Please note that this syllabus should be regarded as only a general guide to the course. The instructor may have changed
specific course content and requirements subsequent to posting this syllabus. Last Modified: 22:10:45 09/12/2010
GENDER AND SOCIETY
SC 024
Fall 2010
Professor Leslie Salzinger
Office: McGuinn 409
Email: leslie.salzinger@bc.edu
Phone: (617) 552-4134
Office hours: Wed 2:30-4:30
or by appt.
TA: MJ Yeo
Office: McGuinn 410
Email: yeomy@bc.edu
Phone: 617-645-2779
Office hours: Tue 10:30-12:30
or by appt.
We usually think of gender as a trait, a noun. People have a gender. Someone is a woman or a
man. During this course, we will work to see gender as a verb as well. To gender something is to
make it feminine or masculine. And actions, unlike objects, are not fixed. They can happen in
unexpected ways. They can fail. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate gender, not
only as an element of individual personhood, but as a changeable process which forms both
individuals and the social world more broadly. As we do this, we will also note the ways that
gender is always already inflected and shaped by other structures of inequality and difference
such as race, class, and sexuality.
During the first half of the course, we will look at the multiple ways in which both gender and
sex are produced, in thought and in action, in formal edicts and intimate relations, symbolically
and on the body itself. In the second half of the course, we will look at work and family – to
trace the ways gendered selves are shaped in daily practice within these sites and to trace the
consequences of these emergent selves for the institutions in which they are formed. In the last
week of the course we will turn to the realm of international relations, to investigate how macro
processes are structured with reference to gendered understandings. Throughout the semester, we
will be attentive to the links between power, inequality, meaning and selfhood, noting where
particular gendered selves produce domination and constraint and where they make change
imaginable.
It is no accident that one of the most enduring feminist slogans is “the personal is political.”
Gender’s causes and consequences range from major social structures to intimate personal
quirks. In studying such a phenomenon, the goal is to make the connections between these levels
of meaning, experience and action. Thus, throughout the semester, I invite you to read your daily
life within, and against, the terms we develop in class. The personal is indeed political, and for
that matter the political is personal as well. I hope you can use your writing over the course of
the semester to find those moments where, as C. Wright Mills suggested, biography meets
history and both are illuminated in the process.
CLASS MECHANICS:
Course Website: There is a Blackboard Vista site for this course. This site includes a link to
online course reserves, a copy of the syllabus, and a site for posting thought pieces.
Readings: Readings for this course are available online. They may be accessed through the
course Blackboard site or directly from the O’Neill library course reserves website.
In addition, the two books listed below are on sale at the BC Bookstore. These will also be
available on two hour reserve at O’Neill.
The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (Revised Edition) by Joni Seager (Penguin, 2009).
White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture by Chrys Ingraham
(Routledge, 2008).
Requirements:
1. Consistent attendance in class.
2. Active, serious and respectful participation in class and small group discussions.
3. Thorough reading of course materials, including note-taking and/or response writing to be
referenced in class discussion.
4. On-time, thoughtful completion of all assignments.
5. Strict adherence to campus policies regarding plagiarism and intellectual integrity.
Assessments:
1. Class attendance and participation. 5% final grade
2. 6 thought pieces. 15% final grade
2. Midterm exam. 25% final grade
3. Final paper (5-6 pages). 30% final grade
4. Final exam. 25% final grade
Thought pieces: This class deals with complex ideas that require regular completion of the
readings and regular lecture attendance. To help you actively process the readings and relate
them to the world around you, you are required to write six 400-500 word thought-pieces over
the course of the semester (see below for due dates and course website for specific prompts).
These writings should respond to posted questions and deal explicitly with the readings they
reference. They can be informal or unconventional in style, but thoughtless, cursory or late
pieces will not receive credit. Thought-pieces should be posted on the Blackboard website in
the Assignments section. These pieces will be contract graded. Each missing piece will cost you
a half grade on this part of your final grade.
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Class attendance is mandatory. Since I don’t want to waste too much time taking attendance, I
will not take roll every day. Instead, I will take attendance at random intervals during the
semester. If you are not there for one of those classes, you will not be penalized, but after that,
unexcused absences will impact your final grade.
Academic Honesty: Students are expected to comply with the standards for academic honesty
outlined by the University’s AcademicPolicies and Procedures at
http://www.bc.edu/offices/stserv/academic/resources/policy.html#integrity). Any plagiarism or
cheating – including on thought pieces – will result at a minimum in an F on that piece of work
and notification of the academic dean.
