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WGS.301J | Fall 2014 | Undergraduate, Graduate

# Feminist Thought

[TF] = Hackett, Elizabeth, and Sally Haslanger. Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780195150094.

SES # | TOPICS | READINGS
--- | --- | ---

I. Introduction and Background

1 | Introductory Class | No readings assigned

2 | Prejudice, Discrimination, and Oppression | [TF] Young, Iris M. “Five Faces of Oppression.” [TF] Grillo, Trina. “Anti-Essentialism and Intersectionality: Tools to Dismantle the Master’s House.” #### Recommended Frye, Marilyn. “Oppression.” In The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Crossing Press, 1983. ISBN: 9780895940995.

3 | Privilege and Speaking for Others | McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” (PDF) Amptoons. Parker, Pat. “For the White Person Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend,” DePaul University. Crosley-Corcoran, Gina. “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person,” Huffington Post, May 8, 2014. #### Recommended Bunch, Charlotte. “Not by Degrees: Feminist Theory and Education.” In Feminist Theory: A Reader. 4th ed. Edited by Wendy K. Komar and Frances Bartkowski. McGraw Hill, 2013. ISBN: 9780073512358. [TF] Christian, Barbara. “The Race for Theory.”

4 | Film: Diagnosing Difference. Directed by Annalise Ophelian. Color, 64 min. 2009. | No readings assigned

5 | Social Construction: Class, Gender, Race Disability… | [TF] Wendell, Susan. “The Social Construction of Disability.” [TF] Kadi, Joanna. “Stupidity Deconstructed.” [TF] Haslanger, Sally. “Gender & Social Construction: Who? What? When? Where? How?”

6 | Constructions of Gender | Yoder, Janice D. “Biological Essentialism: Our Bodies, Ourselves?” In Women and Gender: Transforming Psychology. Prentice Hall College Division, 1998. ISBN: 9780136446002. Dillon, Florence. “Tell Grandma I’m a Boy.” In Trans Forming Families: Real Stories About Transgendered Loved Ones. 2nd ed. Edited by Mary Boenke. Oak Knoll Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780615123073. Spade, Dean. “Mutilating Gender.” In The Transgender Studies Reader. Edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. Routledge, 2006. ISBN: 9780415947091. [Preview with Google Books] #### Recommended Fausto-Sterling, Anne. “A Genderless Future?” Chapter 1 in Sex / Gender: Biology in a Social World. Routledge, 2012. ISBN: 9780415881463. ———. “Of Spirals and Layers.” Chapter 2 in Sex / Gender: Biology in a Social World. Routledge, 2012. ISBN: 9780415881463. [Preview with Google Books] ———. “Of Hormones and Brains.” Chapter 4 in Sex / Gender: Biology in a Social World. Routledge, 2012, pp. 27 and 36–42. ISBN: 9780415881463. ———. “Am I a Boy or a Girl?: The Emergence of Gender Identity.” Chapter 5 in Sex / Gender: Biology in a Social World. Routledge, 2012. ISBN: 9780415881463.

II. Universalizing Approaches to Sex Oppression

A. Humanist Feminism (“The Sameness Approach”)

7 | Mill’s The Subjection of Women | [TF] Mill, John Stuart. “The Subjection of Women.” Chapter 1. [TF] Truth, Sojourner. “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” #### Recommended Mill, John Stuart. Chapters 2 and 3 in The Subjection of Women. Dover Publications, 1997. ISBN: 9780486296012.

8 | Student Discussion | No readings assigned

9 | Beauvoir and Butler | [TF] de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex, Introduction. de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Vintage Books, 1989, pp. 33–37. Butler, Judith. “Gendering the Body: Beauvoir’s Philosophical Contribution.” In Women, Knowledge, and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy. Edited by Ann Garry and Marilyn Pearsall. Unwin Hyman, 1989. ISBN: 9780044452218.

10 | Justice and Human Capabilities | [TF] Nussbaum, Martha C. “Human Capabilities, Female Human Beings.” [TF] Sen, Amartya. “More than 100 Million Women are Missing.”

11 | Domestic Violence | [TF] Schechter, Susan. “Social Change on Behalf of Battered Women: Reforming the Criminal Justice System.” [TF] Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.”

