Boston College ENG2125/HIST2502/SOCY2225—Introduction to Feminisms Fall 2015 Tuesdays/Thursdays 4:30 – 5:45pm Location: Lyons Hall 202 Instructor: Professor. Kyoung-­‐yim Kim, Ph.D. Office: 409 McGuinn Hall Email: kyoung.kim@bc.edu Office Hours: McGuinn Hall 409, Wednesdays 3:30-­‐4:30pm and by appointment Course Description and Objectives This course is an introduction to the major concepts, topics and debates that animate the field of women’s and gender Studies. The course will begin by clarifying some common concepts and misconceptions about this field, and explore its rich interdisciplinary legacy. Then we examine how modern gender identities arose, what role science has played in structuring them, and how we reproduce them on an everyday basis. We approach masculinity and femininity not as unchanging categories, but rather as varying in relationship to race, class, sexuality and nation. Moving through the course, we ask how some of the key political and economic forces that shape our time, such as militarism, state security and globalization, rely on and change gender roles and gendered work. We also analyze media representations of sexuality and beauty standards, and how they are perpetuated, resisted and subverted. Along the way, we examine the potential for feminist activism on such issues as politics, sexual diversity, reproductive rights, labor rights, representation, sport, and welfare policies. The texts across the year will include works by feminist economists, sociologists, historians, political scientists, biologists, poets, novelists, filmmakers and performance artists. Although the course introduces you to a variety of political perspectives and theories, the basic outlook, you will find, is transnational-­‐ which means that we focus on the connections between regions and times, rather than treating our own context as static and self-­‐contained. Through a variety of assignments, you will consider what feminism can mean, from your intimate life to your connections with people elsewhere. Some of the ideas and theories you will encounter are considerably difficult. You must be prepared to give this course your utmost effort, and the most important requirement is that you engage sincerely with the assigned readings. Course Materials Course Textbook: Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-­‐Rey, eds. (2013). Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. Sixth Edition. New York: McGraw-­‐Hill. ISBN: 9780073512341. Available at the Boston College Bookstore. Note: Used textbooks may be available. Textbook is also on 2 hours reserve at the O’Neill Library (Call Number: HQ1421 .K573 2012). Additional course readings—marked in the syllabus with the word Reserve/Canvas will be available to students via the library and via our Canvas website. These articles are via our Canvas course website. 1
Course Assignments and Grades In-­‐class Group Exercise based on the readings THREE Reading Responses 10% Sept22 (Gender in High School ) 15% Due: Sept15; Oct13; Nov10 (before class starts) In-­‐class Mid-­‐term Test 20% Oct 20 (covering material discussed in weeks of Sept1-­‐Oct13) Feminist Activism Project 25% Project results will be presented in the class Final Exam 20% Exam date/time will be posted Attendance & Participation 10% Grade to be calculated following final lecture In-­‐class Group Exercise: 10% Based on the two assigned readings for the week, we will we will do a group exercise on gender, sexuality and race/ethnicity in adolescent years. Specific instructions will be given prior to the class. THREE Reading Responses: 15% (3×5%) Students are expected to complete THREE reading responses over the semester (Due: Sept15; Oct13; Nov10). Each reading response should not exceed two pages. Students will discuss the readings and reflect on connections to other readings and to themes of the course. You will also reflect on previous discussions. A more detailed guidelines for the assignment will be discussed in the class. In-­‐class Mid-­‐term Test (Argumentative Essay): 20% Halfway through the semester, students will write an in-­‐class mid-­‐term exam. It will be 4-­‐5 page essay using some of the theoretical material we have been exploring via our reading. Students will analyze an item from our culture (film, article, opinion essay, etc.) and will apply some of the theoretical readings we have done in class to analyze it. Students will be graded based on the strength of their thesis, how well arguments are supported with evidence, and the clarity and persuasiveness of their writing. Feminist Activism Project: 25% Feminist work often engages with activism as well as analysis, so one of the assignments this semester will be to engage in a group project that explores this intersection. This will hopefully not only enable you to see feminism in action outside of the classroom and to engage in it yourself, but also to empower you to see yourself as an agent capable of acting with others in order to create social change. A discussion group in the class will be formed, and it will be allotted to this assignment, but most of this work will be done outside the classroom and on a project of your group’s choice. The projects will be presented to the class in the last week of class: • Research Paper highlighting an oral history interview with women actively working to enhance the lives of women; • Identify problematic gender relations on campus and develop a campus awareness campaign; • Document a local community based organization work. Further details will be discussed in class and students will have amply in class time to develop projects. Final Exam: 20% The class will conclude with a final exam, which will be comprehensive and cover the entire syllabus. The format and content will be discussed in class. 2
