Our reading and our class meetings since November 5th have been all about feminism’s encounter with QUEER THEORY, and vice versa. In particular, I have encouraged you to understand the political causes and consequences of the FASCISM OF MEANING that is the BINARY sex/gender system. Right now, much (but not all) feminist theorizing and activism incorporates the interventions made by queer theories, and vice versa. Just like the interventions of Black, Chicana, postcolonial, Third World and non-Western feminists into “mainstream” Anglo-American feminist theories, the encounter between feminisms and queer theories is how theories develop and evolve. And because, as Wilchins (and pretty much all critical theorists) insists, all good theory should begin with politics (5), these encounters are also how the world gets changed.
So, this coming Friday, we’ll start exactly where we left off last time. Just at the end of class, Rebecca asked about the political efficacy of POSTMODERNISM: If everything is socially constructed, and there’s no Truth or objectivity, then how can POSTMODERNISM be used to effectively advocate for social justice. This is a fantastic question, and Wilchins and the other theorists we’ve been reading think it can (see especially p. 44 and Q3 on WS#8). In fact, all contemporary critical theories (including anti-racist, postcolonial, gender, queer, and feminist theories) are POSTMODERN, so it obviously has some political efficacy, otherwise it wouldn’t be utilized to make sense of the problems in the world that these theorists identify.
Still, though, as Rebecca suggested, there are some problems with POSTMODERN approaches for feminists, and that’s where we’ll start on Friday, so be sure to review Q3 on WS#9. As part of this discussion, we’ll also talk about why feminist theorists like Turcotte – and Walters, whom you’re reading for this week – have such a problem with QUEER THEORY. Interestingly, some of the critiques that QUEER THEORISTS have leveled at FEMINIST THEORISTS are precisely those that FEMINIST THEORISTS have leveled at QUEER THEORISTS, and we'll talk about this on Friday.
After finishing up our discussion from last week, we’ll segue into thinking and talking about the future of feminist theories and activisms. We’ll be talking about the issues that seem to of concern to contemporary feminist theorists, the concepts that seem to drive their theorizing, and how that theorizing is then put into action politically to advocate for social justice in local and global contexts.
In order to have good foundation and context for this part of our discussion, please pay particular attention in your reading to the information provided by Basu and Tickner about the genesis and histories of feminist thought and action in the latter part of the twentieth century. One thing you’ll notice, for example, is the ways in which feminists have long been concerned with the relationship between POWER and KNOWLEDGE (review the chapters on Foucault in Wilchins) and the way they operate to value some bodies and ways of knowing (EPISTEMOLOGIES), while devaluing others. For example, in her discussion of the legacies of imperialism, Tickner points out that the European colonialist project of “[c]ataloguing, analyzing, and putting the world on display were acts of power” (387). This project included the construction of Western scientific discourse that constructed notions of “man” and “woman” and the “sex”/”gender” binary. Review chapter 8 in Wilchins for more on this.
Also, pay particular attention to Mohanty’s discussion of what she identifies as the “urgent intellectual and political questions for feminist scholarship and organizing at this time in history” (449) as well as to the specific methods she suggests feminist theorists and activists engage with to address these questions.
Lastly, and, as always, use Worksheet #10 to guide you through these reading materials – all of which represent, in part, the current questions, concerns, and issues guiding contemporary feminist theories.
And remember: You're always welcome to come by during my office hours if you'd like to chat about anything. Alternatively, feel free to e-mail me to make an appointment.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Theorizing the Body: Questioning Sex and Gender
"[I]n order to understand reality, and hence eventually have the power to change it, we must be prepared to abandon our certainties and to accept the (temporary) pain of an increased uncertainty about the world. Having the courage to confront the unknown is a precondition for imagination, and the capacity to imagine another world is an essential element in scientific progress. It is certainly indispensable to my analysis." -- French philosopher Christine Delphy in "Rethinking Sex and Gender" (1993)
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Theorizing the Gendered Body
It may seem as if our reading this week and next on “redefining sex and gender” (as Christine Delphy puts it) is a bit of a non sequitur from the most recent stuff we’ve been reading and discussing about how and why feminists of colour, especially Black, Chicana, non-western, and Third World feminists, have critiqued mainstream Anglo-American feminisms for not taking racial, ethnic and other sorts of differences into account in their theorizing and political activism.
But, actually, it’s not. Rather, you should think of QUEER THEORY’s attempts to undermine conventional (and widely-held) notions of and assumptions about SEX and GENDER as yet another attempt to create a feminist politics that is more inclusive and attentive to differences of all sorts – including those that are gender-based.
The “invention” (for lack of a better word) and subsequent intervention of QUEER THEORY has rocked feminism at its core – much as the critiques of women of colour did throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. While feminist theorists as far back as the 1930s (when feminism was allegedly dormant) have challenged the social construction of “femininity” and taken issue with the fact that women’s bodies have been objectified by men. As you’ll read in Jenainti and Groves, feminists in the 1990s took issue with representations of the female body in the popular media, because their argument was that the media both relies on and sustains gender stereotypes, and, thus, women and men learn how to be “feminine” and “masculine” via the messages of the media.
But then a new mode of intellectual inquiry emerged from feminist academic circles called GENDER STUDIES, which “implies a type of thinking about the dynamics of female and male experiences” and relied on the Anglo-American feminist assumption that SEX is a purely biological category, while GENDER (i.e., masculinity and femininity) is socially constructed (J&G 162).
This tends to be the way Women’s Studies students nowadays are initially taught to understand these concepts; however, as I’ve alluded to, and as you’ll read in Delphy and Wilchins, it’s not as simple as that. And this has caused great controversy among and between feminists, between feminist theorists and queer theorists, and, in the world of the academy, between Women’s Studies and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) Studies.
