of the Social Settlement”
(1899); “The Larger Aspects of the Woman’s Movement” (1914)
Dorothea Moore, “A Day at Hull House” (1897)
Eliza P. Whitcombe, “The Jane Club of Hull House” (1901)
Kathryn Kish Sklar, “Hull House in the 1890s: A Community of Women Reformers”
(1985)
Margaret Sanger, “Woman & the New Race” (1920)
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Thurs.
10/08
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Stella Browne, “Studies in Feminine Inversion” (1923)
Virginia Woolf, “A Room of One’s Own” (1929)
Karen Horney, “The Dread of Women” (1932)
Tues.
10/13
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Margaret Mead, “Sex & Temperament in Three Primitive Societies” (1935)
Mary Ritter Beard, “Woman as a Force in History” (1946)
Florynce Kennedy, “A Comparative Study …of Women & Negroes” (1946)
Thurs.
10/15
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Simone de Beauvoir, “The Second Sex” (1949)
Kate Weigand, “Communists’ Evolving Approach to the Woman Question, 19451956” (2001)
The Woman’s Liberation Movement & the Birth of Second-Wave Feminism:
1963 through the 1970s
Tues.
10/27
Thurs.
10/29
Tues.
11/03
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Kate Millett, “Sexual Politics” (1969) – pp. 1-3
Redstockings Collective, “Redstockings Manifesto” (1969)
Shulamith Firestone, “The Dialectic of Sex” (1970)
Nancy Chodorow, “The Reproduction of Mothering” (1978)
Sherry B. Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” (1974)
Susan Brownmiller, “”Against Our Will: Men, Women, & Rape” (1975)
Mary Daly, “Gyn/Ecology” (1978)
Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” (1977)
Marilyn Frye, “Reflections on Separatism & Power” (1978)
(Re)Defining Feminism/s with(in) (a/the) Third Wave(s):
1980 through the turn of the 21st Century
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Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, & Sex” (1980)
Paula Gunn Allen, “Kochinnenako in Academe” (1986)
Gloria Anzaldua, “La Conciencia de la Mestiza” (1987)
Carol Gilligan, “Concepts of Self & Morality” (1982)
Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Sexuality” (1989)
Patricia Hill Collins, “Black Feminist Thought” (1990)
Ynestra King, “The Ecology of Feminism & the Feminism of Ecology” (1989)
Judith Butler, “Gender Trouble: Feminism & the Subversion of Identity” (1990)
Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Ecofeminism” (n.d. – 1995?)
Tues.
11/17
Thurs.
11/19
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Tues.
11/24
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Linda Alcoff, “Cultural Feminism v. Post-Structuralism” (1988)
Joan W. Scott, “Deconstructing Equality-Versus-Difference” (1988)
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes” (1984)
Uma Narayan, “The Project of Feminist Epistemology: Perspectives from a
Nonwestern Feminist” (1997)
Jennifer Baumgardner & Amy Richards, “The Number One Question About
Feminism” (2003)
Barbara Risman, “Gender as A Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism”
(2004)
Thurs.
11/05
Tues.
11/10
Thurs.
11/12
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Reminder: Critical Commentary #3 is due no later than December 3rd
Thurs.
11/26
Tues.
12/01
Thurs.
12/03
Tues.
12/08
Thurs.
12/10
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THANKSGIVING
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TBA
Student Presentations
Student Presentations
Student Presentations
...don’t forget…don’t forget…don’t forget…don’t forget…don’t forget...
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* TERM PAPER DUE *
no later than
* * * 12:00 midnight * * *
on
* * * * MONDAY 14 DECEMBER * * * *
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* We are in the process of seeking approval from the Registrar to change the designator for all our
courses from WMS to WGS. Please see cover memo.
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