Gender and Women - Syllabus

SOC 305, Sociology of Sex and Gender, Payal Banerjee - Maxwell School - Syracuse Univ. - Syllabus
This course explores how we get to be women and men, the different ways we experience gender, and gender as a principal factor in social organization and stratification. It examines and critiques the sociological forces that maintain, enforce, and produce social stratification and difference based on gender. Certain social institutions (e.g., political, economic, family, government, and education) are used as examples of how society maintains, enforces, and produces gender. We will also try to understand how the concept of gender changes when we intersect it with notions of race/ethnicity, class, and sexuality. - maxwell.syr.edu/

Syllabus-Center for Women's studies - SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE: INTERSECTING POWER RELATIONS AROUND GENDER, CLASS AND ETHNICITY - A postgraduate course given in English at the Center for Women's studies, - Stockholm University, - http://www.kvinfo.su.se/english/default.htm
Outline of the course:
This course has three focal objectives:-
(1) To develop ways of understanding the complex and often contradictory intersections of power relations associated with gender, class and ethnicity;
(2) within a comparative, transnational perspective;
(3) and in terms of the linkages between theory, research, policy and practice.
To achieve these three interdependent objectives, the course will use European and transeuropean welfare systems as an extended case study to explore the dynamics of intersecting power relations across, between and within societies.

Literature: CORE TEXTS
Acker, J. (2000) ”Revisiting Class: Thinking from Gender, Race, and Organizations”, Social Politics, vol 7, no 2.

Brah, A. (2001) “Re-framingEurope: Gendered Racisms, Ethnicities and Nationalisms in Contemporary WesternEurope” in Fink, J., Lewis, G. and Clarke, J. (eds.) Rethinking EuropeanWelfare, London: Sage [pages 207 – 218].

Connell, R.W. (1987) Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics,
Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapters 5 and 8.

Connell, R.W. (1998) “Masculinities and Globalization”, Men and Masculinities, vol.1, no.1: pages 3-23.

Pease, B. and Pringle, K. (eds) (2001). A Man’s World? Changing Men’s Practices in a Globalized World, London: Zed Books: chapters by Pease and Pringle, Kimmel, Lemons, Pease, Pringle and Pease.

Pringle, K. (1998) Children and Social Welfare in Europe, Buckingham: Open University Press: chapters 5, 8, 9.

Williams, F. (2001) “Race/ethnicity, gender and class in welfare states: a framework for comparative analysis” in Fink, J., Lewis, G.and Clarke, J. (eds.) Rethinking European Welfare, London: Sage [also SocialPolitics, 2(2), pp127-159].

Materials from EC Network on Men at web-site www.cromenet.org

OPTIONAL TEXTS
Chamberlyne, P., Cooper, A., Freeman, R., Rustin, M. (eds) (1999) Welfare and Culture in Europe: Towards A New Paradigm in Social Policy, London: JKP.

Connell, R.W. (1995) Masculinities, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Connell (2002) Gender, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Hobson, B. (ed) Making Men into Fathers: Men, Masculinities and the Social Politics of Fatherhood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Meyers, M.K., Gornick, J.C. and Ross, K.E. (1999) “Public Childcare, Parental leave and Employment” in Sainsbury, D. (ed.) Gender and Welfare State Regimes, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pascall, G. and Manning N.(2000) “Gender and Social Policy: Comparing Welfare States in Centraland Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union”, Journal of European Social Policy, vol 10, no 3.

Pred. A. (2000) Even in Sweden, University of California Press.

Pringle, K. (1995) Men and Masculinities and Social Welfare, London: UCL.

Pringle, K. and Harder, M (1999) Through Two Pairs of Eyes: A Comparative Study of Danish Social Policy and Child Welfare, Aalborg: Aalborg University Press.

Sainsbury, D. (ed.) (1999) Gender and Welfare State Regimes, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Soysal, Y.N. (1994) Limits of Citizenshship: Migrants and Postnational Membership in Europe, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Yuval-Davis, N. (1997) Gender and Nation, London: Sage

Northern Arizona University Women's Studies Syllabus -
http://www4.nau.edu/womensstudies

University of Maryland at College Park - http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/Syllabi/Intro/

Women- and Gender-Related Course Syllabi on the Web
Over 500 Syllabi on the Web for Women- and Gender-Related Courses
http://www.umbc.edu/cwit/syllabi.html

COURSE OBJECTIVES This course is designed to examine gender from a sociological perspective.

SOCIOLOGY 309: GENDER AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE AMERICAS
SYLLABUS - Patricia Fernández Kelly - Princeton University Office of Population Research and Department of Sociology, 21 Prospect Avenue. mailto:mpfk@opr.princeton.edu
This course examines gender as an integral component of socio-economic development. Our main focus will be on selected areas of Latin America and the United States but we will include a few important contributions with data from other parts of the world. Gender will be conceptualized as a relational concept pertinent to the understanding of men’s as well as women’s role in development. Special attention will be afforded to processes of industrial restructuring that have increased the participation of women in the formal labor force aiding the transformation of definitions of manhood and womanhood. In addition to a review of theories of development, we will explore feminist currents of thought. An understanding of the relationship between gender inequality and social order will be a central object of inquiry. Among the topics for discussion is the relationship between households, agriculture and industrial change.

Introduction. The sociological vision: methods and approach.- Gender: The missing link in theories of development.- Gender in a historical perspective.- Conceptual problems.- Changes in the concept of development since the 1950s.- Development as ideology and practice.- The role of national states.- Colonialism.- From nationalism to economic globalization.- Review of the literature.

Boserup, Ester. 1970. Women’s role in Economic Development. New York: Allen and Unwin.

Gender and Development: Some Key Concepts. Gender as process.- Economic, political and ideological aspects of gender.- Structures of power and domination: gender, class, race and ethnicity.- The debate on production and reproduction.- Patriarchy.- Historical roots of the division between the "public" and the "private." Labor market segregation on the basis of gender.- Wage differentials between men and women.

Beneria, Lourdes and Gita Sen. 1986. “Accumulation, Reproduction, and Women’s Role in Economic Development: Boserup Revisited.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers:141-157.
Fernández Kelly, M.Patricia. 1994. "Making Sense of Gender in the World Economy: Focus on Latin America," Organization 1(2): 249-275.

Gender in a Critical Light. Feminism and socio-economic development.- Social order and gender hierarchy: the unspoken dilemmas.- Patriarchy revisited.- Wage differentials between men and women: how far have we come?.- Social change and changing gender ideologies.- Collective mobilization, class, and gender identities.

Weiner, Annette B. 1986. “Forgotten Wealth: Cloth and Women’s Production in the Pacific.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers: 96-110.
Ward Gailey, Christine. 1987. Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hierarchy and State Formation in the Tongan Islands. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Fernández Kelly, M. Patricia and Anna M. García. 1992. "Power Surrendered, Power Restored: The Politics of Work and Family Among Hispanic Garment Workers in California and Florida." In Tilly, Louise A. And Patricia Gurin, editors, Women, Politics and Change. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.

Theories of Socio-economic Development. Liberal and radical approaches.- Neo-classical economics and modernization.- Culture and national character.- Marxist and Neo-Marxist interpretations.- Development and underdevelopment.- Dependency.- Import Substitution Industrialization.- The New International Division of Labor.- Post-Industrialism.- The World System Perspective.- Contributions of the New Economic Sociology.