Epistemological Conflicts, Political Consequences
Nasty arguments have occurred. Here in Canada, for example, those arguments have, in quite troubling ways, actually threatened the existence of Women’s Studies in the academy. And this conversation is, in large part, why MRU will not likely create a WMST major anytime soon.
This is the link to the original National Post article that began the most recent controversy in January 2010: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2480860
To learn how the Canadian Women’s Studies Association responded, click on these links:
http://www.yorku.ca/cwsaacef/NationalPost.doc
http://www.yorku.ca/cwsaacef/CBCCurrentWSletters.doc
Now, obviously, much of this anti-WMST DISCOURSE (see Wilchins for a definition and discussion of this Foucauldian (i.e., using the theories of Michel Foucault) concept) is largely informed by anti-feminist sentiment emerging more generally from the conservatism of Canada at this historical moment. But the “bad guys” (to put it simply) are using a productive and necessary debate within and between Women’s Studies and Gender Studies, between feminist theories and queer theories, to wage a political war against the existence of Women’s Studies programs throughout Canada.
This is only one of the ways these seemingly esoteric and abstract theoretical conversations matter in the “Real” world (although, as you’ll read in Chapter 4 of Wilchins, Derrida argues that there’s no such thing – even the “Real” is socially constructed!).
Another way is that, as I said the first time that we engaged with Delphy, people have died because they can’t, or choose not to, conform to the FASCISM OF MEANING that is the BINARY sex/gender system. They are either murdered (think of Brandon Teena, whose life story was fictionalized in the movie Boys Don’t Cry) or, as we’ve seen in the news most recently, they commit suicide because they can’t handle the relentless bullying. The good news is that this recent wave of suicides by LGBTQ youth has resulted in the It Gets Better Project, from which the video above was taken.
Wilchins says that all good theory should begin with politics (5), and the political causes and consequences of gendering bodies is why we’re reading about and discussing the relationship between feminist and queer theories in this course on feminist theories. Right now, much (but not all) feminist theorizing and activism incorporates the interventions made by queer theories, and vice versa. This is how theories develop and evolve. And this is how the world gets changed.
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Theorizing the Gendered Body
It may seem as if our reading this week and next on “redefining sex and gender” (as Christine Delphy puts it) is a bit of a non sequitur from the most recent stuff we’ve been reading and discussing about how and why feminists of colour, especially Black, Chicana, non-western, and Third World feminists, have critiqued mainstream Anglo-American feminisms for not taking racial, ethnic and other sorts of differences into account in their theorizing and political activism.
But, actually, it’s not. Rather, you should think of QUEER THEORY’s attempts to undermine conventional (and widely-held) notions of and assumptions about SEX and GENDER as yet another attempt to create a feminist politics that is more inclusive and attentive to differences of all sorts – including those that are gender-based.
The “invention” (for lack of a better word) and subsequent intervention of QUEER THEORY has rocked feminism at its core – much as the critiques of women of colour did throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. While feminist theorists as far back as the 1930s (when feminism was allegedly dormant) have challenged the social construction of “femininity” and taken issue with the fact that women’s bodies have been objectified by men. As you’ll read in Jenainti and Groves, feminists in the 1990s took issue with representations of the female body in the popular media, because their argument was that the media both relies on and sustains gender stereotypes, and, thus, women and men learn how to be “feminine” and “masculine” via the messages of the media.
But then a new mode of intellectual inquiry emerged from feminist academic circles called GENDER STUDIES, which “implies a type of thinking about the dynamics of female and male experiences” and relied on the Anglo-American feminist assumption that SEX is a purely biological category, while GENDER (i.e., masculinity and femininity) is socially constructed (J&G 162).
This tends to be the way Women’s Studies students nowadays are initially taught to understand these concepts; however, as I’ve alluded to, and as you’ll read in Delphy and Wilchins, it’s not as simple as that. And this has caused great controversy among and between feminists, between feminist theorists and queer theorists, and, in the world of the academy, between Women’s Studies and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) Studies.
Epistemological Conflicts, Political Consequences
Nasty arguments have occurred. Here in Canada, for example, those arguments have, in quite troubling ways, actually threatened the existence of Women’s Studies in the academy. And this conversation is, in large part, why MRU will not likely create a WMST major anytime soon.
This is the link to the original National Post article that began the most recent controversy in January 2010: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2480860
To learn how the Canadian Women’s Studies Association responded, click on these links:
http://www.yorku.ca/cwsaacef/NationalPost.doc
http://www.yorku.ca/cwsaacef/CBCCurrentWSletters.doc
Now, obviously, much of this anti-WMST DISCOURSE (see Wilchins for a definition and discussion of this Foucauldian (i.e., using the theories of Michel Foucault) concept) is largely informed by anti-feminist sentiment emerging more generally from the conservatism of Canada at this historical moment. But the “bad guys” (to put it simply) are using a productive and necessary debate within and between Women’s Studies and Gender Studies, between feminist theories and queer theories, to wage a political war against the existence of Women’s Studies programs throughout Canada.
This is only one of the ways these seemingly esoteric and abstract theoretical conversations matter in the “Real” world (although, as you’ll read in Chapter 4 of Wilchins, Derrida argues that there’s no such thing – even the “Real” is socially constructed!).
Another way is that, as I said the first time that we engaged with Delphy, people have died because they can’t, or choose not to, conform to the FASCISM OF MEANING that is the BINARY sex/gender system. They are either murdered (think of Brandon Teena, whose life story was fictionalized in the movie Boys Don’t Cry) or, as we’ve seen in the news most recently, they commit suicide because they can’t handle the relentless bullying. The good news is that this recent wave of suicides by LGBTQ youth has resulted in the It Gets Better Project, from which the video above was taken.
