GWS 350OL GENDER, RACE, CLASS, AND SEXUALITY
Gender & Women's Studies
CSUN
Fall 2012
Time: S 8-10:45am
Prof. Breny Mendoza
Office: Jerome Richfield 340-L
Office phone: (818) 677-5641
E-mail: breny.mendoza@csun.edu
Office hours: T 10-12:00pm & TH 11-12pm
Course Description
The course will provide you with the analytical skills necessary to understand how
powerful forces work to construct a world of inequality, injustice, violence, and
permanent war, based on a network of systems of power of gender, race, class, and
sexuality. We will explore the history we learn and/or learn to forget. We will reflect on
the social roles and ideologies we embrace, perform and consume that help produce
social inequalities and war in our life time. By examining how gender, race, class, and
sexual ideologies are constructed, interrupted, thwarted, or reconfirmed in
contemporary understandings of history, society, politics, popular culture, mainstream
media, and social pracitices, we hope to come to a deeper understanding of the world
we live in and how we can change it.
Required Readings
1. David M. Newman, Identities & Inequalities, McGraw Hill: Boston, 2007
2. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, The New Press: New York, 2010
Other articles will be posted online.
Buy at
CSUN
Campus
Bookstoree
Recommended Readings:
Adam Hochshild , King Leopold’s Ghost: a story of greed, terror, and heroism in colonial
Africa, A Mariner Book: New York, 1998
Buy on your own!
Colonialism and capitalism: Congo (Free State) under King Leopold, King of the
Belgians from 1865-1909
GETTING STARTED: The first day of class you will be required to complete several
introductory tasks. Read the syllabus carefully. Familiarize yourself with the course tools.
Write down questions, issues, or concerns you have and email them to your instructor
for clarification. After clarification, send the instructor an email stating you have read
and understood all of the course requirements. Post a message in Forum #1. Introduce
yourself, tell us about your education and course goals, your previous experiences with
online learning, and the reasons you are taking this course. Read the introductions
posted by your peers and start a conversation with them. Make sure you click Reply to
my questions to avoid confusions. Do not create a new thread or topic. Your completion
of these tasks is required to participate in the course
LIVE CHATS (10pts) ). Live-chats are your opportunity to exchange ideas with your
instructor and receive answers to your questions on course matters and content. We
will have five Live Chats during the semester. Live Chats are mandatory. Read the
assigned readings and watch the videos before attending the Live Chats.
FORUMS (10pts.) Forums are an essential part of the course. Forums are based on
three discusion questions posted by the instructor. Complete the required reading,
written and video assignments before answering the questions. All three questions must
be answered. To be eligible for full credit on discussions, you will be required to
participate (post) and read all responses (a tracking mechanism is available to
instructors) during the week designated by the instructor and to respond to questions
from your peers. Your failure to participate in the Forum during the designated week
will result in 0 points for that Forum. Participation will be evaluated according to your
knowledge of reading assignments, demonstration of critical thinking, and respectful
and considerate behavior toward the opinions of others . Merely commenting that you
agree with someone will not get you points. Response posts to the instructor’s question
must be 2-3 paragraphs in length. Response posts to your classmates must be at least
one paragraph in length. I recommend that you visit the Forum several times a day
during the week of the Forum to check and answer questions your peers may have
posted.
Quizzes (45pts.) You will have three quizzes during the semester. You must
complete the quizzes during the assigned time set by the instructor. No late
submissions are allowed. Quizzes will have a multiple-choice format. Questions
will require careful reading of class materials such as texts, lectures in power
point, videos, and other materials posted on our course website.
Written Assignments
1) Book Report. (20 pts.) Read Michelle Alexander’s book: The New Jim Crow. The
length of the term paper is 6 pages plus bibliography. All papers must be typed,
double-spaced and use proper referencing formats (either APA or MLA). You will
be graded for content and structure, grammatical form, spelling, and use of
proper reference format. Proofread your papers.
2) Video Analysis. (10pts.) Videos are a crucial component of this course. You will
write a three page paper writing a content analysis of 2-3 videos you have
watched in this class. What do these videos teach you about the systems of
power of gender, race, class, and sexuality?