Portes, Alejandro. 1994. "Sociology and Development in the 1990s: Critical Challenges and Empirical Trends." In Comparative National Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Gereffi, Gary. 1994. "Rethinking Development theory: Insights from East Asia and Latin America." In Comparative national Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Castells, Manuel and Roberto Laserna. 1994. “The New Dependency: Technological Change and Socioeconomic Restructuring in Latin America.” In Comparative National Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Working Women in the United States: A Historical Overview. Notes on the pre-industrial era.- Women and industrialization. Domestic labor and the transition to factory production.- Migrants and immigrants.- Women and the labor movement.- The family wage and protective legislation. Feminist thought in the nineteenth century.

Minge, Wanda. 1986. “The Industrial Revolution and the European Family: “childhood” as a Market for Family Labor.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers: 13-24.
Tilly, Louise and Joan W. Scott. 1989. Women, Work, and Family. New York: Routledge.
Mullings, Leith. 1986. “Uneven Development: Class, Race, and Gender in the United States Before 1900.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers: 41-57.
Smith-Rosenberg, Caroll. 1975. "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth Century America." SIGNS, A Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Volume 1, Number 1(Autumn):1-29.

Women and Development in Latin America. Industrial and agricultural change in the twentieth century.- Peasants, immigrants and proletarians.- Ethnicity in the Latin American context.- Urbanization.- Formal and informal employment.- The role of the state.- Myths and facts about Latin American women: "machismo" and "marianismo" revisited.

Nash, June and Helen Safa. 1986. Women and Change in Latin America. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc.
Evans, Peter B. 1994. “Predatory, Developmental, and Other Apparatuses: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on the Third World State.” In Comparative National Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Roberts, Bryan R. 1994. "Urbanization, Development, and the Household." In Comparative National Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Gender, Personal Identity and Domestic Production. The nuclear family as a normative concept.- The household as an empirical category.- Effects of development on families and households.- Family strategies and class structure.- Women, consumption and development.- Gender and the welfare state.

Wolf, Diane L. 1992. Factory Daughters: Gender, Household Dynamics, and Rural Industrialization In Java. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Gender and Economic Internationalization. The rise of the global economy.- Computer technology and the reorganization of production.- Men, women and multinational corporations.- Export-led industrialization in Latin America and the Caribbean.- International migration.- Gender and the informal economy.- Transnational labor markets.

Haggard, Stephan. 1989. "The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America." Latin American Research Review, Volume XXIV, Number 1: 184-208.
Portes, Alejandro. 1989. "Latin American Urbanization in the Years of the Crisis." Latin American Research Review, Volume XXIV, Number 3: 7-44.

Industrial Restructuring and the Global Economy. Capital disinvestment and the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy in the United States.- The rise of the global city.- Class recomposition.- Subcontracting and the informal economy.- Exploitation versus redundancy in a restructured labor market.- Immigrants and citizens in the new economy.-

Fernández Kelly, M.Patricia and Saskia Sassen. 1994. "Recasting Women in the Global Economy: Internationalization and Changing Definitions of Gender." In Women in the Development Process: From Structural Subordination to Empowerment, (Christine Bose and Edna Acosta Belén, Editors). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Arizpe, Lourdes and Josefina Aranda. 1986. “Women Workers in the Strawberry Agribusiness in Mexico.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers: 174-193.
Wilson, William J. 1991. "Studying Inner-City Social Dislocations." American Sociological Review, Volume 56, Number 1(February):1-14.
Fernández Kelly, M. Patricia. 1994. "Towanda's Triumph: Social and Cultural Capital in the Urban Ghetto. In The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays in Ethnicity, Migration and Entrepreneurship (Alejandro Portes, Editor). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Fernández Kelly, M.Patricia and Richard Schauffler.1995. "Divided Fates: Immigrant Children in a Restructured Economy." International Migration Review.

Georgetown University - Department of Sociology and Anthropology
ANTH – 140-01 Anthropological Perspectives on Gender - Professor Brennan
Overview of Course:
By looking at gender from a cross-cultural perspective we will question how gender constructions are played out in various cultural settings. Some of the central questions throughout the semester will focus on the following: Are ideas about maleness and femaleness the same everywhere? Are women always subordinate to men? Do gender differences necessarily result in inequalities? How do gender ideologies shape the division of labor in the household? Are gender ideologies and roles reconfigured through periods of profound change such as economic crises or the process of migration? We will also examine how anthropologists have “studied” gender. In particular, we will question how the race, class, gender and sexuality of an anthropologist affects his/her research.

In addition to articles, we will read ethnographies* from various cultural settings, including one about gender relations on a college campus in the United States. You will have the chance to conduct your own field work project here at Georgetown where you will observe gender relations in one of the following settings: class rooms, dining hall, student organizations, dormitory, gym, library, sporting events, parties, the Tombs, or public spaces (red square, the lawn near the front gates, etc.). I welcome any other ideas for research settings. You will participate in Research Groups of 4 or 5 students and will pick one of the field work settings at Georgetown and develop research questions and methodology. You will meet several times throughout the semester (I will allot class time for some of these meetings) to discuss the progress and obstacles to your research. You will have a chance as a group to present your observations and analysis to the class at the end of the semester. The goal of this project is to get us all thinking about gender ideologies, roles, and relations in our own “backyard.” In this way, we will see how the themes we read about in class relate to our experiences outside of class.

Readings:

The following books are on sale at the Georgetown bookstore. All of the other assignments are on reserve.

Gutmann, Mathew C. 1996. The Meanings of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Sanday, Peggy Reeves. 1990. Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus. New York: New York University Press.

Wolf, Margery. 1992. A Thrice Told Tale: Feminism, Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Brennan, Denise. 2003. What’s Love Got to Do with It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in Sosua, the Dominican Republic. Durham: Duke University Press.

Georgetown University - Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Introduction to Women’s Studies - Professor Collins

An emergent and powerful lens for understanding the relations of globalization are feminist insights into the gendering of globalization. Feminists argue that the public spheres of global political economy and transnational politics have been problematically treated as gender neutral sites for social inquiry. Feminist analyses of militaries, nationalisms, bases, tourism, land reform, and global clothing production, for example, center a different set of actors on this global stage. They ask a key question of the transnational—where are the women? Feminists hence consider domestic workers,

women cultivators, seamstresses, prostitutes, diplomat’s wives, feminist activists, and gendered military officials and nationalists as significant social actors whose labor and gendered relations play a key role in making the world go round (Enloe 1989). For instance, making feminist sense of international politics explains how militarized masculinity and global tourism implicitly rely on “First World” access to “Third World” sexualities. Feminists demonstrate how globalization is profoundly gendered and sexual.

The aim of this course is to encourage students to learn and expand upon feminist insights into the transnational. We begin by considering the social constructions of gender, sex, sexuality, race, and nation. We then look at feminist engagements with sexuality, representation, and the development of a sexual praxis. Next, we look at feminist insights into the commodification of race, beauty, and bodies and the gendered and sexual dimensions of “work.” We then look more closely at the gendering of globalization by considering women’s relationship to travel, forced movement, global commodity production, Diasporas, and development. We conclude by looking at women’s struggles with global social inequalities through transnational organizing and sex workers’ resistances.