Wilchins says that all good theory should begin with politics (5), and the political causes and consequences of gendering bodies is why we’re reading about and discussing the relationship between feminist and queer theories in this course on feminist theories. Right now, much (but not all) feminist theorizing and activism incorporates the interventions made by queer theories, and vice versa. This is how theories develop and evolve. And this is how the world gets changed.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Theorizing Globally: Non-Western Feminist Interventions
To begin this week, I want to remind you of what I wrote at the end of my blog from last week:
Sayeed’s article, which she wrote in 2002, is an example of the reaction of “Third World” feminists to the WESTOCENTRIC focus not only of mainstream feminism, but also of Chicana and Black Feminisms. Although raised in the U.S., Sayeed faces some struggles and problems as an Indian Muslim that her Midwestern feminist community can’t seem to appropriately reckon with. This is where we’ll start next week, and you might want to take a look at the movie Bend It Like Beckham (2002) to start thinking about the ways women negotiate their existence in the in-between of culture, tradition, and history. Here's the trailer, just for a little preview of the movie, directed by Indian feminist Gurinder Chadha:
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If you do get the opportunity to watch this film, use the questions on Worksheet #7 to help make sense of some of the tensions inherent as Jasminder negotiates being a Hindu woman of Indian descent living in contemporary London, which is the capitol city at the centre of the former empire that, up until India’s independence in 1947, used to govern India as a colonial possession.
Administrative Stuff
Before I get into some other important information concerning our reading and class activities for this week, let me remind you of the following:
• You should already be well into researching your Term Project by now, so please start thinking about when you’d like to meet with me about it. Meeting with me by October 29th is a requirement of the assignment, so don’t let that slip by. Of course, I’d love to talk to you about your project as many times as you’d like, but we’ve got to have at least one conversation in which you come prepared as described in the Term Project assignment sheet. Please make that appointment as soon as possible.
• On that note, one of my favorite parts of being a professor is getting to know my students, so if you have any questions or concerns at any point about anything this semester, please don’t hesitate to stop by to chat during my office hours or, alternatively, e-mail me to arrange an appointment.
• As you know, the Weekly Reading Worksheets are intended to help guide you through our reading materials each week. In addition, I’ve posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam. You can also access this guide via the link on the right under "Important Course Info."
• Please remember that, with the exception of your Discussion Questions, you’ll submit all your work in hard copy by the beginning of class on the date that it’s due. The only exception to this is the Discussion Questions, which should be submitted to me via e-mail by 5 PM on Thursday evening the day before we’re scheduled to discuss your readings.
Transnational Feminist Politics
Since the early 1980s, developments in transnational feminist politics and activisms originating in the global South/East have greatly influenced the evolution of feminist theorizing in the North/West. In large part, this has been because of what I mentioned last week: One of the major consequences of ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION (which is driven by capitalism in the world’s wealthiest countries) has been that most of the world’s people are poor, and the overwhelming majority of those people are women, children, and other historically marginalized groups (such as aboriginal peoples). It has been feminists of colour living within the global North/West and non-western feminists who have identified this growing problem, critiqued mainstream Anglo-American feminists for not dealing with it, and attempted to theorize solutions to it.
Their work made possible the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-1985) and dozens of subsequent Conventions and Commissions which for the first time questioned normative approaches to “development” projects carried out in the global South/East by their (former?) colonizers in the North/West. Their work insisted that women’s lives, concerns, and experiences be placed at the centre of “development” projects. According to feminist intellectual historian and economist Devaki Jain (2005), feminists from the global South have impacted discussions at the United Nations in four significant ways:
1. They have radically altered the ways in which issues are conceptualized and identified agendas for action.
2. They have repeatedly insisted that countries take stock of the experiences and perspectives of women.
3. They have enabled strategic transnational coalition building to achieve desired changes.
4. They have become formally embedded in institutions as a means of carrying their social justice agendas forward.
But, as you’ll read in Isla, et al. this week, even despite their extraordinary influence, the United Nations remains largely a patriarchal institution embedded within the processes of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (hooks 1985) otherwise known as ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION. Consequently, there are some inherent problems even with the ostensibly feminist BEIJING PLATFORM FOR ACTION, which was/is supposed to recognize women’s rights as human rights and take into account women’s lives, experiences, and concerns within processes of “development.”
Developments in Feminist Theories and Epistemologies
Additionally, and most importantly for our purposes, the work of non-western feminist theorists and activists, along with the work of women of colour feminists located within the global North/West, has caused a major epistemic shift within western feminist theorizing. In other words, the problems they’ve identified, their visions for a just future, and their proposed strategies for getting there have completely altered western feminist thought in innumerable ways, some of which you’ll read about this week.
But this epistemic shift has not been without conflict and debate between and among feminists, which you’ll also read about. You had a bit of a taste of this with Sayeed’s article from last week, but our reading this week will illuminate them more fully. So, as you’re reading and preparing for class this week, think about the following theoretical development: During the early 1980s, the mainstream WLM was (rightfully) accused by women of colour feminists within the global North/West of being inattentive to the SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION identified by bell hooks (1985), especially the intersection of gender and socio-economic status with race/skin color/ethnicity (see the materials on BLACK and CHICANA FEMINISMS, for example). And then, in the mid-1990s, non-western feminists began to critique Anglo-American feminists (which included women of colour feminists) of being exclusionary of their experiences as post-colonial subjects. These non-western feminists (also referred to as THIRD WORLD and/or POST-COLONIAL FEMINISTS) called out western feminist thought for not attending to issues of nation, culture, religion, capitalism, or the legacies of colonialism and the current consequences of globalization.
The positive results of this for feminist theories have been many, and one of these is Burn's introductory chapter to her basic Women's Studies textbook (2005). That Burn insists on a transnational/global feminist approach to the study of women globally that avoids ethnocentrism and conceptualizes women's rights as human rights signals the vast influence that women of colour and post-colonial feminists have had on western feminist theories.