3) Extra Credit (5pts.) Read Adam Hochshild’s , King Leopold’s Ghost: a story of
greed, terror, and heroism in colonial Africa. Write a two page reaction paper on
this book. Tell me how you think the history of the Congo is related to Jim Crow
or other realities of gender, race, class, and sexuality today. You have the option
to add or integrate these two pages to the Book Report. Your Book Report
should then be 8 pages.
Plagiarism
Academic honesty is assumed!! If you do not know what plagiarism is be sure you
understand it immediately. Please, refer to Student Conduct Code in the Fall 2012
Schedule of Classes. If you plagiarize, you will fail this class and the case will be handled
according to the guidelines of the Student Conduct Code.
Course Evaluation
Forums
15
Live Chats
10
Quizzes
45
Video Analysis
10
Book Report
20
____________________
Total
100
Femicide in the 15th C. Europe
Lynching, early 20th C. USA
Child Labor
Women resisting Honduras Coup 2009
Poor white woman and children during the Depression Era in the US
Course Schedule
DATE
Week 1
Saturday
August 25
TOPIC
General
Introduction
Week 2
Saturday
September 1
Week 3
Saturday
September 8
HOLIDAY
LABOR DAY
Power and
Difference
ASSIGNMENTS
Read your syllabus, familiarize
yourself with the course
format and Moodle
Buy course textbook
Email Instructor understanding
of syllabus and course policies
Forum #1
Live Chat #1
Read: Chapter 1: “Differences
and Similarities”
Watch video: A Savage Legacy:
Apartheid, Jim Crow, and
Racism Today
Week 4
Saturday
September 15
Social
Constructivism
Read: Chapter 2:
Manufacturing Difference: The
Social Construction of Race,
Class, Gender, and Sexuality
Forum #2
Week 5
Saturday
September 22
Media &
Read: Chapter: 3 Portraying
Systems of
Difference: Race, Class,
Representation Gender, and Sexuality in
Language the Media
Watch: Over the Hill: Media’s
Impact on Women’s Self-image
Live Chat #2
Week 6
Saturday
September 29
Socialization
and
institutional
discrimination
Read: Chapter 4: Learning
Difference: Families, Schools,
and Socialization
Watch: Bullied, Battered, and
Bruised
Quiz #1
Week 7
Saturday
October 6
Micropolitics
Read: Chapter 5: Expressing
Inequalities: Prejudice and
Discrimination in Everyday Life
Watch: The Last Shot
Forum #3
Week 8
Saturday
October 13
Intersectional
Analysis of
Healthcare
Read: Chapter 6: Inequalities in
Health and Illness
Watch: Sicko
Week 9
Saturday
October 20
Intersectional
Analysis of the
Justice System
Read: Chapter 7: Inequalities in
Law and Justice
Watch: Black Death in Dixie:
racism and the death penalty
in the United States
Live Chat #3
Week 10
Saturday
October 27
Intersectional
Analysis of the
Market
Economy
Read: Chapter 8: Inequalities in
Economics and Work
Forum #4
Watch: Even the Rain
Week 11
Saturday
November 3
The
Contemporary
War on
Women
Readings: TBA
Quiz #2
Week 12
Saturday
November 10
The Coloniality
of Gender
Read: Lugones, Maria,
“Heterosexualism and the
Colonial Modern Gender
System” in Hypatia vol. 22, no.
1 (Winter 2007)
Read: Lecture on Power Point
Watch: The Life and Times of
Sarah Baartman
Live Chat #4
Week 13
Saturday
November 17
Read: Oyewomi, Oyeronke,
The Invention of Women,
University of Minnesota Press:
Minneapolis, 1997
Watch: The Return of Sarah
Baartman
Forum #5
Week 14
Saturday
November 24
Week 15
Saturday
December 1
Week 16
Saturday
December 8
THANKSGIVING BREAK
Another World
is Possible
Read: Chapter 9: The Futures
of Inequality
Watch: The Axe in the Attic
Quiz #3
Conclusions
Book Report due
Video Analysis Due
Last day to turn in Extra Credit
Live Chat #5