Georgetown University - Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Gender, Work, and Social Change
Professor Collins

The reality of working in a globalizing world is one where gender and sexuality increasingly matter to labor and consumption. Tourism employment, factory and farm work, and corporate management, for example, can no longer be treated as gender-neutral spheres. The rise of the sex industry and the diversification of hospitality and domestic services demonstrate that work is fundamentally gendered and sexualized. Neither can we separate the implicit gendered and sexual aspects of leisure from our work lives; even our most intimate identities are shaped by what we consume and how we perceive ourselves as “working” members of society.

The purpose of this course is to understand social change through feminist analyses of work and consumption. We will begin by addressing broader questions concerning what constitutes “work” and global economic change. Here we will consider the concepts of production and reproduction, public and private, formal and informal, global and local, and the exchange of women in capitalist class relations. We will look at how cultural constructs of masculine/feminine and man/woman change in relation to diverse work settings and inspire nationalist conceptions of the “reproductive woman” and the“laboring man.” We will ground these concepts in actual cases of women and waged work—such as tourism employment, sex work, domestic work, pink collar employment, and agricultural and assembly line work. Additional topics will include: Women working for the environment, racialized gender work, gender and leisure, work and sexuality, the feminization of labor and poverty, women and international development, women and the free trade zones, and work and migration. This course will close with a formulation of alternative visions for social change—we will consider women’s resistance to economic oppression through their shifting conceptions of gender, work, and community and their efforts at formal labor organizing.

SYLLABUS: MEN, WOMEN, AND SOCIETIES
Dr. Patti A. Giuffre - pg07@txstate.edu SOCI 3350 (Section 1)

Course description/objectives: We are born male or female. We become masculine or feminine. This course will explore the social and cultural construction of gender differences, focusing on contemporary issues. Some of the course material will examine sex and gender internationally. The course begins with a description of the sociological approach to the study of men and women and how it differs from other perspectives. We will examine the ways that boys/men and girls/women are socialized differently. Next we will explore gender differences in social institutions, including education, the family, and the workplace. We then discuss gender differences in intimacy and friendships. The course will conclude by examining different types of feminisms as well as questions about social change.
By the end of this course you should be able to understand and apply
(1) a sociological approach to the study of men and women;
(2) the social construction of gender in social institutions;
(3) the social construction of gender in relationships;
(4) sociological methods and theories; and
(5) sociological concepts and theories to your personal experiences and to your observations of others.
By the end of this course you should also be able to engage in critical thinking. Critical thinkers are able to understand many sides to an issue, even if they disagree with the arguments presented;
analyze course material actively; and set aside their personal beliefs and values in order to understand issues from a scientific perspective.
Required textbook:
Joan Z. Spade and Catherine G. Valentine. 2004. The Kaleidoscope of Gender: Prisms, Patterns, and Possibilities. Thompson-Wadsworth: Australia.

CLASS SCHEDULE AND READING ASSIGNMENTS:
Introduction to the Sociology of Sex and Gender: Basic Concepts
The sociological approach to the study of sex and gender. Sociological theories.
Reading: “Introduction” pp. 1-11
Biological approaches to the study of men and women and the sociological critique. Is there a biological link between sex (being male and female) and gender (being masculine or feminine)? Is “anatomy destiny?”
Reading: pp. 14-21 and “The Trouble with Testosterone” by Sapolsky, pp. 46-51
Transgendered and intersexed people or when sex and gender don't "match": The sociological and scientific implications
Reading: “Sexing the Intersexed,” by Preves, pp. 31-45
“What It Means to Be Gendered Me,” by Lucal, pp. 52-63
Cultural differences in gender: How do beliefs about gender vary among different cultures?
How do definitions of masculinity and femininity vary globally? Why are these differences important to sociologists?
Reading: pp. 114-120
“Multiple Genders among North American Indians” by Nanda, pp. 64-70
“Gender and Power” by Lepowsky, pp.150-159
Gender and Other Social Locations (Race, Social Class, and others)
Reading: pp. 71-77
“Race, Gender and Class in the Lives of Asian Americans” by Espiritu, pp. 90-94
“ Macho”: Contemporary Conceptions” by Mirande` pp. 95-103
Socialization in the U.S.: How do boys and girls learn to become masculine and feminine?
Reading: pp.164-167; 169-170
“Playing in the Gender Transgression Zone: Race, Class, and Hegemonic Masculinity in Middle
Childhood” by McGuffey and Rich, pp. 172-182
Gender in Social Institutions
Gender and Education
Reading: pp. 167-168
“The Chilly Climate: Subtle Ways in Which Women Are Often Treated Differently at Work and in
Classrooms” by Sandler, pp. 187-190
“Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation” by Tanenbaum, pp. 213-219
Gender, Consumerism, Culture, and Capitalism
Reading: pp. 220-225
“The More You Subtract, The More You Add: Cutting Girls Down to Size” by Kilbourne, pp. 234-
243
“The Anthropometry of Barbie: Unsettling Ideas of the Feminine Body in Popular Culture” by Urla
and Swedlund, pp. 245-256
Gender and the Workplace
Reading: pp. 332-345
“Gendering the Market: Temporality, Work, and Gender on a National Futures Exchange” by Levin,
pp. 356-363
“Gender, Social Inequalities, and Retirement Income” by Calasanti and Selvin, pp. 370-376
"Sexual Harassment and Masculinity: The Power and Meaning of 'Girl Watching,'" by Quinn, pp.
472-480
Gender and Intimacy, Gender and Families
Reading: pp. 395-402
Friendship: “Men, Women, and Friendship: What They Say, What They Do” by Walker, pp. 403-
412
Families: “Moral Dilemmas, Moral Strategies, and the Transformation of Gender: Lessons from Two
Generations of Work and Family Change” by Gerson, pp. 413-424
Parenting: “Mothering, Work, and Gender in Urban Asante Ideology and Practice” by Clark, pp. 425-
Gender and Bodies
Reading: pp. 279-285
“Men Are Real, Women Are ‘Made Up’: Beauty Therapy and the Construction Femininity” by
Black and Sharma, pp. 286-295
“Size 6: The Western Women’s Harem” by Mernissi, pp. 297-301
Gender, Social Control, and Violence
pp. 448-453
“Escape from Animal House: Frat Boy Tells All” by Straus, pp. 462-465
“Sexual Trafficking in Women” by Bertone, pp. 466-471
Social Change; Feminisms (5/1--Last class day)
pp. 489-495; pp. 552-556
“Unraveling the Gender Knot” by Johnson, pp. 511-520

Women’s Studies 101: Introduction to Women’s Studies
University of Wisconsin-Marathon County
Instructor: Dr. Holly Hassel
Email: hhassel@uwc.edu