Reference
Jain, Devaki. 2005. Women, Development and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Sayeed’s article, which she wrote in 2002, is an example of the reaction of “Third World” feminists to the WESTOCENTRIC focus not only of mainstream feminism, but also of Chicana and Black Feminisms. Although raised in the U.S., Sayeed faces some struggles and problems as an Indian Muslim that her Midwestern feminist community can’t seem to appropriately reckon with. This is where we’ll start next week, and you might want to take a look at the movie Bend It Like Beckham (2002) to start thinking about the ways women negotiate their existence in the in-between of culture, tradition, and history. Here's the trailer, just for a little preview of the movie, directed by Indian feminist Gurinder Chadha:
====
====
If you do get the opportunity to watch this film, use the questions on Worksheet #7 to help make sense of some of the tensions inherent as Jasminder negotiates being a Hindu woman of Indian descent living in contemporary London, which is the capitol city at the centre of the former empire that, up until India’s independence in 1947, used to govern India as a colonial possession.
Administrative Stuff
Before I get into some other important information concerning our reading and class activities for this week, let me remind you of the following:
• You should already be well into researching your Term Project by now, so please start thinking about when you’d like to meet with me about it. Meeting with me by October 29th is a requirement of the assignment, so don’t let that slip by. Of course, I’d love to talk to you about your project as many times as you’d like, but we’ve got to have at least one conversation in which you come prepared as described in the Term Project assignment sheet. Please make that appointment as soon as possible.
• On that note, one of my favorite parts of being a professor is getting to know my students, so if you have any questions or concerns at any point about anything this semester, please don’t hesitate to stop by to chat during my office hours or, alternatively, e-mail me to arrange an appointment.
• As you know, the Weekly Reading Worksheets are intended to help guide you through our reading materials each week. In addition, I’ve posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam. You can also access this guide via the link on the right under "Important Course Info."
• Please remember that, with the exception of your Discussion Questions, you’ll submit all your work in hard copy by the beginning of class on the date that it’s due. The only exception to this is the Discussion Questions, which should be submitted to me via e-mail by 5 PM on Thursday evening the day before we’re scheduled to discuss your readings.
Transnational Feminist Politics
Since the early 1980s, developments in transnational feminist politics and activisms originating in the global South/East have greatly influenced the evolution of feminist theorizing in the North/West. In large part, this has been because of what I mentioned last week: One of the major consequences of ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION (which is driven by capitalism in the world’s wealthiest countries) has been that most of the world’s people are poor, and the overwhelming majority of those people are women, children, and other historically marginalized groups (such as aboriginal peoples). It has been feminists of colour living within the global North/West and non-western feminists who have identified this growing problem, critiqued mainstream Anglo-American feminists for not dealing with it, and attempted to theorize solutions to it.
Their work made possible the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-1985) and dozens of subsequent Conventions and Commissions which for the first time questioned normative approaches to “development” projects carried out in the global South/East by their (former?) colonizers in the North/West. Their work insisted that women’s lives, concerns, and experiences be placed at the centre of “development” projects. According to feminist intellectual historian and economist Devaki Jain (2005), feminists from the global South have impacted discussions at the United Nations in four significant ways:
1. They have radically altered the ways in which issues are conceptualized and identified agendas for action.
2. They have repeatedly insisted that countries take stock of the experiences and perspectives of women.
3. They have enabled strategic transnational coalition building to achieve desired changes.
4. They have become formally embedded in institutions as a means of carrying their social justice agendas forward.
But, as you’ll read in Isla, et al. this week, even despite their extraordinary influence, the United Nations remains largely a patriarchal institution embedded within the processes of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (hooks 1985) otherwise known as ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION. Consequently, there are some inherent problems even with the ostensibly feminist BEIJING PLATFORM FOR ACTION, which was/is supposed to recognize women’s rights as human rights and take into account women’s lives, experiences, and concerns within processes of “development.”
Developments in Feminist Theories and Epistemologies
Additionally, and most importantly for our purposes, the work of non-western feminist theorists and activists, along with the work of women of colour feminists located within the global North/West, has caused a major epistemic shift within western feminist theorizing. In other words, the problems they’ve identified, their visions for a just future, and their proposed strategies for getting there have completely altered western feminist thought in innumerable ways, some of which you’ll read about this week.
But this epistemic shift has not been without conflict and debate between and among feminists, which you’ll also read about. You had a bit of a taste of this with Sayeed’s article from last week, but our reading this week will illuminate them more fully. So, as you’re reading and preparing for class this week, think about the following theoretical development: During the early 1980s, the mainstream WLM was (rightfully) accused by women of colour feminists within the global North/West of being inattentive to the SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION identified by bell hooks (1985), especially the intersection of gender and socio-economic status with race/skin color/ethnicity (see the materials on BLACK and CHICANA FEMINISMS, for example). And then, in the mid-1990s, non-western feminists began to critique Anglo-American feminists (which included women of colour feminists) of being exclusionary of their experiences as post-colonial subjects. These non-western feminists (also referred to as THIRD WORLD and/or POST-COLONIAL FEMINISTS) called out western feminist thought for not attending to issues of nation, culture, religion, capitalism, or the legacies of colonialism and the current consequences of globalization.
The positive results of this for feminist theories have been many, and one of these is Burn's introductory chapter to her basic Women's Studies textbook (2005). That Burn insists on a transnational/global feminist approach to the study of women globally that avoids ethnocentrism and conceptualizes women's rights as human rights signals the vast influence that women of colour and post-colonial feminists have had on western feminist theories.
