Feminist Thought

Readings

[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