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.
--Mary Wollstonecraft

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
--Rebecca West

Catalog Course Description:
The UW Colleges course catalog describes WOM 101 as “An introduction to the major problems addressed by women’s studies with an emphasis on the theoretical and methodological issues involved in gaining accurate knowledge about women. Literary, philosophical, historical and social science perspectives are used to understand the experience of women and the cultural construction of gender.” The UW Colleges Women’s Studies program defines the field as the following:
An interdisciplinary program of study, Women’s Studies introduces students to the scholarship, literature, and creative works by and about women that are transforming the liberal arts and the professions. As an interdisciplinary, multicultural, and global course of study, women’s studies courses will prepare students to use both traditional and feminist perspectives to analyze gender, sex, and sexuality as biological, psychological, social, and cultural phenomena. This might include the study of social change movements, politics and government, fine arts, literature, and the social sciences, with one possible goal being the creation of an understanding that interrelated factors - e.g., race, ethnicity, class, age, disability, religion, national origin, and sexual orientation - inform knowledge of women’s history, culture, and social roles. Students should also gain knowledge of feminist movements for social change globally and in the US.
Additional Description:
This course is designated as a social science and interdisciplinary studies because, like many social sciences, it examines social structures, systems, and institutions in the US and internationally to determine how they function, how they establish and maintain hierarchies and orders of dominance, and how these structures have operated historically as well as in the present day. We’ll be looking specifically at how institutions (social arrangements that structure our daily lives) work and how women shape them and are shaped by them. We’ll specifically be talking about how, as one women’s studies mantra claims, “the personal is political”—how are women’s everyday lives and choices part of larger, powerful structures that determine the range of their choices? Institutions like medicine, education, the media, politics and government, motherhood, heterosexuality, marriage, gender role socialization, and religion will be the subject of our scrutiny as we look at them through a feminist lens, one that puts gender and women at the center of the discussion. Our course anthologies will invite us to consider the role and status of women both nationally and internationally and our focused texts will look at specific institutions like the family, workplace, and medical community.

Course Objectives:
According to the UW Colleges Women’s Studies Program Mission Statement, Women’s Studies has several overall goals for students:
Improve critical thinking and provide students with the intellectual means to question prevailing assumptions
Promote social responsibility through revealing the connections between personal experience and political activity and validating student contributions and voices
Relate learning in the classroom to lives in communities
Integrate knowledge and experience
Respond to the media actively and analytically
Engage with ideas that are new, challenging, and sometimes uncomfortable
Develop gender consciousness
Develop an informed understanding of feminism and women’s studies

Required Texts:
The Price of Motherhood by Ann Crittenden:
Women Across Cultures: A Global Perspective by Burn, ISBN 0072826738
Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Shaw and Lee, second edition 0072822422
For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts’ Advice to Women, Ehrenreich and English
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son Tim Wise 1932360689

Schedule
Week One: What is Women’s Studies?
Read from Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions (WVFV): Chapter One, “Women’s Studies: Perspectives and Practices”
Read from WVFV: Reading 2 “A Day Without Feminism”
Read from WVFV: Reading 3, “Dear Sisters”
Read from WVFV: Reading 6, “Shame, Guilt, and Responsibility.”
Read from WVFV: Reading 7 “Denials of Inequality”
Learning Activity: Complete Learning Activity: “The National Women’s Hall of Fame” on pg. 7. Write out a one page typed response to the questions to turn in.
Discussion: Myths and Stereotypes
Supplementary MiniLecture: History of Feminism

Week Two: Systems of Privilege and Inequality in Women’s Lives
Read from WVFV Chapter 2: “Systems of Privilege and Inequality in Women’s Lives”
Read from WVFV Reading 9, “Oppression”
Read from WVFV: Reading 11, “Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism”
Read from WVFV, Reading 12: “White Privilege and Male Privilege”
Learning activity in class: “Challenging Your Assumptions”
Learning activity: Complete either the learning activity “Test for Hidden Bias” on page 61 or “Combating Hate” on page 63. Write out a one page typed response to turn in.
Read: “Reflections on Male-Bashing” Cataldi (h)
In-class: overview of Student-led discussions

Read from Women Across Cultures (WAC): Chapter One, “Introduction to Cross-Cultural Study of Women’s issues” and Chapter 2, “Women’s Low Status and Power”
Discussion: Status, oppression, and power

Week Three: Systems of Privilege and Inequality
Student-led discussion: White Like Me
Group One: “Preface” and “Born to Belonging”
Group Two: “Privilege”
Group Three: “Resistance”

Student-led discussion: White Like Me
Group Four: “Collaboration”
Group Five: “Loss’
Group Six: “Redemption”

Week Four: Learning Gender

Read from WVFV: Chapter Three, “Learning Gender in a Diverse Society”
In-class learning activity: “Speaking of Men and Women” p. 115
Learning activity homework: Complete the Learning activity on page 114, “Tomboys and Sissies” and write a one-page typed response to turn in.
Read from WVFV: Reading 17, “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story”
Read from WVFV: Reading 18, “The Social Construction of Gender”

Week Five: Sex, Power, and Intimacy

Read from WVFV: Chapter Four, “Sex, Power, and Intimacy”
In-class learning activity, “Talking about Being ‘Out’” p. 158
Learning activity homework: Complete “Heteronormativity: It’s everywhere” and bring a one-page typed response to class to turn in

Read from WAC: Chapter 4: “Lesbians in Cross-Cultural Perspective”
Discussion

Week Six: Gender and the Body , Reproductive Rights

Read from WVFV: Chapter 5, “Inscribing Gender on the Body”
Read from WVFV Reading 32: “Breast Buds and the ‘Training’ Bra’”
In-class activity and homework: Buy one magazine geared toward women (Teens, twentysomething, mature women—whatever) and read it. Bring to class for discussion.

Read from WAC: Chapter 3, “Reproductive Rights”
Discussion: study questions and discussion questions, p. 70
Discuss Final Project

Week Seven: Health and Reproductive Rights

Read from WVFV: Chapter 6, “Health and Reproductive Rights”
Read: “An Overview of Abortion in the United States” (h)
Read from WVFV: Reading 45: “My Fight for Birth Control”
Read from WVFV: Reading 46, “Caught in the Crossfire”
Read from WVFV Reading 47, “How Women Pay for Fetal Rights”
Learning activity homework: Do either the learning activity on page 240, “Obsessed with Breasts” or pg 256, “Walk in Her Shoes” and write a one-page typed response to turn in.

Student-led discussion: For Her Own Good
Group One: “Foreword” and “In the Ruins of Patriarchy”
Group Two: “Witches, Healers, and Gentleman Doctors”
Group Three: Chapter Three, “Science and the Ascent of the Experts”
Group Four: “The Sexual Politics of Sickness”

Week Eight: Health and Reproductive Rights

Student-led discussion: For Her Own Good
Group Five: “Microbes and the Manufacture of Housework”
Group Six: “The Century of the Child”
Group Seven: “Motherhood as Pathology”
Group Eight: “From Masochistic Motherhood to the Sexual Marketplace”

Week Nine: Family Systems, Family Lives

Read from WVFV: Chapter 7: “Family Systems, Family Lives”
Learning activity homework: Do either “What Makes a Family?” (291) or “Families in Poverty (292) or “Divorce Law” (294) and write a one-page typed response to the questions or to the activity to turn in.
Read from WVFV: Reading 48, “The ‘Constructed Problems’ of Contemporary Family Life”
Final Project Proposal Due

Read from WVFV: Chapter Eight: “Women’s Work Inside and Outside the Home”
Read from WVFV: Reading 55, “A Brief History of Working Women”
Learning activity homework: Do “Who Does the Work at Your School and In Your Home?” on page 27 through interviews and internet research. Bring it to class to turn in and use for discussion.