B. Gynocentric Feminism (“The Difference Approach”)

12 | From Humanism to Gynocentrism | [TF] Young, Iris M. “Humanism, Gynocentrism and Feminist Politics.” At least one of the following: [TF] Addams, Jane. “Women and Public Housekeeping.” [TF] Lorde, Audre. “Uses of the Erotic.” [TF] Allen, Paula Gunn. “Who is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism.” #### Recommended Haslanger, Sally. “Epistemic Housekeeping and the Philosophical Canon: A Reflection on Jane Addams’ ‘Women and Public Housekeeping.’” (PDF)

13 | Maternal Peace Politics | [TF] Ruddick, Sara. “Notes Toward a Feminist Maternal Peace Politics.” #### Recommended Enloe, Cynthia. “Crafting a Global ‘Feminist Curiosity’ to Make Sense of Globalized Militarism: Tallying Impacts, Exposing Causes.” Chapter 1 in Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007. ISBN: 9780742541122. ———. “Tracking the Militarized Global Sneaker.” Chapter 2 in Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007. ISBN: 9780742541122. ———. “How Does ‘National Security’ Become Militarized?” Chapter 3 in Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007. ISBN: 9780742541122. ———. “Paying Close Attention to Women inside Militaries.” Chapter 4 in Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007. ISBN: 9780742541122.

14 | Midterm Reflection | No readings assigned

C. The Dominance Approach

15 | Difference and Dominance | [TF] MacKinnon, Catharine. “Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination.” [TF] Bartky, Sandre Lee. “Foucault, Feminism, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power.”

16 | Materialist Feminism | [TF] Young, Iris M. “Socialist Feminism and the Limits of Dual Systems Theory.” #### Recommended Ferguson, Ann, and Rosemary Hennessy. “Feminist Perspectives on Class and Work,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fraser, Nancy, and Linda Gordon. “A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State.” Signs 19, no. 2 (1994): 309–36.

17 | Pornography | MacKinnon, Catharine A. “Not a Moral Issue.” Yale Law & Policy Review 2, no. 2 (1984): 321–45. [TF] Stoltenberg, John. “Confronting Pornography as a Civil-Rights Issue.” [TF] Duggan, Lisa, Nan D. Hunter, and Carole S. Vance. “False Promises: Feminist Anti-Pornography Legislation.” #### Recommended [TF] MacKinnon, Catharine. “Desire and Power.”

18 | Women, Lesbians, Virgins | Wittig, Monique. “The Category of Sex.” In The Straight Mind and Other Essays. Beacon Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780807079171. ———. “One is Not Born a Woman.” In The Straight Mind and Other Essays. Beacon Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780807079171. [TF] Frye, Marilyn. “Willful Virgin or Do You Have To Be a Lesbian To Be a Feminist?” [TF] hooks, bell. “Seduced by Violence No More.” #### Recommended [TF] Feinberg, Leslie. “Walking Our Talk.” [TF] Rubin, Gayle S. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.”

III. Localizing Approaches to Sex Oppression

19 | Identity Politics | [TF] Combahee River Collective Statement. “A Black Feminist Statement.” [TF] Anzaldua, Gloria. “La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness.” [TF] Matsuda, Mari. “On Identity Politics.”

20 | Childbearing from the Perspective of Poor Black Women | [TF] Roberts, Dorothy E. “Punishing Drug Addicts Who Have Babies: Women of Color, Equality, and the Right of Privacy.”

21 | Recognition and Redistribution | [TF] Fraser, Nancy. “Multiculturalism, Antiessentialism, and Radical Democracy: A Genealogy of the Current Impasse in Feminist Theory.” #### Recommended Fraser, Nancy. “From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a ‘Post-Socialist’ Age.” New Left Review I, no. 212 (1995): 68–93.

22 | Queer Theory | Butler, Judith. “Variations on Sex and Gender: Beauvoir, Wittig, and Foucault.” In Feminism as Critique: On the Politics of Gender. Edited and Introduced by Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell. University of Minnesota Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780816616367.

23 | Film: Forbidden Voices: How to Start a Revolution with a Laptop. Directed by Barbara Miller. Color, 95 min. 2012. | No readings assigned

24 | Veiling and the Construction of Gender | Ali-Saji, Alia. “The Racialization of Muslim Veils: A Philosophical Analysis.” Philosophical & Social Criticism 36, no. 8 (2010): 875–902.

25 | Masculinities | hooks, bell. “Gangsta Culture: A Piece of the Action.” In We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. Routledge, 2003. ISBN: 9780415969277. Connell, R. W. “Men of Reason.” In Masculinities. 2nd ed. University of California Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780520246980. [Preview with Google Books] #### Recommended Connell, R. W. “The Social Organization of Masculinity.” In Masculinities. 2nd ed. University of California Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780520246980. [Preview with Google Books]

26 | Epistemic Injustice | Fricker, Miranda. “Epistemic Justice as a Condition of Political Freedom?” Synthese 190, no. 7 (2013): 1317–32.

27 | Final Presentations | No readings assigned

## Course Info

##### Instructor

- Prof. Sally Haslanger

##### Departments

- Women's and Gender Studies
- Political Science
- Linguistics and Philosophy

##### As Taught In

Fall 2014

##### Level

Undergraduate
Graduate

##### Topics

- Society
  - Gender Studies
  - Women's Studies

##### Learning Resource Types

notes Lecture Notes
assignment Written Assignments

Browse Resources

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