PS 348 Women and Politics

PS 348 Women and Politics
Winter 2014
TR 4-5:20pm Room MCK 125
Instructor: Jessica Hejny
Email: [email protected] Office: PLC 806 Telephone: 541-346-4874
Office Hours: Wednesday 11-12 and 1-3pm and by appt.
GTF: Gulce Tarhan-Celebi
Email: [email protected] Office: PLC 817 Office Hours: Thursday 2-3pm
Course Description: This course provides an introduction to historical and contemporary issues in
women and politics in the American context. The course follows a broad chronology from first wave
feminism (suffrage) to second wave feminism and contemporary debates about the meaning and practice
of gender and the concrete politics of women and work. We will engage these topics with an expansive
conception of politics in mind – politics exists not just in democratic institutions and the formal political
sphere, but also in our everyday interactions with others, in the ways that we experience relations of
domination and empowerment, and in the negotiation of shared meanings. Though the history of
feminism is narrated in three sequential waves, we can also trace common themes that run from
historical to contemporary feminism. We will be attentive to the ways in which, even though women
have achieved much over the past 150 years, we continue to deal with some of the same challenges that
first wave feminists identified. Feminism is an ongoing project, and many issues, like work,
representation, and violence, continue to be central issues for feminist politics. The first section of the
course gives a brief overview of the first and second waves of feminism, as well as challenges presented
by intersectional approaches and conservative feminisms. The second section of the course examines the
distinction between sex and gender and the consequences for how we think about the categories of men
and women. In this section, we will explore critiques of heteronormativity and exclusion in the feminist
movement, the social construction of bodies, sexual violence, and racial and political representation.
The last section of the course focuses on women and work. Work has been a central issue in the history
of feminism and continues to be a contentious issue in public debate about women’s rights and choices.
We will look at the issue of work through a historical lens, as it relates to race and welfare, and end with
a look at the debate over Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In. On the last day of the course, we end with a
discussion of where feminism as a political project stands now and what a contemporary third wave
feminist politics might look like.
Note about course material and triggers: We will be covering difficult, contentious, and sensitive issues
over the course of the term. Some of these topics may make you uncomfortable. I encourage you not to
give up on the material even if it is outside your comfort zone and to take seriously all the perspectives
we encounter in the readings and in the classroom. However, some of the course material or discussions
could be triggering for you or your classmates. Your well-being is paramount, and should you need to
excuse yourself from some aspect of a given class, please do so; it will not negatively impact your grade
in any way. Also, please feel free to talk to me, or email me, if you would like to discuss this further.
Expectations for the course: This course is reading intensive and discussion based. We will approach
the course like a seminar. Complete the assigned readings before class and be prepared to discuss your
thoughts on them. Read carefully and with a critical eye. Mark passages, ideas, and concepts that you
find confusing and bring them up in class. Ask questions! – this is the best way to learn. Class time will
1 consist of not just me talking, but us discussing together. Please bring the readings to class, either hard
copies or on your laptop or tablet, so that we can refer to them during class. Please make a point to
show up to class on time so as not to disturb a discussion already in progress.
Readings: All readings will be posted on blackboard. There will be no required textbooks in this class.
We will be reading several chapters of Rory Dicker’s A History of U.S. Feminisms. You might want to
purchase this book. It provides a good overview of the history of American feminism and is relatively
inexpensive ($12.46 on amazon).
Assignments (shown in percentages of total grade):
40% Reading Responses and Attendance. Because this course is discussion based, it is important
that each of you come to class having read the material assigned and ready to engage in
thoughtful discussion. To encourage you to come prepared, you are required to write a ½-1 page
reading response (though no more than 1 page single spaced) on the assigned reading for each
class period. These responses should include a brief summary of the readings and some
engagement with the readings on your part, which can be through commentary or questions. I
encourage you to reflect on how the concepts and arguments we read apply to your own lives
and how you see them at work around you. In addition, these short responses will hone your
skills at summarizing material succinctly and clearly. These are due each class day and must be
uploaded to blackboard a half hour prior to the beginning of class (i.e. by 3:30pm). The
responses will be graded on a 10 point scale (e.g. 8/10 or 80%). Your responses will only count
if you attend class that day. You are allowed to miss one class/response without penalty. You
will not be penalized for absences with legitimate documentation (e.g. doctor’s note) or
legitimate reasons that you communicate to me in advance (e.g. trip out of town). The grades on
all your responses papers will be averaged at the end of the term and this will be worth 40% of
your total grade.
30% Research Paper. 8-10 pages on a topic of your choosing relevant to women and politics due
Monday, March 10th (week 10) at noon. Paper guidelines will be handed out week 2. You must
see me in office hours and have your topic verbally approved by me by week 4. I encourage you
to start your research early and write a rough draft. Both Gulce and I will be happy to read and
give you comments on rough drafts before you hand in the final version.