Reference
Jain, Devaki. 2005. Women, Development and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Theorizing Difference(s)
I want to start this week by thinking about June Jordan (whom we read for last week) and bell hooks (whom we read for Week #1) in conversation with each other: Both are black women, both are descendants of slaves, both are feminists, both wrote these articles in the mid-1980s, and both are concerned with creating a more inclusive feminist politics than that which they faced as participants in the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) during the 1970s.
bell hooks, in fact, argued in 1984 that the mainstream definition of feminism “as a movement that aims to make women the social equals of men” is inherently problematic because of the movement’s clear “dismissal of race and class as factors that, in conjunction with sexism, determine the extent to which an individual will be discriminated against, exploited, or oppressed” (51, italics mine). She calls out middle-class white feminists of the WLM, claiming that while they “rhetorically plac[ed] themselves in the same social category as oppressed women, they were not anxious to call attention to [their own] race and class privilege” (51).
FEMINISM, hooks argues, is “a struggle to end sexist oppression.” This means that it is also “necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture” (52). This is why she demands a recognition and analysis of SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION: To call attention to racism and classism—as well as sexism—would, hooks contends, enable advocates of feminism to stop thinking of all men as the enemy (which is simplistic and dualistic) and shift our focus to examining all the interconnected forces (the SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION) that create discrimination, exploitation, and oppression. We would also then recognize our own role(s) “in their maintenance and perpetuation” (53).
June Jordan, a feminist poest and essayist writing in 1985 (just a year after hooks), was also concerned with recognizing her own role in the maintenance and perpetuation of SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION. Although she’s a black woman from the US vacationing in the Bahamas (which signals both the availability of leisure time and a measure of disposable income), she, as a feminist, is quite conscious of the fluidity of power she experiences as a result of her high economic status in relation to, for example, the hotel housekeeper, Olive, and the women with whom she bargains in the marketplace. Yet she also recognizes the erasure of her own (black) people from the white-washed imperialist history of the island. She is also aware of that fact that she explicitly chose to stay in a high-end hotel because, to a certain extent, it guaranteed her safety as a woman travelling alone. Thus, on vacation in the Bahamas, feminist theorist June Jordan tells her readers of her recurring “consciousness of race and class and gender identity” (161) and, like hooks, insists that all three categories of her identity be brought to bear in making sense of her experiences.
You may be interested in some more of Jordan's work as read and interpreted by others. The first poem was written in response to and in support of the Take Back the Night movement, which calls attention to the escalating rates of violence against women. The second harshly critiques the first Gulf War in 1991. Think about these poems in conjunction with the issues and concerns Jordan identifies in the essay you read for last week: In what ways does she theorize difference(s) from a feminist perspective?
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This INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH was—and continues to be—a central contribution of feminists of colour to the evolution of feminist thought and action in Canada and the United States (it has always been so in other parts of the world—largely because, in those geographical areas, women of colour comprise the majority of feminist theorists and activists). The genesis of their work lies in their (often unintentional) exclusion from the WLM throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Of course, we know from our reading of “first wave” feminists in the long 19th century that this wasn’t new to the WLM; the leaders of the mainstream suffrage movement in the U.S., for example, were often reticent to allow black women to march or protest with them because they feared losing the support of white supremacist women from the South. And we also know from Iron Jawed Angels that there were tensions between white, educated, middle-class suffragists and working-class factory workers, because the former didn’t initially understand why the latter would care less about getting the vote than about clean, safe working conditions and fair wages for all workers—not just women.
These race and class tensions have been a consistent part of feminist thought and movement in Canada and the U.S. and, in fact, often serve as a major catalyst for momentous shifts in feminist ways of thinking, knowing, and doing, but the circumstances and implications tend to shift based on historical context. It is these tensions, particularly the resulting concern of the WLM for women’s “equality” with men, that resulted in a simplistic “us v. them” binary within mainstream feminism in the 1960s and 1970s. Implicitly pointing out that there are many men (usually of working-class and poor men of colour) who have significantly less power than many (usually middle- and upper-class white) women, bell hooks asks rather poignantly, “which men do women want to be equal to?” (51).
Black and Chicana Feminist Thought
So, if feminism isn’t as simple as “us” (women) v. “them” (men), then what is it? We’ve talked quite a bit about the various definitions of and approaches to feminism since the start of the semester. But although their overarching goal is the liberation of women, BLACK and CHICANA FEMINISMS have their own origins, problems and issues of concern, and ways of envisioning that liberation that set them apart from those of conventional “Second Wave” feminism. What oppressions do they identify? How do they imagine liberation? How are the answers to those questions both similar to and different than if you were to answer those same questions about our readings from last week?
The terms and questions on Worksheet #6 will help to get you thinking about these similarities and differences, and these will form the basis of our class discussion and activities on Friday.
And remember: It’s always important to think about historical context. When was the “now” for each author? As we discussed in class last week, this matters for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that one of our most crucial projects in this course is to track the evolution and development of feminist thought and action in Western Europe and North America. One of the best ways to do that is to read and think about feminist theories in chronological order so that you can start to see how one set of arguments, approaches and perspectives is connected to and builds upon others. To help you do this (and in addition to your Weekly Reading Worksheet), I've posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam.
Thinking Ahead to Next Week: Theorizing Globally
Sayeed’s article, which she wrote in 2002, is an example of the reaction of “Third World” feminists to the WESTOCENTRIC focus not only of mainstream feminism, but also of Chicana and Black Feminisms. Although raised in the U.S., Sayeed faces some struggles and problems as an Indian Muslim that her Midwestern feminist community can’t seem to appropriately reckon with. This is where we’ll start next week, and you might want to take a look at the movie Bend It Like Beckham (2002) to start thinking about the ways women negotiate their existence in the in-between of culture, tradition, and history. Here's the trailer, just for a little preview of the movie, directed by Indian feminist Gurinder Chadha:
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Administrative Stuff
• You should already be well into researching your Term Project by now, so please start thinking about when you’d like to meet with me about it. Meeting with me by October 29th is a requirement of the assignment, so don’t let that slip by. Of course, I’d love to talk to you about your project as many times as you’d like, but we’ve got to have at least one conversation in which you come prepared as described in the Term Project assignment sheet. Please make that appointment as soon as possible.