Class Attendance and Participation: 10% Class participation is key to this class throughout the semester. Students should come to class well-­‐prepared to discuss the readings, particularly the discussion sections in each week and should also be prepared to do in-­‐class group exercise, short written responses, verbal exercises, and bringing material to class to discuss (such as media articles, images, video clips, etc.). Email Policy: Emails will be answered within 24 hours, except for weekend days (when I cannot guarantee to check my email as regularly). I do not check email between the hours of 9 pm and 8 am. Please keep emails short and to the point; longer commentary may be better discussed during office hours. Written work will not be accepted via email except through prior arrangement. Written Work: Assignment sheets will be made available on the class website, and due dates are specified in the syllabus. Written work submitted later than fifteen minutes after midnight on the due date will be lowered by a third of a grade for each day late, except in cases of illness or emergency. All sources MUST be cited. Please use in-­‐text citation. For example: American teenage girls seem to be in a liminal state, for "as a society, we discarded the Victorian moral umbrella over girls before we agreed on useful strategies and programs-­‐-­‐a kind of 'social Gore-­‐Tex' to help them stay dry" (Brumberg, 1997. p. 201). Works Cited: Brumberg, J. (1997). The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls. New York: Random House. NOTE. Proper in-­‐text Chicago citation utilizes the LAST NAME of the author, the YEAR of the publication date, and the PAGE number, in that order. I will also accept MLA citation. No other forms of citation will be accepted. Be sure to include the works cited page. All papers must be word-­‐processed, spellchecked, double-­‐
spaced, with reasonable margins, and (if printed out) stapled. Please include page numbers and use a font no smaller than ten point and no larger than twelve. I highly encourage you to proofread as grammar and punctuation are essential parts of writing well. Clear and readable prose is also highly esteemed! Papers with frequent grammatical and/or spelling errors will be ineligible for a grade higher than a B. Class Participation and Courtesy: I require and expect all students to treat each other with courtesy. Harassment, whether physical, sexual, or verbal, will not be tolerated in this class. We may be discussing some sensitive and sometimes upsetting topics; I expect this classroom to be a safe space for students to express their views. If you have any problems or questions, I encourage you to bring them to me. Policy on Late Assignments and Missed Deadlines: Proper academic performance depends on students doing their work not only well, but on time. Accordingly, assignments are due in lecture on their due dates and you are required to hand in your assignment by the beginning of lecture on the due date. Emailed assignments will not be accepted. A late assignment will be penalized with a 20% grade reduction per day, unless they are accompanied by a doctor’s note, or by other official documentation detailing a serious matter. The final examination is due on the stipulated date and 3
time noted above with place T.B.D. For the Final Examination, 1 per cent of the student’s overall course grade will be deducted for each day (24 hour period) late without an acceptable and documented reason. Academic Integrity: Academic integrity is expected of all students. All work turned in must be the work of the student whose name appears at the top of the paper, except where you have specifically requested and received permission for a collaborative effort. All students are expected to cite their sources fully (whether from texts, interviews, or online). If you have any questions on when or whether to cite, please do not hesitate to ask. You may not turn in work for this class which you have previously turned in for other classes. Plagiarism will be dealt with according to the Academic Honesty Policy; plagiarized work will result in a failure of the class and further sanctions, at the discretion of Boston College, may result. If you have a disability and need to request accommodations for this course, please register with Kathy Duggan, the Associate Director of Academic Support Services at the Connors Family Learning Center (www.bc.edu/connors), for learning disabilities or ADHD, or Paulette Durrett, Assistant Dean of Students with Disabilities (http://www.bc.edu/disability), for medical, physical, psychological, and temporary disabilities. Advance notice and appropriate documentation are required for accommodations. 4
Fall 2015 Lecture Outline (readings/reading dates are subject to change.) PART 1. EXPLORING THE FIELD September 1 Overview of the Course/ Introduction to Feminism, Women’s, and Gender Studies Guided Reading Questions: What are the gender issues in everyday life? Who is feminist? What are the feminist issues? •
