University of Pittsburgh – Women’s Studies Program
Spring 2013
Theories of Gender and Sexuality
WOMNST 2252
Day/Time: Thursday, 2:00 pm – 4:50 pm
Location: 312 Cathedral of Learning
Office Hours: Tuesday 10am-12pm
or by appointment
Instructor: Sara Goodkind
Office: 2006 Cathedral of Learning
Email: sag51@pitt.edu
Phone: (412) 648-9432
Syllabus
Course Description
This course provides an overview of important tendencies and controversies in gender and
sexuality studies, emphasizing emerging directions in scholarship as well as foundational
readings. Gender and sexuality studies are interdisciplinary fields in conversation with feminist
theory and queer theory as well as a host of academic disciplines. Drawing on readings from a
variety of disciplines (including sociology, anthropology, history, law, political science,
philosophy, and literary studies) and sampling a range of methodologies, this course works
through some of the key movements and problems that have shaped and continue to shape
contemporary thinking about gender and sexuality.
Diversity and Inclusivity Statement
An important aim of this course is to promote an inclusive learning community that encourages
the dynamic, open exchange of ideas and affirms the diversity and dignity of participants and
perspectives within a safe and mutually respectful environment. We will engage with topics and
theories that may challenge your assumptions about the world, but will do so in a way that values
diverse perspectives and experiences and encourages productive reflection and interaction.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Articulate some of the most significant and widespread approaches to the study of gender
and sexuality shaping current scholarship.
2. Describe how theoretical approaches or questions take on different lives in different
disciplines and to discuss a range of ways in which questions about gender and sexuality
unsettle disciplinary premises and procedures.
3. Address questions of epistemology, authority, and methodological reflexivity that have
been important within gender and sexuality studies.
4. Apply relevant theories of gender and sexuality in their own scholarly work.
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Required Readings
All assigned readings are available on-line.
Course Requirements and Grading
Attendance & Participation – 2%
Reading Responses – 25% (5% each)
Weekly Questions – 13% (1% for each week)
Group Oral Presentation – 10%
Annotated Bibliography – 20%
Literature Survey – 30%
Brief descriptions of assignments are presented here. More detailed descriptions and
requirements for the annotated bibliographies and literature surveys will be handed out in class.
Attendance & Participation
Regular attendance and active participation are essential. This course is a seminar, and if you are
not present and participating, you are not fulfilling an important obligation of the course. Please
contact me about any absences. You are responsible for finding out about what you have missed.
I recognize that some students feel more comfortable participating than others so will do my best
to facilitate an environment in which all feel safe in sharing their thoughts. Please do your best to
encourage colleagues’ participation and to value the diverse disciplinary and experiential
perspectives that they bring.
Reading Responses
Each of you is expected to complete five reading responses (300-500 words each), to be posted
on Blackboard by 9 a.m. on the Wednesday before the class meeting at which the reading(s)
is/are assigned. Your response may focus on a single assigned reading or on multiple readings
assigned for that class meeting. A reading response need not be strongly polemical, but it should
be sharply focused and provide a clear and specific position or vantage-point. It may frame and
focus a large question or work through a short passage in the service of a significant train of
thought or inquiry. You may determine the five class meetings for which you are preparing
responses, but be sure not to leave them all to the end. If a response is not sufficiently substantive
and careful, I will ask you to produce another to replace it. Because the discussion board is also
available for informal responses, please label and number your assigned responses so that I will
know they are being submitted for a grade. For example: “Reading Response #1.”
Weekly Questions
Every week, each student must generate two discussion questions prior to class, to be emailed to
me at sag51@pitt.edu by 9am on the day of class. One of your questions should be based on the
readings, and the other should also, of course, be based on the readings, but should be formulated
after you read the reading responses posted by your colleagues for that class session. In the
unlikely event that there is a week in which no one posts a reading response paper, you can base
both of your questions solely on the readings. Questions are not given a letter grade, but you
must email them to me on time if you would like credit for them.
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Group Oral Presentation
Each of you will work on one 20-30 minute oral presentation, in collaboration with 2-3 other
students. Presentations should help to introduce the class to the week’s work by somehow
reflecting on the readings and/or providing additional background information and analysis about
relevant topics or readings. The presentation need not address each assigned reading at length,
but it should be clear that the presenters are familiar with all the course readings. For your