• On that note, one of my favorite parts of being a professor is getting to know my students, so if you have any questions or concerns at any point about anything this semester, please don’t hesitate to stop by to chat during my office hours or, alternatively, e-mail me to arrange an appointment.
• As you know, the Weekly Reading Worksheets are intended to help guide you through our reading materials each week. In addition, I’ve posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam. You can also access this guide via the link on the right under "Important Course Info."
• Please remember that, with the exception of your Discussion Questions, you’ll submit all your work in hard copy by the beginning of class on the date that it’s due. The only exception to this is the Discussion Questions, which should be submitted to me via e-mail by 5 PM on Thursday evening the day before we’re scheduled to discuss your readings.
bell hooks, in fact, argued in 1984 that the mainstream definition of feminism “as a movement that aims to make women the social equals of men” is inherently problematic because of the movement’s clear “dismissal of race and class as factors that, in conjunction with sexism, determine the extent to which an individual will be discriminated against, exploited, or oppressed” (51, italics mine). She calls out middle-class white feminists of the WLM, claiming that while they “rhetorically plac[ed] themselves in the same social category as oppressed women, they were not anxious to call attention to [their own] race and class privilege” (51).
FEMINISM, hooks argues, is “a struggle to end sexist oppression.” This means that it is also “necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture” (52). This is why she demands a recognition and analysis of SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION: To call attention to racism and classism—as well as sexism—would, hooks contends, enable advocates of feminism to stop thinking of all men as the enemy (which is simplistic and dualistic) and shift our focus to examining all the interconnected forces (the SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION) that create discrimination, exploitation, and oppression. We would also then recognize our own role(s) “in their maintenance and perpetuation” (53).
June Jordan, a feminist poest and essayist writing in 1985 (just a year after hooks), was also concerned with recognizing her own role in the maintenance and perpetuation of SYSTEMS OF DOMINATION. Although she’s a black woman from the US vacationing in the Bahamas (which signals both the availability of leisure time and a measure of disposable income), she, as a feminist, is quite conscious of the fluidity of power she experiences as a result of her high economic status in relation to, for example, the hotel housekeeper, Olive, and the women with whom she bargains in the marketplace. Yet she also recognizes the erasure of her own (black) people from the white-washed imperialist history of the island. She is also aware of that fact that she explicitly chose to stay in a high-end hotel because, to a certain extent, it guaranteed her safety as a woman travelling alone. Thus, on vacation in the Bahamas, feminist theorist June Jordan tells her readers of her recurring “consciousness of race and class and gender identity” (161) and, like hooks, insists that all three categories of her identity be brought to bear in making sense of her experiences.
You may be interested in some more of Jordan's work as read and interpreted by others. The first poem was written in response to and in support of the Take Back the Night movement, which calls attention to the escalating rates of violence against women. The second harshly critiques the first Gulf War in 1991. Think about these poems in conjunction with the issues and concerns Jordan identifies in the essay you read for last week: In what ways does she theorize difference(s) from a feminist perspective?
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This INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH was—and continues to be—a central contribution of feminists of colour to the evolution of feminist thought and action in Canada and the United States (it has always been so in other parts of the world—largely because, in those geographical areas, women of colour comprise the majority of feminist theorists and activists). The genesis of their work lies in their (often unintentional) exclusion from the WLM throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Of course, we know from our reading of “first wave” feminists in the long 19th century that this wasn’t new to the WLM; the leaders of the mainstream suffrage movement in the U.S., for example, were often reticent to allow black women to march or protest with them because they feared losing the support of white supremacist women from the South. And we also know from Iron Jawed Angels that there were tensions between white, educated, middle-class suffragists and working-class factory workers, because the former didn’t initially understand why the latter would care less about getting the vote than about clean, safe working conditions and fair wages for all workers—not just women.
These race and class tensions have been a consistent part of feminist thought and movement in Canada and the U.S. and, in fact, often serve as a major catalyst for momentous shifts in feminist ways of thinking, knowing, and doing, but the circumstances and implications tend to shift based on historical context. It is these tensions, particularly the resulting concern of the WLM for women’s “equality” with men, that resulted in a simplistic “us v. them” binary within mainstream feminism in the 1960s and 1970s. Implicitly pointing out that there are many men (usually of working-class and poor men of colour) who have significantly less power than many (usually middle- and upper-class white) women, bell hooks asks rather poignantly, “which men do women want to be equal to?” (51).
Black and Chicana Feminist Thought
So, if feminism isn’t as simple as “us” (women) v. “them” (men), then what is it? We’ve talked quite a bit about the various definitions of and approaches to feminism since the start of the semester. But although their overarching goal is the liberation of women, BLACK and CHICANA FEMINISMS have their own origins, problems and issues of concern, and ways of envisioning that liberation that set them apart from those of conventional “Second Wave” feminism. What oppressions do they identify? How do they imagine liberation? How are the answers to those questions both similar to and different than if you were to answer those same questions about our readings from last week?
The terms and questions on Worksheet #6 will help to get you thinking about these similarities and differences, and these will form the basis of our class discussion and activities on Friday.
And remember: It’s always important to think about historical context. When was the “now” for each author? As we discussed in class last week, this matters for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that one of our most crucial projects in this course is to track the evolution and development of feminist thought and action in Western Europe and North America. One of the best ways to do that is to read and think about feminist theories in chronological order so that you can start to see how one set of arguments, approaches and perspectives is connected to and builds upon others. To help you do this (and in addition to your Weekly Reading Worksheet), I've posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam.