CLASS SCHEDULE
September 7:
Introduction
1. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
September 9:
The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (Revised Edition) by Joni Seager (Penguin, 2008).
“Fact Sheet: The Gender Wage Gap: 2009.” Institute for Women’s Policy
Research, March 2010. http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/C350.pdf.
“Report from the Bahamas” in On Call by June Jordan (South End Press, 1985).
Pages 39-50.
Due in class:
List one thing that surprised you, one that disturbed you, and one that heartened
you in the Atlas or Fact Sheet and elaborate on at least one of these.
2. STANDARDS OF COMPARISON
Sept 14:
“Difference and Dominance” in Feminism Unmodified by Catherine MacKinnon
(Harvard University Press, 1987).
“Introduction” in The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (Vintage, 1989). Pages xvivxxxv.
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Sept 16:
“Deconstructing Equality-Versus-Difference: Or, The Uses of Poststructuralist Theory for
Feminism” by Joan Scott, Feminist Studies 14:1 (1988).
“The Hidden Discourse of Masculinity in Gender Discrimination Law” by Tyson Smith and
Michael Kimmel, Signs 30:3 (2005).
3. MAKING SELVES
Sept 21:
“Family Structure and Feminine Personality” by Nancy Chodorow in Woman, Culture and
Society, edited by Michelle Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere (Stanford University Press, 1974).
“Chicana/o Family Structure and Gender Personality: Chodorow, Familism, and
Psychoanalytic Sociology Revisited” by Denise Segura and Jennifer Pierce, Signs 19:1
(1993). Pages 62-91.
Sept 23
“The Traffic in Women” by Gayle Rubin in Toward an Anthropology of Women edited
by Rayna Reiter (Monthly Review Press, 1975).
Sept 28:
“Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire (parts i and ii)” in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the
Subversion of Identity by Judith Butler (New York: Routledge, 1990). Pages 1-7.
“Doing Gender” by Candace West and Don Zimmerman, Gender and Society 1:2 (1987).
Sept 30:
“Doing Difference” by Candace West and Sarah Fenstermaker, Gender and Society 9:1
(1995). Pages 8-37.
“‘Dude You’re a Fag’: Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag Discourse” by C.J. Pascoe,
Sexualities 8:3 (2005). Pages 329-346.
Post to Blackboard by Sept. 29, 11 pm:
Discuss some of the ways genders are produced, referencing at least three essays read in Section
3 of the class.
4. MAKING BODIES
October 5:
“Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology” by Judith Lorber, Gender and Society 7:4 (1993).
Pages 568-581.
“The Bare Bones of Sex: Part 1 – Sex and Gender” by Anne Fausto-Sterling, Signs 30:2 (2005).
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October 7:
“Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools” by Karin Martin, American
Sociological Review 63 (1998). Pages 494-511.
“Scripting the Body: Pharmaceuticals and the (Re)Making of Menstruation” by Laura
Mamo and Jennifer Fosket, Signs 34:4 (2009). Pages 925-949.
October 12:
“The Medical Construction of Gender: Case Management of Intersexed Infants” by Suzanne
Kessler in Theorizing Feminism edited by Anne Herman and Abigail Stewart (Westview
Press, 1994).
“How to Build a Man” by Anne Fausto-Sterling in The Gender/Sexuality Reader edited by
Roger Lancaster and Micaela di Leonardo (Routledge, 1997).
“Doing Justice to Someone: Sex Reassignment and Allegories of Transsexuality” by Judith
Butler, GLQ 7:4 (2001).
October 14:
“Passing and the Managed Achievement of Sex Status in an ‘Intersexed’ Person (and
Appendix)” by Harold Garfinkel in Studies in Ethnomethodology (Polity Press, 1967).
Pages 116-164, 180-185, 285-288.
“From Interiority to Gender Performatives” by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble:
Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge, 1990). Pages 135-141.
Post to Blackboard by Oct. 13, 11 pm:
Discuss the claim that gender leads to sex with reference to at least 4 of the
readings from Section 4 of the course.
October 19:
“Sex Differences and the New Politics of Women’s Health” by Steven Epstein in Inclusion: The
Politics of Difference in Medical Research (University of Chicago Press, 2007). Pages 233-257.
TAKING OUR BEARINGS
October 21:
Review
October 26:
In-class midterm
PART II: GENDER AT WORK
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October 28:
“The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism” by Heidi Hartmann in Women and
Revolution edited by Lydia Sargent (South End Press, 1981).