Baumgardner & Richards (2000). A day without feminism. In J. Baumgardner and A. Richards. ManifestA: Young women, feminism, and the future. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Reserve Untangling the “F”-­‐word (Myth 1, 2, & 3). In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 3-­‐17. •
September 8 What is Feminisms? Guided Reading Questions: What is the value of using the term ‘feminisms’ rather than feminism? What does this mean for how we think about the category of ‘women’? •
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Gay, Roxane. 2012. "Bad Feminist." Virginia Quarterly Review 88(4): 88-­‐95. Reserve Subramanian, Mathangi. 2013 (2010). The Brown Girl's Guide to Labels. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 46-­‐49. Ellis, Becky. 2007 Why Feminism Isn't For Everybody. Briarpatch (March/April): 8-­‐10. Reserve hooks, bell. 2000. "Feminist Politics: Where We Stand," and "Global Feminism," in her Feminism is for everybody: passionate politics. Cambridge: South End Press. Reserve. Connell, R. W. (1998). Gender politics for men. In S. P. Schacht & D. W. Ewing (Eds.) Feminism and Men: Reconstructing Gender Relations (pp. 532-­‐537). New York: NYU Press. Canvas PART 2. CONTEXTUALIZING MODERN GENDER IDEOLOGIES September 15 The Scientific Construction of Sex and Gender 1st Reading Response Due Guided Reading Questions: How has science played a role in constructing how we think about sex and gender? What does this mean for perspectives on the biological basis of sex and gender? • Lorber, J. (2013). The Social Construction of Gender. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 64-­‐68. • West, C., & Zimmerman, D.H. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender and Society, 1(2). 125-­‐151. Canvas • Fausto-­‐Sterling, A. (1993). The five sexes: Why male and female are not enough. The Sciences, 33 (2). 18. Canvas • Fausto-­‐Sterling, A. (2000). The five sexes, revisited. The Sciences, 40 (4). 18-­‐23. Canvas September 22 Femininities and Masculinities Guided Reading Questions: How might we connect last week’s discussion with the racialized and sexualized gender identities? What does an intersectional approach bring to the conversation? •
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Pyke, Karen D., & Denise L. Johnson. (2003). Asian American women and racialized femininities: Doing gender across cultural worlds. Gender & Society, 17 (1). 33-­‐53. Canvas Pascoe, C.J. (2005). ‘Dude, you’re a fag’: Adolescent masculinity and the fag discourse. Sexualities, 8 (3). 329-­‐346. Canvas In-­‐Class Group Exercise: Gender in High School 5
PART 3. GENDER, RACE AND EMPIRE September 29 Gender, Race & Colonizing Knowledge Guided Reading Questions: Why is it problematic to use ‘race’ as a biological category? In what ways has colonialism been both a raced and gendered process? •
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McDonald, Helen. 1/22/14. "We Need to Talk About Colonialism Before We Criticize International Anti-­‐LGBTQ Legislation." at Autostraddle (online news). [http://www.autostraddle.com/we-­‐need-­‐
to-­‐talk-­‐about-­‐colonialism-­‐before-­‐we-­‐criticize-­‐ international-­‐anti-­‐lgbtq-­‐legislation-­‐218306/ ] Reserve/links. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1984. "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses," in boundary 2, Vol. 12/13: Issue 3/1. Pp. 333-­‐358. Reserve Smith, A. (2006). Heteropatriarchy and the three pillars of white supremacy: rethinking women of color organizing. In INCITE!: Women of Colour Against Violence (Eds.) Colour of Violence: The incite! Anthology. pp. 66-­‐73. Cambridge: South End Press. Reserve Nader, Nadine. 2013 (2011). Decolonizing Culture: Beyond Orientalist and Anti-­‐Orientalist Feminisms. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 158-­‐165. October 1. Last Date for Undergraduates to drop a course October 6 Racism, Imperialism and Early and Contemporary Feminisms Guided Reading Questions: How did Sojourner Truth’s ‘And ain’t I a woman’ speech introduce an intersectional approach to women’s movements? How have feminists used the vocabulary of slavery versus emancipation, created through the anti-­‐slavery movement, to talk about their own oppression and to argue for women’s rights? •
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Sojourner Truth (1851). ‘And ain’t I a woman?’ Speech. Canvas Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6). 1241-­‐1299. Canvas • Thompson, Becky. 2013. Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 33-­‐42. • DasGupta, Sayantani (Oct 8, 2012). “Your women are oppressed, but ours are awesome”: How Nicholas Kristof and Half the Sky Use women against each other. Racialicious http://www.racialicious.com/2012/10/08/your-­‐women-­‐are-­‐oppressed-­‐but-­‐ours-­‐are-­‐awesome-­‐
how-­‐nicholas-­‐kristof-­‐and-­‐half-­‐the-­‐sky-­‐use-­‐women-­‐against-­‐each-­‐other/ Links. PART 4. GENDERING NATIONALISM AND CITIZENSHIP October 13 Nationalism and Collective Gender Identities 2nd Reading Response Due Guided Reading Questions: What is the relationship between women, the state and nation building? What is the connection between nationalism, masculinity and state security? •
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Haney, Lynne. (1996). Homeboys, babies, men in suits: The state and the reproduction of male dominance. American Sociological Review, 61 (5). 759-­‐778. Canvas Enloe, Cynthia. 2013. Sneak Attack: The Militarization of US Culture. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 481-­‐482. Young, Iris (2003). The logic of masculinist protection: Reflections on the current security state. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 29(1), 3-­‐25. Suggested Reading—Canvas 6