20% Take Home Final Exam. The final exam will be given out on the last day of class and is due
via email on Wednesday, March 19th at noon. Late exams will not be accepted, but if you have a
legitimate reason to turn the exam in either later or earlier than the due date, please see me. The
essay will ask you to discuss the content of the course in a comprehensive and reflective way.
The purpose of this assignment is to prompt you to reflect on what you’ve learned over the
course of the term and to critically engage with the themes of the course.
10% Posting and commenting on articles on course blog. Throughout the term, we will post news
articles and other material (videos, links, commentaries, etc) on our course blog that are relevant
to topics in the course and women and politics generally. There are many aspects of women and
politics that we won’t have time to cover in this course, so this blog will provide a space to
discuss these issues as well as relevant current events as they occur. You are required to post
one substantive post and one substantive comment on someone else’s post each week, but I
welcome more frequent participation in the blog. I will be posting throughout the term. When
posting a link or article, be sure to include at least a few sentences summarizing and/or
commenting on the content. Given that there are ten weeks in the term and the blog is worth
2 10% of your grade, this means that each individual post and comment is worth ½ a point of your
total grade.
Accessibility: Please notify me if there are aspects of the instruction or design of this course that result
in disability-related barriers to your participation. You are also encouraged to contact the Accessible
Education Center (formerly Disability Services) in 164 Oregon Hall at 541-346-1155 or
[email protected]
Academic Honesty: Cheating and plagiarism are violations of the University’s Student Conduct Code.
All work that you produce must be your own. If you use direct quotations or ideas from a source, you
must cite them. If you are caught cheating or plagiarizing, you will receive a zero on your assignment,
you will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct, and you may fail the class. For more information
on the Student Conduct Code and on plagiarism, see these websites:
http://uodos.uoregon.edu/StudentConductandCommunityStandards/StudentConductCode/tabid/69/Defau
lt.aspx
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/guides/plagiarism/students/
http://tep.uoregon.edu/workshops/teachertraining/learnercentered/syllabus/academicdishonesty.html
Class and Reading Schedule
PART I: Feminisms
January 7th
Introduction to the course and the syllabus
January 9th
Feminisms: First Wave
• Rory Dicker, A History of U.S. Feminisms, Chapter 2
• History of Women’s Suffrage, Introduction
• Choose two of the following:
o Abigail Adams, Letters and Responses (1776)
o Mary Wollstonecraft, “A Vindication of the Rights of Women” (1792)
o Married Woman’s Property Act, New York (1848)
o Marriage Protest of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell (1855)
o John Stuart Mill, “The Subjection of Women” (1869)
o Sarah Grimke, “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women”
(1837)
o Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions and Frederick Douglass Editorial
in The North Star (1848)
o Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Solitude of the Self” (1892)
January 14th
Feminisms: Second Wave
• Rory Dicker, A History of U.S. Feminisms, Chapter 3
• Choose two of the following:
3 o
o
o
o
o
o
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, selections (1952)
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, selections (1963)
Casey Hayden and Mary King, “Feminism and the Civil Rights Movement” (1965)
National Organization for Women, “Statement of Purpose” (1966)
Redstockings, “Redstockings Manifesto” (1969)
bell hooks, “Feminism: A Movement to End Sexist Oppression” (1984)
January 16th
Theorizing Patriarchy and Oppression
• Iris Marion Young, “Five Faces of Oppression”
• Allan Johnson, “Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us”
• Recommended:
o Shira Tarrant, Men and Feminism, Chapter 4: “Gender Advantage: Checking in on
Masculine Privilege”
January 21st
Intersectionality I
• Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1984)
• Trina Grillo, “Anti-Essentialism and Intersectionality: Tools to Dismantle the Master’s House”
(1995)
• Recommended:
o Nira Yuval-Davis, “Intersectionality and Feminist Politics”
o Guidroz and Berger, “A Conversation with Founding Scholars of Intersectionality:
Kimberlé Crenshaw, Nira Yuval-Davis, and Michelle Fine”
January 23rd
Intersectionality II
• Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I A Woman?” (1863)
• Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” (1977)
• bell hooks, “Black Women Shaping Feminist Theory” (1984)
• Gloria Anzaldúa, “Borderlands” (1987)
• Recommended:
o Deborah K. King, “Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black
Feminist Ideology,” in Black Women in America: Social Science Perspectives (1988)
o Patricia Hill Collins, “The Politics of Black Feminist Thought”
o Duchess Harris, “A History of Black American Feminism”
January 28th
Conservative Feminism
• Catharine Beecher, tba
• Phyllis Schlafly, “The Positive Woman”
• Rebecca Klatch, Women of the New Right, Ch. 5
• Recommended:
o Elizabeth Kolbert, “Firebrand: Phyllis Schlafly and the Conservative Revolution” (The
New Yorker, 2005)
o Ronnee Schreiber, Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics
4 PART II: Sex, Gender, Bodies, and Representation