November 2:
“Gender Inequality in Labor Markets: The Role of Motherhood and Segregation” by Paula
England, Social Politics 12 (2005). Pages 264-288.
“Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations” by Joan Acker, Gender and
Society 20:4 (2006). Pages 441-464.
November 4:
“Manufacturing Sexual Subjects: ‘Harassment,’ Desire and Discipline on a Maquiladora
Shopfloor” by Leslie Salzinger, Ethnography 1:1 (2000). Pages 67-92.
Post to Blackboard by Nov. 3, 11 pm:
Discuss some of the ways in which gender operates in the workplace using at least
two of the readings since the midterm.
November 9:
“The Cultural Constructions of Family Schemas” by Mary Blair-Loy, Gender and Society 15:5
(2001).
“Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?” by Shelley Correll, Stephen Benard, and In
Paik, American Journal of Sociology 112 (2007). Pages 1297-1338.
“Joey's Problem: Nancy and Evan Holt” by Arlie Hochschild with Anne Machung in The Second
Shift (Viking, 1989).
November 11:
“The Standard North American Family: SNAF as an Ideological Code” by Dorothy Smith,
Journal of Family Issues 14:1 (1993).
“(M)Other Love: Culture, Scarcity, and Maternal Thinking” by Nancy Scheper-Hughes in Death
Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil (University of California Press,
1992).
November 16:
“Doing the Dirty Work: Gender, Race and Reproductive Labor in Historical Perspective” by
Mignon Duffy, Gender and Society 21:3 (2007). Pages 313-336.
“Manufacturing Motherhood: The Shadow Work of Nannies and Au Pairs” by Cameron
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Macdonald, Qualitative Sociology 21:1 (1998).
“Global Care Chains and Emotional Surplus Value” by Arlie Hochschild in W. Hutton and A.
Giddens (eds.), Global Capitalism (New York Press, 2000).
Post to Blackboard by Nov. 15, 11 pm:
Discuss some of the ways in which paid and unpaid labor are linked through inequalities of
gender, race, class and nation. Please discuss using at least four of the readings assigned since
Nov. 9.
November 18:
White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture by Chrys Ingraham
(Routledge, 1999). Chapters 1,3,4.
November 23:
White Weddings. Chapter2.
November 30:
“The Conservative Case” by Andrew Sullivan in Same-Sex Marriage: Pro and Con, edited by
Andrew Sullivan (Vintage 1997). Pages 146-154.
“The Radical Case for Gay Marriage: Why Progressives must Join this Fight” by Richard
Goldstein in What is Marriage For? by E.J. Graff (Beacon Press, 2004). Pages ix-xv.
“From Welfare to Wedlock: Marriage Promotion and Poor Mothers’ Inequality” by Gwendolyn
Mink, The Good Society 11:3 (2002). Pages 68-73.
“Citizenship, Same-Sex Marriage, and Feminist Critiques of Marriage” by Jyl Josephson,
Perspectives on Politics 3:2 (2005). Pages 269-284.
Post to Blackboard by Nov. 29, 11 pm:
Is same-sex marriage something feminists should fight for? Please discuss with
reference to Ingraham and at least two of the readings for Nov. 30.
December 2:
“Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?” by Lila Abu-Lughod, American Anthropologist
104:3 (2002). Pages 783-790.
“The Logic of Masculinist Protection: Reflections on the Current Security State” by Iris Young,
Signs 29:1 (2003). Pages 1-25.
“Feminism, The Taliban, and Politics of Counter-Insurgency” by Charles Hirschkind and Saba
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Mahmood, Anthropological Quarterly 75:2 (2002).
December 7:
“Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Committee (July 19, 1848).
http://ecssba.rutgers.edu/docs/seneca.html
“Redstockings Manifesto” (July 7, 1969).
http://www.redstockings.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=76&Itemid=59
The Combahee River Collective’s “Black Feminist Statement” in Home Girls by Barbara
Smith, ed. (Kitchen Table: Woman of Color Press, 1983).
Selections from The Women’s Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third-Wave Feminism,
Volume 2 edited by Leslie Heywood (Greenwood Press, 2006). Pages 5-12 and 297-310.
“Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for all our Families and Relationships,”
July 26, 2006. Pages 1-7.
http://www.beyondmarriage.org/BeyondMarriage.pdf
Dec 9:
In-class final.
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