Week Ten: Women’s Work

Student-Led Discussions: The Price of Motherhood
Group One: “Introduction and Where We Are Now”
Group Two: “A Conspiracy of Silence” and “How Mothers’ Work was ‘Disappeared’”
Group Three: “The Truly Invisible Hand” and “The Mommy Tax.”
Group Four: “The Dark Little Secret of Family Life” and “What is a Life Worth”

Student-Led Discussions: The Price of Motherhood
Group Five: “Who Really Owns the Family Wage?” and “Who Pays for the Kids”
Group Six: “The Welfare State Versus a Caring State” and “The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love”
Group Seven: “An Accident Waiting to Happen” and “It was Her Choice”
Group Eight: “Conclusion: How to Bring Children up Without Putting Women Down”

Week Eleven: Women’s Work

Read from WAC: Chapter 5, “Women’s Work”
Study and Discussion questions 130-131

Read from WAC: Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, “Women and Development” and “Women and Globalization”
Study and Discussion Questions: 162, 186-187

Week Twelve: State, Law, and Social Policy

Read from WVFV: Chapter 11, “State, Law, and Social Policy,” including ALL READINGS (PP. 479-515)
Discussion questions p. 515—in class

Week Thirteen: Resisting Violence Against Women

Read from WVFV: Chapter Ten: “Resisting Violence Against Women”
Read from WVFV: Reading 69, “Violence Against Women: An Issue of Human Rights”
Read from WVFV: Reading 71, “Fraternities and Collegiate Rape Culture”
Read from WVFV: Reading 75, “The Internet and the Global Prostitution Industry”
Learning Activity Homework: Do learning activity “How Safe Is Your Campus?” either for UWMC or the school you plan to transfer to. Write out responses to the questions and bring to class for discussion.

Week Fourteen: Religion and Spirituality

Read from WVFV: Chapter Twelve, “Religion and Spirituality in Women’s Lives”
Read from WVFV: Reading 85, “Fundamentalism and the Control of Women”
Learning activity homework: Do either learning activity “That Old-Time TV Religion” (p. 518) or “Women of Faith” (p. 521). Write a one-page typed response to turn in.

Read from WAC: Chapter 8, “Women and Religion”
Study and Discussion questions p 221-222

Week Fifteen Activism and Change

Read from WVFV: Chapter Thirteen: “Activism, Change, and Feminist Futures”
Read from WVFV: Reading 92: “Fear of Feminism, Why Young Women Get the Willies”
Read from WVFV: Reading 99, “A Day with Feminism”
Learning Activity Homework: Answer either Discussion question #1, 3, or 7 (page 592-593) in a one-page typed response to turn in

First Week/Day Terms/Ideas to Cover
feminist pedagogy
feminism and history of feminist activism
privilege, intersectionality
patriarchy, privilege
history of feminist activism
personal is political
gender system
gender role socialization
oppression
women’s studies
gender studies
biological determinism vs. social construction
intersectionality
feminine mystique
exceptionalism

Key Terms for Each Unit
feminist pedagogy, feminism, privilege, intersectionality, active and passive racism, patriarchy, privilege, history of feminist activism, binarial thinking, double bind, discrimination, dominant ideology, essentialism, personal is political, gender system, gender role socialization, gendered division of labor, institution, patriarchy, biological determinism, oppression gender role socialization, gendered division of labor, gender system, biological determinism and essentialism, gender vs. sex, institution, internalized oppression, intersectionality and/or interlocking oppressions, private sphere, sexual difference, social construction, stereotypes, agency, consumer capitalism, autonomy, marginalization, feminization of poverty, glass ceiling, institution, myth of the classless society, second shift, consumer capitalism, commodification, colonization, the beauty myth, ideal, internalized oppression, misogyny, objectification, oppression, political, social construction, trafficking in women, binarial thinking feminist spirituality movement, feminist theology, hermeneutics, heterosexism and homophobia, liberation theology, masculine god-language, religious canon, revolutionary feminist theology, sex-segregated religious practices.

Sociology of Gender - Soc 3733

Tentative Course Syllabus
Dr. Robert S. Bausch
Web Page: http://www.cameron.edu/~rbausch
E-mail: rbausch@cameron.edu
Course Description:
This course will examine the processes by which gender is socially constructed, along with the distinction between biological sex and sociological gender, the causes and consequences of gender inequality, and a historical overview of gender relations in different social institutions and societies.

Required Text:
Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective, 4th Ed., by Linda Lindsey.

Tentative Course Schedule: Week 1: Introduction; Theories of Gender (L:1)
Week 2: Theories of Gender, cont.
Week 3: Biology, Sex, and Gender (L:2)
Week 4: Prehistory and Primates; History of Gender Roles (L:5)
Week 5: History of Gender Roles, cont.; Global Perspectives (L:6)
Week 6: Gender Role Development (L:3); Exam 1 (Monday, Feb 13th)
Week 7: Gender Role Development, cont.; Language (L:4)
Week 8: Love and Marriage (L:7); Family Relations
Week 9: Family Relations, cont. (L:8); Gender and Work (L:10)

Week 10: Spring Break

Week 11: Gender and Work, cont.; Gender and Education (L:11)
Week 12: Gender and Education, cont.; Gender and Crime; Exam 2 (Monday, Mar 27th)
Week 13: Gender and Crime, cont.
Week 14: Gender and Religion (L:12)
Week 15: Group Presentations; Gender and Politics, Government and the Military (L:14)
Week 16: Gender and P, G & M, cont.

Gender and Women's Studies 294
Peer Educators: Create Social Change, Reduce Violence

Course Coordinators : Rebecca Gordon, EdD; Heather Imrie, & Aarati Kasturirangan
Website : http://www.uic.edu/depts/owa/peer_ed_spring2006.html
E-mail : rebeccag@uic.edu , himrie1@uic.edu , aarati@uic.edu

I. Course Description:
Students who participate in this class will learn how they can create social change on campus through becoming a peer educator. This class will focus on the theoretical and social constructions of masculinity and femininity and will explore how these constructions influence gender-based violence in our culture. Students will learn about the socio-cultural dynamics involved in sexual assault, relationship violence and stalking. Students will learn group presentation skills to facilitate interactive workshops for the campus community. These workshops will target changing attitudes and beliefs that are supportive of violence; increasing knowledge about sexual assault, relationship violence and stalking; increasing awareness of how to help a friend; exploring how to intervene in these situations with friends.

Gender and Women’s Studies 101:
Gender in Everyday Life
With a focus on American Women’s Experience.
Professor Anne Balay TTh 12:30-1:45
Required Texts: (all at Chicago Textbooks, 1076 W. Taylor)
Reconstructing Gender: A Multicultural Anthology ed Disch (4th ed.)
Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings ed Schneir (Vintage, 1994)
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker (Harcourt)
Power Politics, by Arundhati Roy (South End Press, 2001)
Course Description and Goals: This course will introduce students to the situation of women in America today, to how we got here, and to where we wish to go next. We will begin by exploring what gender is, how it affects us, and how we feel about that.
Unit One – Gender, sex roles, and their history.
Unit 2 -- The family and marriage.
Unit 3 -- Choices, Work, Self-Expression.
Unit 4 – Reproduction and Motherhood
Unit 5 – Change, Politics, Revolution.