presentation, please produce a handout that will contribute to our understanding of the work you
are presenting. This group experience will be most useful to you if you work on making this
presentation an exercise in effective speaking as well as an intellectual service to the class.
Annotated Bibliography
Each student will produce an annotated bibliography presenting 6 essays/articles or book
chapters (from different books), at least 5 of which were not assigned in class. This annotated
bibliography should chart the trajectory or current shape of an academic conversation about
some aspect of gender and sexuality studies. The title or a brief initial description of the
bibliography as a whole should make clear what problem or topic unifies the readings that you
summarize in the bibliography. You may organize the bibliography around a particular subject
being investigated (laws about rape, early modern sexuality in a particular region, George Eliot’s
novels) or about a particular conceptual problem or approach (feminist standpoint theory,
women’s literary traditions, Marxist feminism). Each entry in the bibliography should be
accompanied by a summary annotation of 200-250 words.
Literature Survey
The final assignment for the course is a literature survey. This essay of 15-18 double-spaced
pages should survey scholarship on gender and/or sexuality in a particular area—ideally, the
same area explored in the annotated bibliography. This assignment should offer the kind of
positioned summary and analysis of a field of scholarship that is appropriate for an introductory
section or chapter in a graduate thesis or dissertation. Whereas an annotated bibliography
presents a neutral overview of the works of scholarship listed, thereby providing basic
information for other readers, a literature survey needs to be presented from a particular analytic
perspective that lays groundwork for a new project or new projects. If you do not have an actual
project for which you’re laying groundwork, you can orient the literature survey to culminate in
a call for some specific kind of work that’s needed to extend or revise existing scholarship in
some significant way. The survey should address 10 or more essays/articles or book chapters,
any of which may have been addressed in the annotated bibliography or assigned in class.
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University of Pittsburgh Policies and Regulations
Americans with Disabilities Act: If you have a disability for which you are or may be
requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor and Disability
Resources and Services, 140 William Pitt Union, (412) 648-7890 / (412) 383-7355 (TTY), as
early as possible in the term. DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable
accommodations for this course.
Nondiscrimination: The University of Pittsburgh prohibits and will not engage in
discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex,
age, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation, disability, or status as a disabled veteran.
Academic Integrity: Students are expected to follow the Student Code of Conduct established
by the University. Plagiarism is a serious offense and can get you a failing grade, and, in some
cases, dismissal from the university. In order to avoid plagiarism, you must state your sources,
even when you are paraphrasing. You do not avoid plagiarism by changing a few words or lines
in a quotation and then pretending that it’s yours. You also do not learn to critically assess and
integrate multiple perspectives, or to develop your own voice. Remember that using ideas from
a website without crediting it counts as plagiarism. Although you need not cite full publication
information for works that you reference on discussion board postings, you should always make
clear when you are quoting or paraphrasing print or internet sources.
COURSE OUTLINE & READING ASSIGNMENTS
WEEK 1 – Thursday, January 10
STUDENT WORK
Feminist Foundations: Frameworks for Considering the
Source of Gender Inequality
 Gayle Rubin. (1975). “The Traffic in Women: Notes
on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex.”
 Nancy Chodorow. (1978). The Reproduction of
Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender.
(Excerpt)
 Candace West and Don Zimmerman. (1987). “Doing
Gender.”
WEEK 2 – Thursday, January 17
NO CLASS
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WEEK 3 – Thursday, January 24
Feminist Foundations, continued: Liberal Feminism
 Mary Wollstonecraft. (1792). A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman. (Excerpt)
 John Stuart Mill. (1869). The Subjection of Women.
(Excerpt)
 Simone de Beauvoir (1952) The Second Sex (Excerpt)
WEEK 4 – Thursday, January 31
Feminist Foundations, continued: Marxist/Radical/
Cultural Feminism
 Fredrick Engels. (1884). “The Origin of the Family,
Private Property, and the State.”
 Adrienne Rich. (1980). “Compulsory Heterosexuality
and Lesbian Existence.”
 Catharine MacKinnon. (1982). “Feminism, Marxism,
Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory.”
 Carol Gilligan. (1982). In a Different Voice. (Excerpt).
WEEK 5 – Thursday, February 7
Presentation #1
Foundational Theories of Sexuality
 Arlene Stein. (1989). “Three Models of Sexuality:
Drives, Identities, and Practices.”
 Sigmund Freud. (1909). Three Essays on the Theory
of Sexuality. (Excerpt)
 Michel Foucault. (1978). The History of Sexuality,
Volume 1. (Excerpt)
 William Simon & John H. Gagnon. (1984). “Sexual
Scripts.”
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WEEK 6 – Thursday, February 14
Feminist Standpoint Theory