October 20 Formulating Reproductive Rights and Sexual Health Guided Reading Questions: How does the history of racism, colonization and imperialism affect reproductive justice? How have women organized to gain access to education and power over their reproductive rights and sexual health? •
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Ross, L. J. (March 2011). Understanding reproductive justice. Retrieved from Trust Black Women http://trustblackwomen.org/our-­‐work/what-­‐is-­‐reproductive-­‐justice/9-­‐what-­‐is-­‐reproductive-­‐justice Reserve/link Lan, Pei-­‐Chia. (2008). Migrant women’s bodies as boundary markers: Reproductive crisis and sexual control in the new ethnic frontiers of Taiwan. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 33 (4). 833-­‐861. Canvas Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice. (2013). Reproductive Justice: Vision, Analysis and Action for a Stronger Movement. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 243-­‐247. Ross, L. J. (2006). The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice. In INCITE!: Women of Colour Against Violence (Eds.) Colour of Violence: The incite! Anthology. pp. 53-­‐65. Cambridge: South End Press. Reserve In-­‐Class Term Test—October 20: 75 minutes (covering materials discussed in weeks of Sept1-­‐Oct13) October 27 Gender, Family and Social Policy Guided Reading Questions: How does the state operate to enforce a heteronormative, nuclear family structure? What strategies have feminists and other equity seeking groups used to pressure the state to recognize more diverse and varied forms of families? •
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Misra, Joya., Stephanie Moller., and Michelle J. Budig. (2007). Work-­‐family policies and poverty for partnered and single women in Europe and North America. Gender & Society, 21 (6). 804-­‐827. Canvas Korteweg, Anna. (2006). The construction of gendered citizenship at the welfare office: An ethnographic comparison of welfare-­‐to-­‐work workshops in the United States and the Netherlands. Social Politics, 13 (3). 313-­‐340. Canvas PART 5. GENDER, LABOR AND THE DOMESTIC SPHERE November 3 Social Reproduction Guided Reading Questions: What is the significance of the argument that the performance of domestic work produces gender? What do you think Global Women’s Strike organizer Selma James meant when she said “Unwaged housework is the heart of every economic sector?” •
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Crittenden, A. (2013). The Mommy Tax. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 342-­‐350. Russ, J. (1998). I Thee Wed, So Watch It: The Woman Job. In her What Are We Fighting For? Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism. New York: St. Martin's Press. reserve November 10 Commodification and Care Work 3rd Reading Response Due Guided Reading Questions: How might we connect last week’s discussion with the conditions of paid domestic work? What does an intersectional approach bring to the conversation? 7
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Parreñas, R. S. (2013). The Care Crisis in the Philippines: Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 391-­‐400. Chang, G. (2000). Global Exchange: The World Bank, Welfare Reform, and the Trade in Migrant Women. In her Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy. pp. 123-­‐
154. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Reserve Glenn, Evelyn. 1992. From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor. Signs 18(1): 1-­‐43. Canvas PART 6. FEMINIZATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE November 17 Gender, Bodies, and Beauty Guided Reading Questions: Why is representation an important issue for Women and Gender studies? We are surrounded by images of bodies on the internet, on television and in magazines –what do these images tell us about contemporary ideals of beauty in our society? •
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Riley, S. J. (2013). The Black Beauty Myth (2000). In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 227-­‐231. Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. (2008). Yearning for lightness: Transnational circuits in the marketing and consumption of skin lighteners. Gender & Society, 22 (3). 281-­‐302. Canvas Balogun, Oluwakemi M. (2012). Cultural and cosmopolitan: Idealized femininity and embodied nationalism in Nigerian beauty pageants. Gender & Society, 26 (3). 357-­‐381. Canvas Cisneros, S. (2013). Guadalupe the Sex Goddess. In Women's Lives. TEXTBOOK, pp. 1887-­‐198. November 24 Feminization and the Workplace Guided Reading Questions: Provide a definition of emotional and aesthetic labour in your own words. How are they an important dimension of the workplace in these readings? •
Williams, C. L., & Connell, C. (2010). Looking good and sounding right: Aesthetic labor and social inequality in the retail industry. Work and Occupation. 37(3), 349-­‐377. Canvas Thursday, November 26: Thanksgiving Holiday, NO CLASS December 1 December 8 In-­‐class Presentation on Activism Projects I (five group presentation) In-­‐class Presentation on Activism Projects II (three group presentation) Class Wrap-­‐up & Final Exam Preparation December 10-­‐11, Study Days 8