Intersections Of Gender, Race, Class And Sexuality
Instructor Sheena Malhotra, Ph.D.
email sheena.malhotra@csun.edu

COURSE OBJECTIVES
“Intersections Of Gender, Race, Class And Sexuality” examines race, class, gender as social constructions that are negotiated within specific historical and material locations. We will study the connections between images in popular culture, history, and social practices in our daily lives. From this perspective we will explore how the social roles we perform and consume every day produce and sustain uneven social relations between and among differently situated people and groups. Of particular interest is the way in which gender intersects with other social categories such as race, class, sexuality, and national origin in our daily lives and popular images. By studying these intersections from the perspective of women living them, we move marginalized women from their typically marginal position to the center of the curriculum.
The central aim of the course is to understand gender not as a singular category, but to see the ways in which gender intersects with other axes of power within specific historical contexts to interrogate the complexities of the social forces that shape our lives in contradictory ways. For instance, how does class privilege relate to gender oppression? How does gender privilege intersect with racial oppression? Upon which axes of power are you privileged and/or marginalized? How are we empowered and/or marginalized by social systems that go beyond our immediate lives and yet influence them so deeply? These considerations take place within the material and historical contexts that shape the possibilities of experience that social groups may have.
The course is designed to enable students to become critically reflexive about the cultural representations that we consume and daily practices we perform in which gender, race, class, sexuality, and nation are constituted. Readings, class activities, and homework assignments aim to enable students to analyze and write about gendered identity formation and the political significance of social categories. One desired outcome of the course is to increase students’ sensitivity towards societal issues relating to discrimination, exploitation, and domination.
We will have a special focus on the “War on Terrorism” and the Anti-War movement… particularly as it relates to intersections of gender, race, class & sexuality.

REQUIRED TEXTS
Alexander, M. J., L. Albrecht, et al., Eds. (2003). Sing, Whisper, Shout, Pray! Feminist Visions for a Just World. New York, Edgework

GENDER AND INEQUALITY - SOC 335
Sam Houston State University
Instructor : Dr. Lee M. Miller
E-Mail : lmm007@shsu.edu

Required Texts :
Andersen, Margaret L. 2006. Thinking About Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender, New York : Pearson Education, Inc. Seventh Edition.
Paul, Elizabeth L. 2002. Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Sex and Gender (Second Edition). Guilford , Connecticut : McGraw-Hill.

Course Description: This course studies the influence of gender on socialization and placement in class, status and power stratification systems. Feminist perspectives will be adopted to explore institutional discrimination against women in major social institutions such as family, education, religion, work and health care, and an examination of the feminization of poverty. Prerequisite: Soc 261

Course Objectives: By the end of the course, you should be able to:

explain basic sociological concepts and theories related to gender and social inequality
understand and analyze ideas and perspectives surrounding main controversies in gender studies
critically examine contemporary events and trends as they reflect gender issues.

Sex, Gender, Sexuality and the Law (SGS&L)
Syllabus
Introduction
This course began in the 1990s as a course on Feminist Legal Theory, using a book called Feminist Jurisprudence: Taking Women Seriously. (Becker, Bowman, Torrey). Some years later, I expanded the course to encompass broader questions of sexuality. For several years, we used a book called Sexuality, Gender and the Law (Hunter, Eskridge). Because of complaints about the book (some thought it too theoretical, others thought it too focused on sexual orientation), I switched for several years to Sex Equality (MacKinnon).

Gender and Humanities – Syllabus
Instructor: Dr. Anne M. Guzzo
voice mail, guzzo@uwyo.edu
Purpose of course: This course introduces concepts in the fields of gender studies and critical theory. We will begin to examine and understand these concepts through case studies in a variety of disciplines in the humanities, including, but not limited to, visual art, music, performance art, theater, and dance.

Gender and Society
Women’s Studies (WMST) 3500
Professor: Susan McKay, Ph.D.
Professor of Women’s and International Studies and Nursing
E-mail: McKay@uwyo.edu
Web site: http://uwacadweb.uwyo.edu/MCKAY
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Using a feminist analytic framework, this course investigates the causes and consequences of gender construction within social institutions such as family, government, education, religion, and economy. It analyzes social structural factors affecting support for gender differentiation, e.g. social values, position in hierarchies of control, access to paid employment, and gendered life experiences. Also, the course examines differences by race, social class and sexuality.
REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS
Lorber, Judith (2005). Breaking the bowls: Degendering and feminist change. New York & London: Norton
Freedman, Estelle, (2002). No turning back: The history of feminism and the future of women. New York: Ballantine Books.
Kimmel, Michael. (2004). Men’s lives (6th ed.). Boston, NY, & San Francisco: Allyn and Bacon.
Weitz, Rose (1998). The politics of women’s bodies: Sexuality, appearance and behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sociology of Gender
COURSE OUTLINE AND SYLLABUS
SOCIOLOGY 3280 - Linda Grant, Professor of Sociology
Email: lgrant@.uga.edu
Course Focus: This course serves as an introduction to Sociology of Gender, the largest and one of the fastest growing subsections within the American Sociological Association. We examine gender as a major organizing principle of contemporary social life and explore the ways that gender intersects with other important lines of social differentiation, such as race, ethnicity, social class, sexuality, and nationality. We explore diverse theories that address issues of gender differentiation and gender inequality, and we explore the ways in which gender influences social life and social organization within major social institutions such as media, family, the workplace, schools, religion, politics, and popular culture.
Although the primary emphasis will be on contemporary American society, we will be attentive to ways in which contemporary gender relations in the US are similar to, and different from, those in other locales and eras. Three segments of the course explore explanations of gender, gender effects on identities and social institutions, and gendered interactions.

Course Materials:
Michael Kimmel. The Gendered Society. 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Joan Z. Spade and Catherine G. Valentine, eds. The Kaleidoscope of Gender; Prisms, Patterns,
and Possibilities. Thompson, Wadsworth, 2004.

Week One:
What Do We Mean by Gender?
Week Two: How are sex and gender related? (Or are they?)
Week Three: The Biological and the Cultural in the Origin of Gender
Week Four: Biosocial Perspectives and their Critiques; Gender Never Stands Alone
Week Five: Psychological and Socialization Perspectives on Gender
Week Six: Embodied Perspectives on Gender: Media and Culture
Week Seven: Social Constructivist Approaches to Gender
Week Eight: Gender and Sexuality as Cultural and institutional Practice
Week Nine: Gender Context of Family and Intimate Life
Week Ten: Issues of Work and Family Balance in Contemporary Society
Week Eleven: Gender Issues and Work
Week Twelve: Education and Gender
Week Thirteen: Education (cont) and Health
Week Fourteen: Gender and Intimate Life
Week Fifteen: Gender, Violence and Crime; The Future of Gender Relations