Thinking Ahead to Next Week: Theorizing Globally
Sayeed’s article, which she wrote in 2002, is an example of the reaction of “Third World” feminists to the WESTOCENTRIC focus not only of mainstream feminism, but also of Chicana and Black Feminisms. Although raised in the U.S., Sayeed faces some struggles and problems as an Indian Muslim that her Midwestern feminist community can’t seem to appropriately reckon with. This is where we’ll start next week, and you might want to take a look at the movie Bend It Like Beckham (2002) to start thinking about the ways women negotiate their existence in the in-between of culture, tradition, and history. Here's the trailer, just for a little preview of the movie, directed by Indian feminist Gurinder Chadha:
====
====
Administrative Stuff
• You should already be well into researching your Term Project by now, so please start thinking about when you’d like to meet with me about it. Meeting with me by October 29th is a requirement of the assignment, so don’t let that slip by. Of course, I’d love to talk to you about your project as many times as you’d like, but we’ve got to have at least one conversation in which you come prepared as described in the Term Project assignment sheet. Please make that appointment as soon as possible.
• On that note, one of my favorite parts of being a professor is getting to know my students, so if you have any questions or concerns at any point about anything this semester, please don’t hesitate to stop by to chat during my office hours or, alternatively, e-mail me to arrange an appointment.
• As you know, the Weekly Reading Worksheets are intended to help guide you through our reading materials each week. In addition, I’ve posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam. You can also access this guide via the link on the right under "Important Course Info."
• Please remember that, with the exception of your Discussion Questions, you’ll submit all your work in hard copy by the beginning of class on the date that it’s due. The only exception to this is the Discussion Questions, which should be submitted to me via e-mail by 5 PM on Thursday evening the day before we’re scheduled to discuss your readings.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Feminisms in the Women's Liberation Movement
Identifying Oppressions and Imagining Liberation
This week we’re continuing our exploration from last week of the Women’s Liberation Movement that occurred from approximately the late 1960s through, roughly, the early 1980s. This is typically known as “Second Wave Feminism,” although, as you know from our class last week, there are some theoretical and conceptual problems with dividing up feminist movement into “waves.”
Still, though, the feminist theorists who were writing during this time tended to share several overarching concerns, which we began to enumerate by making a list on the board during class last week. Broadly, their project was to identify oppressions and then to imagine liberation, and this is the title of the part of our course.
This week, we will expand the list of oppressions they identified while also addressing the three quite different ways by which feminists during this period imagined liberation. As you know from Jenainti & Groves, there were many FEMINISMS during this period, but your reading and our class discussion will focus particularly on LIBERAL, SOCIALIST, and RADICAL feminist approaches and theories. As you’re preparing for class this week, be sure to take note of the similarities and differences between these three feminisms and be ready to talk about them: What oppressions did each of these feminisms identify, and how did they imagine liberation? Into which feminist approach do each of our readings this week fall, and why?
As you’re reading, it’s always important to think about historical context: When was the “now” for each author? This matters for lots of reasons (some of which we’ll talk about in class on Friday), not the least of which is that one of our most crucial projects in this course is to track the evolution and development of feminist thought and action in Western Europe and North America. One of the best ways to do that is to read and think about feminist theories in chronological order so that you can start to see how one set of arguments, approaches and perspectives is connected to and builds upon others. To help you do this (and in addition to your Weekly Reading Worksheet), I've posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam.
In the case of our materials this week, the work of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1967-1970) was completed just before Bonnie Kreps wrote her piece in 1972 claiming that RADICAL FEMINISM was the best way to solve the problems women were experiencing. Then, in 1977, Robin Morgan, also a radical feminist, argued that women are a colonized people and, in 1981, SOCIALIST FEMINIST Heidi Hartmann decided that neither socialist nor radical feminist analysis could, by themselves, make sense of the existence of PATRIARCHY and women’s low social, economic and political status within CAPITALISM. After that, in 1985, June Jordan, who’s also typically considered a socialist feminist, moved feminist analysis into a new direction in which fluidity of power based on contexts and identities (particularly at the intersection of race, class and gender) became salient.
This is where we’ll start next week when we jump into our next section on “Theorizing Intersecting Identities.” But, for this week, focus on how all these different theorists built on the arguments, goals and strategies of those that came before them.
Administrative Stuff
• As you know, the Weekly Reading Worksheets are intended to help guide you through our reading materials each week. In addition, I’ve posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam. You can also access this guide via the link on the right under "Important Course Info."
• Please remember that given the technological difficulties that we’ve had with the Blackboard Dropbox, remember that we won’t be using it anymore this semester. From now on, with the exception of your Discussion Questions, please submit all your work in hard copy by the beginning of class on the date that it’s due. The only exception to this is the Discussion Questions, which should be submitted to me via e-mail by 5 PM on Thursday evening the day before we’re scheduled to discuss your readings.
• You should already be well into researching your Term Project, so please start thinking about when you’d like to meet with me about it. Meeting with me by October 29th is a requirement of the assignment, so don’t let that slip by. Of course, I’d love to talk to you about your project as many times as you’d like, but we’ve got to have at least one conversation in which you come prepared as described in the Term Project assignment sheet. Please make that appointment as soon as possible.
• On that note, one of my favorite parts of being a professor is getting to know my students, so if you have any questions or concerns at any point about anything this semester, please don’t hesitate to stop by to chat during my office hours or, alternatively, e-mail me to arrange an appointment.
This week we’re continuing our exploration from last week of the Women’s Liberation Movement that occurred from approximately the late 1960s through, roughly, the early 1980s. This is typically known as “Second Wave Feminism,” although, as you know from our class last week, there are some theoretical and conceptual problems with dividing up feminist movement into “waves.”