Nancy Hartsock. (1983). “The Feminist Standpoint:
Toward a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism.”

Dorothy Smith. (1987). The Everyday World as
Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. (Excerpt)

Patricia Hill Collins. (1989). “The Social Construction
of Black Feminist Thought.”

Sandra Harding. (1987). “Is There a Feminist
Method?”
WEEK 7 – Thursday, February 21
Response to Gender Essentialism/Universalizing:
Debates on the Category of “Woman”

Linda Alcoff. (1988). “Cultural Feminism vs. PostStructuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory.”

Iris Marion Young. (1994) “Gender as Seriality:
Thinking about Women as a Social Collective.”

Joan Scott. (1991). “The Evidence of Experience.”

Judith Butler. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and
the Subversion of Identity. (Excerpt)
WEEK 8 – Thursday, February 28
Presentation #2
Bringing Sexuality Back In and Introducing Queer Theory

Gayle Rubin. (1984). “Thinking Sex: Notes for a
Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.”

George Chauncey. (1994). Gay New York. (Excerpt)

Eve Sedgwick. (1990). “Epistemology of the Closet.”

Eve Sedgwick. (1995). “Gosh, Boy George, You Must
Be Awfully Secure in Your Masculinity!”

Judith Butler. (2004). Undoing Gender. (Excerpt)
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WEEK 9 – Thursday, March 7
Presentation #3
Response to Gender Essentialism/Universalizing:
Masculinity Studies

Judith (Jack) Halberstam. (1998). Female
Masculinity. (Excerpt)

R. W. Connell. (2006). “Change among the
Gatekeepers: Men, Masculinities, and Gender Equality in
the Global Arena.”

C. J. Pascoe. (2005). “‘Dude, You’re a Fag’:
Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag Discourse.”

Todd Reeser. (2010). Masculinities in Theory.
(Excerpt).
 Check plans for annotated
bibliography with Sara if
you haven’t already
SPRING BREAK: March 11-15
NO CLASS
WEEK 10 – Thursday, March 21
Response to Gender Essentialism/Universalizing:
Transgender Studies

Sharon E. Preves. (2002). “Sexing the Intersexed:
An Analysis of Sociocultural Responses to Intersexuality.”

Susan Stryker. (2006). “(De) Subjugated
Knowledges: An Introduction to Transgender Studies.”

Judith Butler. (2006). “Doing Justice to Someone:
Sex Reassignment and Allegories of Transsexuality.”
And one of the following (we will determine who reads
which in class):

Kristen Schilt and Laurel Westbrook. (2009). “Doing
Gender, Doing Heteronormativity: ‘Gender Normals,’
Transgender People, and the Social Maintenance of
Heterosexuality.”

Catherine Connell. (2010). “Doing, Undoing, or
Redoing Gender: Learning from the Workplace Experiences
of Transpeople.
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Annotated Bibliographies
due
Week 11 – Thursday, March 28
Response to Gender Essentialism/Universalizing:
Intersectionality

Kimberlé Crenshaw. (1991). “Mapping the Margins:
Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against
Women of Color.”

Hae Yeon Choo & Myra Marx Ferree. (2010).
“Practicing Intersectionality in Sociological Research: A
Critical Analysis of Inclusions, Interactions, and Institutions
in the Study of Inequalities.”
And one of the following (we will determine who reads
which in class):

Julie Bettie. (2000). “Women without Class: Chicas,
Cholas, Trash, and the Presence/Absence of Class Identity.”

Mimi Schippers. (2000). “The Sexual Organization of
Sexuality and Gender in Alternative Hard Rock.”

Amy Wilkins. (2004). “Puerto Rican Wannabes:
Sexual Spectacle and the Marking of Race, Class, and
Gender Boundaries.”

Laura Hamilton & Elizabeth Armstrong. (2009).
“Gendered Sexuality in Young Adulthood: Double Binds
and Flawed Options.”
WEEK 12 – Thursday, April 4
Response to Gender Essentialism/Universalizing:
“Third World” Feminism

Chandra Talpade Mohanty. (1988). “Under Western
Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses.”

Chandra Talpade Mohanty. (2003). “‘Under Western
Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist
Struggles.”

Saba Mahmood. (2003). “Feminist Theory,
Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on
the Egyptian Islamic Revival.”
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WEEK 13 – Thursday, April 11
Needs, Rights, and Feminist Judgment
Presentation #4

Nancy Fraser. (1989). “Struggle over Needs: Outline
of a Socialist-Feminist Critical Theory of Late Capitalist
Political Culture.”

Uma Narayan. (1995). “Colonialism and Its Others:
Considerations on Rights and Care Discourses.”

Rosalind Petchesky. (2000). “Rights and Needs:
Rethinking the Connections in Debates over Reproductive
and Sexual Rights.”

Linda Zerilli. (2009). “Toward a Feminist Theory of
Judgment.”
WEEK 14 – Thursday, April 18
Feminism and Neoliberalism: Disciplining the Self and
Buttressing Global Capitalism

Karin Martin. (2003). “Giving Birth Like a Girl.”

Sara Goodkind. (2009). “‘You Can Be Anything You
Want, But You Have to Believe It’: Commercialized
Feminism in Gender-Specific Programs For Girls.”

Hester Eisenstein. (2005). “A Dangerous Liaison:
Feminism and Corporate Globalization.”

Nancy Fraser. (2009). “Feminism, Capitalism, and
the Cunning of History.”
WEEK 15 – Thursday, April 25
Theory, Politics, and Social Change: Praxis Revisited
Final Essays due

Linda Zerilli. (2005). Feminism and the Abyss of
Freedom. (Excerpt)
 Michaele Ferguson. (2010). “Choice Feminism and
the Fear of Politics.”
Acknowledgments:
This course is based on a previous version developed by Nancy Glazener. Helpful suggestions
for readings and advice about the course were given to her by Dan Barlow, Frayda Cohen,
Amanda Godley, Molly Nichols, Lisa Parker, Todd Reeser, and Dawn Winters. It has been
revised in collaboration with Lisa Brush.
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