Women and Men in Society Syllabus
SOC/WGS304 - Instructor: Tiffany Taylor - email: tltaylo2@sa.ncsu.edu
Course Objectives
1. Develop a sociological perspective
2. Apply and evaluate theories and literature concerning gender
3. Analyze the influences of race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, and gender
Required Texts
1. Gender and the Prism of Difference 3rd Edition. Edited by Baca Zinn, Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Messner. (Abbreviated GP on schedule)
2. Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations by Serena Nanda. (Nanda on schedule)
3. Body Outlaws 2nd Edition, Edited by Ophira Edut. (BO on schedule).
Biology and gender Fausto-Sterling, “The Five Sexes”, from GP
Fausto-Sterling, “How to Build a Man”, WebCT
Cross cultural gender Nanda pp. 1-56
Bodies and Beauty (SWS)
McDowell, “The Art of the Ponytail” from BO
Damsky, “Beauty Secrets”, from BO
Rodriguez, “Breaking the Model”, from BO
Chaich, “Size Queen” A Gay Guy on Girth” from BO
Godsey, “Cro-Magnon Karma: One Dude and His Body Image Issues” from BO
Gender in intimate relations: men and emotions
Rubin “The Approach-Avoidance Dance:” from WebCT
Sattel, “The Inexpressive Male”, WebCT
Gender and friendship Walker “I’m not Friends The Way She’s Friends” WebCT
Gender, Sexuality and Intimacy Wolkomir “Giving it up to God” Gender and Society 18:6 Gender and sexuality: women in sport as a context
Heywood, “All American Girls: Jock Chic, Body Image, and Sports” from BO
Blinde and Taub “Falsely Accused” from WebCT
Gender and sexuality: men in sport as a context
Dworkin and Wachs, “The Morality/Manhood Paradox: Masculinity, Sport, and the Media”,
Messner, “Becoming 100 Percent Straight”, GP
Feminine empowerment? Wilkins, “So Full of Myself as a Chick” Gender and Society 18:3 pp 328-349. WebCT
Feminine sexual empowerment stripping
Pasko, “Naked Power” WebCT
McGhan, “Dancing Toward Redemption”, from BO
Gender, sexuality and work Lemur “Sexuality, Power, and Camraderie in Service Work” Gender and Society 18:6 WebCT
Gender in context: race and class

Hooks “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory” WebCT
Lorde “Age, Race, and Class: Women Redefining Difference”, GP
Gender in context: race and class

Hooks “killing rage” from WebCT
Lorde “Uses of Anger” from WebCT
Gender in context: race and class
Wilkins, “Puerto Rican Wannabes” Gender and Society 18:1 pp 103-121. WebCT
Gender in context: race and class (SSS)
Pyke and Johnson, “Asian American Women and Racialized Feminitites”, from GP
Sayeed “Chappals and Gym Shorts” in GP
Gender and Violence: Fraternities as context
“Fraternal Bond” WebCT
“Frats and rape” WebCT
Gender and Violence: Men Talk About Rape
“Confessions” WebCT
Scully and Marolla, “Convicted Rapists” WebCT
Race, Gender and Violence Davis “JoAnne Little: Dialectics of Rape” from WebCT hooks “Ending Violence” from WebCT
Global Gender Issues Bales, “Because She Looks Like a Child” from GP Davidson, “The Sex Tourist” from GP
Global Gender Issues Ehrenreich and Hochschild, “Global Women”, from GP
Global sexuality Altman, “The Globalization of Sexual Identities” from GP
Bigger Pictures: the Media, Oppression and Fear
Kimmel, “Gender, Class, and Terrorism” from GP

Introduction to Women Studies - Women 200
Instructor: Dr. Rebecca Aanerud - e-mail: raan@u.washington.edu
Course Description
This is an introductory-level course designed to familiarize students with current debates in Women Studies and feminist theory. The course examines the cultural construction and maintenance of gender inequalities in a range of social and political contexts, emphasizing the interrelation between race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality. The class is organized around questions of the body.
We all “live in” bodies. These bodies are, in turn, situated within social structures: they are “raced,” “gendered,” “classed,” etc. The kind of body we occupy—the way it looks and its location on the globe -- has everything to do with the ways in which we act and the ways in which we are acted upon. The central question of this course, then, is: “What does Women Studies and feminism have to do with the bodies we occupy?”
Required Texts
Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology - Ed. Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins
Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire - Ed. Sonia Shah
A Hunger So Wide and So Deep - Becky Thompson
Week One:
Topics cover: introduction, what is Women Studies? Why study histories?
Social Construction vs. Biology; Begin histories of women.
Reading for the week:
“Commonalities and Differences” in CR
“Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Defining Difference” RCG 177-184
“Angry Women are Building” RCG 44-48
“Preface” and “Introduction” to DL
“On Asian America, Feminism, and Agenda-making” DL 57-70
Week Two:
Topics covered: Continue with histories of women; histories of feminism
Reading for the week:
“Cult of True Womanhood: Industrial and Westward Expansion” CR
“Mexicanas: The Immigrant Experience, 1900-1950” CR
“La Guera” (RCG page 28)
“Issei: ‘Picture Brides’ in America” CR
“Black Ideals of Womanhood in the Late Victorian Era” CR
Theme Two: Racism and Antiracism
Week Three: note Holiday Monday January 16th
Topics covered: Race and racism in the lives of US American women and
feminism
Reading for the week:
“Something about the Subject Makes It hard to Name” RCG
“White Privilege and Male Privilege” RCG
“Seeing More than Black and White” RCG
“Race Matters” RCG
“When We Are Capable of Stopping, We Begin to See” CR
Theme Three: Bodies at Work
Week Four:
Topics includes women and the work they do
Reading for the week:
“Race, Class, and Gender and Women’s Work” RCG
“The Gap between Striving and Achieving” CR
“The Latino Population” CR
“Executive Women on a Tightrope” CR
“Invisibility, Consciousness of the Other, and Ressentiment” CR
Week Five:
Topics continues with women and the work they do
Reading for the week:
“Working Poor, Working Hard” CR
“Is there Still a ‘Double Handicap’?” CR
“Breaking the Cycle” DL
“The Invisible Poor” RCG
“Doméstica” RCG
Mid-term Exam Monday February 6th
Theme Four: Bodies in Contact: Communities/Families/Sexualities
Week Six:
Topics include women and family structures
Reading for the week:
“The Diversity of American Families” RCG
“Our Mother’s Grief” RCG
“Countering the Conspiracy to Ignore Black Girls” RCG
“Racial Safety and Cultural Maintenance” RCG
“Migration and Vietnamese” RCG 314-321
“Straight is to Gay as Family is to No Family” RCG
“Asian American Women and Adolescent Girls” CR
“Life as a Lesbian” CR
Theme Four: The Body Beautiful? Health and Safety
Week Seven: Be sure to bring a magazine ad or two to your section meeting
Topics include health and the beauty industry
Reading for the week:
A Hunger So Wide and So Deep
Week Eight: Holiday February 20st
Topics include violence in the lives of women
Reading for the week:
“Sexuality and Violence” CR
“Battered Women: Why Don’t They Just Leave?” CR
“Sexual Harassment in the College and University Settings” CR
“A Slippery Path” DL
“Building Shelter” DL
“Empowering Women” DL
Week Nine:
Topics include women’s health and doing gender
Reading for the week:
“Doing Gender” CR
“Complexion” CR
Theme Five: Making Change
Week Ten:
Topics include finding the tools
“Women of Color on the Front Lines” RCG
“Having the Tools at Hand” RCG
“’Whosoever’ is Welcome Here” RCG

Women In Contemporary Society
SOCIOLOGY 200
PROFESSOR JENNIFER LEHMANN
JMLEHMANN5@MSN
REQUIRED TEXT:
‘RACE’ CLASS AND GENDER
Edited by Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins
COURSE FORMAT:
Lecture/Discussion
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
We will explore various groups, identities, and inequalities in contemporary U.S. society, focusing on relationships of gender, and on interrelationships between and among gender and classes, ethnicities, sexualities, and nationalities. We will examine the sources of our ideas about groups, identities and inequalities, and alternative ideas about groups, identities and inequalities. We will emphasize the sources and structures of these inequalities, possible alternatives to them, and possible means of transforming these structures. As we learn about these concepts, we will learn about analytical and critical reading, thinking, speaking, and writing. Hopefully, we will learn about ourselves and each other, our own ideas, identities, positions, and relationships. Possibly, we will change ourselves, our ideas, our relationships to others, and to the social orders in which we live.