January 30th
Sex and Gender
• Raewyn Connell, “The Question of Gender”
• Julia Serrano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of
Femininity, Introduction and Chapter 1
February 4th
Masculinities
• Shira Tarrant, Men and Feminism, Chapter 3
• Michael Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History, “Introduction” and “Epilogue:
Masculinity in the Age of Obama”
February 6th
Sexuality
• Radicalesbians, “The Woman Identified Woman” (1970)
• Adrienne Rich, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (1980)
February 11th
Queering Gender and Trans Politics
• Julia Serrano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of
Femininity, “Trans Woman Manifesto,” and selected chapters
February 13th
Bodies
• Susan Bordo, “Reading the Slender Body” in Unbearable Weight
• Sandra Lee Bartky, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”
February 18th
Sexual Violence
• Catherine MacKinnon, “Sex and Violence”
• Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence
against Women of Color”
• News articles on rape culture, military sexual assault, and the Violence Against Women Act
February 20th
Race, Bodies, and Representation
• Patricia Hill Collins, “ Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images,” in Black Feminist
Thought
• Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”
5 February 25th
Political Representation
• Linda Beail and Rhonda Kinney Longworth, “Puritan or Pit Bull: The Framing of Female
Candidates at the National Level,” in Justin S. Vaughn and Lilly J. Goren, Women and the White
House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics
• Other articles tba
PART III: Women and Work
February 27th
Women and Work, Then and Now
• Sharlene Nagy Hesse-Biber and Gregg Lee Carter, Working Women in America: Split Dreams,
Chapter 2: “A Brief History of Working Women”
• Choose two of the following:
o Horace Greeley, Editorial on Women and Work (1853)
o Catharine Beecher, American Woman’s Home, “Introduction” (1869)
o Susan B. Anthony, “Woman Want Bread, Not the Ballot” (speech delivered 1870-1880)
o Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “Women and Economics” (1898)
o Emma Goldman, “Woman Suffrage” (1910)
o Mollie Schepps, “Senators vs. Working Women” (1912)
o “Bread and Roses” and the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike
March 4th
Women, Race, and Work
• bell hooks, “Rethinking the Nature of Work”
• Patricia Hill Collins, “Work, Family and Black Women's Oppression”
• Recommended:
o Teresa Amott and Julie Mattaei, Race, Gender, and Work, Chapter 6
o Marlese Durr and Shirley A. Hill, “The Family-Work Interface in African American
Households”
March 6th
Work and Welfare
• Gwendolyn Mink, Welfare’s End, Chapter 2
• Gwendolyn Mink, “Aren’t Poor Single Mothers Women? Feminists, Welfare Reform, and
Welfare Justice”
March 11th
Can Women “Have it All?”: The Sandberg debate
• Sheryl Sandberg TED Talk
http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html
• Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”
• bell hooks, “Dig Deep: Beyond Lean In”
• Stephen Marche, “Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income
Equality”
• Philip N. Cohen, “How Can We Jump-Start the Struggle for Gender Equality,” New York Times
6 •
•
Tara Siegel Bernard, “In Paid Family Leave, U.S. Trails Most of the Globe,” New York Times
Recommended:
o Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In
o Garance Franke-Ruta, “Sheryl Sandberg Gives American Women a Performance
Review” (defense of Sandberg)
o Paulette Light, “Why 43% of Women With Children Leave Their Jobs, and How to Get
Them Back”
o Susan Faludi, “Facebook Feminism, Like It or Not”
o Eduardo Porter, “To Address Gender Gap, Is It Enough to Lean In?,” New York Times
o Christina Hoff Summers, “What ‘Lean In’ Misunderstands About Gender Differences”
(defense of gender difference by a devotee of Schlafly)
o Judith Warner, “The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In,” New York Times
o Jodi Kantor and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Wall Street Mothers, Stay-Home Fathers,”
New York Times
o Jodi Kantor, “Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity,” New York Times
o NYT op-doc “Great Expectations for Female Lawyers”
March 13th
Third Wave Feminism and Wrap-up Discussion
• Rory Dicker, A History of U.S. Feminisms, Chapter 4
• Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters,
selections
• Recommended:
o Angela McRobbie, The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change
o Diane Negra, What a Girl Wants?: Fantasizing the Reclamation of Self in Postfeminism
o Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the
Future
Blogs to check out:
www.feministing.com
http://feministblogs.org/
http://feminist.org/blog/
http://msmagazine.com/blog/
http://www.feministe.us/blog/
http://www.genderacrossborders.com/
www.blackgirldangerous.com
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/
http://www.wimnonline.org/WIMNsVoicesBlog/
http://mediagirl.org/
http://bitchmagazine.org/blogs
http://www.vivalafeminista.com/
http://reappropriate.co/
http://arewomenhuman.me/
http://www.crunkfeministcollective.com/
http://geekfeminism.org/
http://www.thefword.org.uk/index
7 Other links to check out:
http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw
http://www.womensmediacenter.com/
http://www.now.org/
http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswire.asp
http://www.sistersong.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=141&Itemid=81
http://reporepro.lsrj.org/
http://www.ihollaback.org/
8