ORDER OF LECTURES, READINGS AND CLASS DISCUSSIONS

Introduction: Syllabus, Identities
History of Feminism and Egalitarian Social Theories
Theories of Inequalities and Egalitarianism
“Introduction” by Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins 1-14
I Shifting the Center: Introduction 15-22
1 “Missing People and Others: Joining the Together to Expand the Circle” by Arturo Madrid 23-28
2 “La Guera” by Cherrie Moraga 28-35
3 “Report from the Bahamas” by June Jordan 35-44
4 “Angry Women Are Building: Issues and Struggles Facing ‘American’ Indian Women Today” by Paula Gunn Allen 44-48
5 “Oppression” by Marilyn Frye 48-51
6 “A Different Mirror” by Ronald T. Takaki 51-64
7 “Age, ‘Race’, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” by Audre Lorde 64-73
II Conceptualizing ‘Race’, Class, and Gender: Introduction 75-98

GENDER AND SEXISM
19 “Gender through the Prism of Difference” by Maxine Baca Zinn, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Michael A. Messner 166-174
20 “Ideological Racism and Cultural Resistance: Constructing Our Own Images” by Yen Le Espiritu 175-184
21 “A White Woman of Color” by Julia Alvarez 184-190
22 “Masculinities and Athletic Careers” by Michael Messner 190-203
23 “Just Choices: Women of Color, Reproductive Health, and Human Rights” by Loretta J. Ross, Sarah L. Brownlee, Dazon Dixon Diallo, Luz Rodriquez, and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Project 203-214
III Rethinking Institutions
Introduction by Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins 215-218, 220-223

FAMILIES
29 “Our Mothers’ Grief: Racial-Ethnic Women and the Maintenance of Families” by
Bonnie Thornton Dill 266-280
31 “Countering the Conspiracy to Ignore Black Girls” by Robin D.G. Kelley 287-295
32 “’Racial’ Safety and Cultural Maintenance: The Child Care Concerns of Employed Mothers of Color” by Lynet Uttal 295-304
30 “The Diversity of American Families” by Eleanor Palo Stoller and Rose Campbell Gibson 280-287
33 “Straight is to Gay as Family is to No Family” by Kath Weston 304-309
IV Applying the Framework
Introduction 395-398, 403-405

SEXUALITY
50 “The Gender of Sexuality” by Pepper Schwartz and Virginia Rutter 448-455
51 “Black Sexuality: The Taboo Subject” by Cornel West 455-461
52 “Where Has Gay Liberation Gone? An Interview with Barbara Smith” by Amy Gluckman and Betsy Reed 461-465
53 “Globalizing Sex Workers’ Rights” by Kamala Kempadoo 465-474
54 “Getting Off on Feminism” by Jason Schultz 474-482

CLASS AND INEQUALITY
14 “Economic Apartheid in America” by Chuck Collins and Felice Veskel 127-139
15 “Tired of Playing Monopoly?” by Donna Langston 140-149
16 “Wealth Matters” by Dalton Conley 149-154
17 “Poverty as ‘Race’, Power, and Wealth” by James Jennings and Louis Kushnick 154-158
18 “Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class” By Mary Pattillo-McCoy 158-165

WORK AND ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION
24 “‘Race’, Class, Gender, and Women’s Works” by Teresa Amott and Julie Matthaei 228-237
25 “The Indignities of Unemployment” by Kenneth W. Brown 237-238
26 “’Soft’ Skills and ‘Race’” by Philip Moss and Chris Tilly 239-248
27 “The Invisible Poor” by Katherine S. Newman 248-257
28 “Domestica” by Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo 257-265

‘RACE’ AND RACISM
8 “Something about the Subject Makes It hard to Name” by Gloria Yamato 99-103
9 “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh 103-108
10 “Of ‘Race’ and Risk” by Patricia J. Williams 108-110
11 “Seeing More than Black and White” by Elizabeth Martinez 111-117
12 “What White Supremacists Taught a Jewish Scholar about Identity” by Abby L. Ferber 117-121
13 “‘Race’ Matters” by Cornel West 121-126

ETHNICITY AND MIGRATION
45 “Is This a White Country, or What?” by Lillian Rubin 410-418
46 “Optional Ethnicities: For Whites Only?” by Mary C. Waters 418-427
47 “’Mexicanness’ in New York: Migrants Seek New Place in Old Racial Order” by Robert Smith 427-433
48 “Migration and Vietnamese American Women: Remaking Ethnicity” by Nazli Kibria 433-440
49 “Chappals and Gym Shorts: An Indian Muslim Woman in the Land of Oz” by Almas Sayeed 441-447
III Rethinking Institutions
Introduction 215-227

CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS AND THE PRODUCTION OF IDEAS
34 “Racist Stereotyping in the English Language” by Robert B. Moore 310-321
37 “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Ortiz Cofer 337-342
36 “Media Magic: Making Class Invisible” by Gregory Mantsios 329-337
38 “Gladiators, Gazelles, and Groupies: Basketball Love and Loathing” by Julianne Malveaux 342-348
35 “Crimes against Humanity” by Ward Churchill 321-328

STATE INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL POLICY
40 “The First ‘Americans’: ‘American’ Indians” by C. Matthew Snipp 354-361
39 “Taking Multicultural, Antiracist Education Seriously: An Interview with Enid Lee” by Barbara Miner 348-353
41 “Can Education Eliminate ‘Race’, Class, and Gender Inequality?” by Roslyn Arlin Mickelson and Stephen Samuel Smith 361-370
42 “Welfare Reform, Family Hardship, and Women of Color” by Linda Burnham 371-379
43 “Aid to Dependent Corporations: Exposing Federal Handouts to the Wealthy” by Chuck Collins 379-383
44 “Policing the National Body: Sex, ‘Race’, and Criminalization” by Jael Silliman 383-394
IV APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK
Introduction 395-409

VIOLENCE
55 “The Harm That Has No Name: Street Harassment, Embodiment, and African American Women” by Dierdre E. Davis 483-494
56 “More Power Than We Want: Masculine Sexuality and Violence” by Bruce Kokopeli and George Lakey 494-499
57 “Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Spaces” by Brent Staples 499-502
58 “Where ‘Race’ and Gender Meet: Racism, Hate Crimes, and Pornography” by Helen Zia 502-506
59 “How Safe Is America?” by Desiree Taylor 506-510
V Making a Difference
Introduction 511-518
60 “Women of Color on the Front Line” by Celene Krauss 519-530
61 “’Whosoever’ Is Welcome Here: An Interview with Reverend Edwin C. Sanders II” by Gary David Comstock 530-537
62 “From the Ground Up” by Charon Asetoyer 537-542
63 “Having the Tools at Hand: Building Successful Multicultural Social Justice Organizations” by John Anner 542-552
64 “Can I Get a Witness? Testimony from a Hip Hop Feminist” by Shani Jamila 552-561

Books, E-Books Great Discounts

Sociology Index

Sociology Books 2011

Sociology Topical Subject Index