Still, though, the feminist theorists who were writing during this time tended to share several overarching concerns, which we began to enumerate by making a list on the board during class last week. Broadly, their project was to identify oppressions and then to imagine liberation, and this is the title of the part of our course.
This week, we will expand the list of oppressions they identified while also addressing the three quite different ways by which feminists during this period imagined liberation. As you know from Jenainti & Groves, there were many FEMINISMS during this period, but your reading and our class discussion will focus particularly on LIBERAL, SOCIALIST, and RADICAL feminist approaches and theories. As you’re preparing for class this week, be sure to take note of the similarities and differences between these three feminisms and be ready to talk about them: What oppressions did each of these feminisms identify, and how did they imagine liberation? Into which feminist approach do each of our readings this week fall, and why?
As you’re reading, it’s always important to think about historical context: When was the “now” for each author? This matters for lots of reasons (some of which we’ll talk about in class on Friday), not the least of which is that one of our most crucial projects in this course is to track the evolution and development of feminist thought and action in Western Europe and North America. One of the best ways to do that is to read and think about feminist theories in chronological order so that you can start to see how one set of arguments, approaches and perspectives is connected to and builds upon others. To help you do this (and in addition to your Weekly Reading Worksheet), I've posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam.
In the case of our materials this week, the work of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (1967-1970) was completed just before Bonnie Kreps wrote her piece in 1972 claiming that RADICAL FEMINISM was the best way to solve the problems women were experiencing. Then, in 1977, Robin Morgan, also a radical feminist, argued that women are a colonized people and, in 1981, SOCIALIST FEMINIST Heidi Hartmann decided that neither socialist nor radical feminist analysis could, by themselves, make sense of the existence of PATRIARCHY and women’s low social, economic and political status within CAPITALISM. After that, in 1985, June Jordan, who’s also typically considered a socialist feminist, moved feminist analysis into a new direction in which fluidity of power based on contexts and identities (particularly at the intersection of race, class and gender) became salient.
This is where we’ll start next week when we jump into our next section on “Theorizing Intersecting Identities.” But, for this week, focus on how all these different theorists built on the arguments, goals and strategies of those that came before them.
Administrative Stuff
• As you know, the Weekly Reading Worksheets are intended to help guide you through our reading materials each week. In addition, I’ve posted some general strategies for reading and note-taking that will help you not only prepare for our class discussion, but also for assignments and your final exam. You can also access this guide via the link on the right under "Important Course Info."
• Please remember that given the technological difficulties that we’ve had with the Blackboard Dropbox, remember that we won’t be using it anymore this semester. From now on, with the exception of your Discussion Questions, please submit all your work in hard copy by the beginning of class on the date that it’s due. The only exception to this is the Discussion Questions, which should be submitted to me via e-mail by 5 PM on Thursday evening the day before we’re scheduled to discuss your readings.
• You should already be well into researching your Term Project, so please start thinking about when you’d like to meet with me about it. Meeting with me by October 29th is a requirement of the assignment, so don’t let that slip by. Of course, I’d love to talk to you about your project as many times as you’d like, but we’ve got to have at least one conversation in which you come prepared as described in the Term Project assignment sheet. Please make that appointment as soon as possible.
• On that note, one of my favorite parts of being a professor is getting to know my students, so if you have any questions or concerns at any point about anything this semester, please don’t hesitate to stop by to chat during my office hours or, alternatively, e-mail me to arrange an appointment.
Monday, October 4, 2010
For October 8th
Administrative Stuff
• As a reminder: Given the technological difficulties that we’ve had with the Blackboard Dropbox, we won’t be using it anymore this semester. From now on, with the exception of your Discussion Questions, please submit all your work in hard copy by the beginning of class on the date that it’s due. My hope is that this will eliminate any confusion and anxiety about whether I’ve received your assignments or not. The only exception to this is the Discussion Questions, which should be submitted to me via e-mail by 5 PM on Thursday evening the day before we’re scheduled to discuss your readings.
• Please start thinking about when you’d like to meet with me about your Term Project. Meeting with me is a requirement of the assignment, so don’t let that slip by. Of course, I’d love to talk to you about your project as many times as you’d like, but we’ve got to have at least one conversation in which you come prepared as described in the Term Project assignment sheet.
• On that note, if you have any questions or concerns at any point about anything this semester, please don’t hesitate to stop by to chat during my office hours or, alternatively, e-mail me to arrange an appointment.
After Suffrage – Identifying Oppressions; Imagining Liberation
You will notice of your readings this week that, historically speaking, we’ve skipped about a half century. This isn’t because there was no feminist activity happening between the achievement of women’s suffrage after World War I and the start of the WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT (WLM) in the late 1960s, but because, for the most part, the 1920s and 1950s constituted a period of backlash with regard to the status of women.
As you read in Jenainti and Groves, during the period immediately following World War I, women in Western Europe and North America were thanked for their war-time service and support via the granting of suffrage, but were told quite soundly to “return” home and start making babies to replace the overwhelming numbers of (male) soldiers killed on the battlefields of Europe. So, just when women were first entering and graduating from universities and gaining ground in terms of their political, social, and economic status, everything was put on hold so that society could supposedly return to its pre-war status quo.
But university-educated feminists like Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf kept up the good fight by questioning the status of women (J&G, pp.79-84).
At the same time, feminist activists from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, and South America, along with a few from Western Europe and North America (especially women of colour and working-class women), joined social justice organizations such as anti-war/peace groups and/or socialist groups that weren’t necessarily explicitly woman-centred, but included gender justice as part of their broad political agendas.
These groups were just starting to make some headway at national and international levels when this guy named Hitler started wreaking havoc all over Europe, and the international focus became all about halting fascism. So, just like World War I, World War II effectively put a stop to feminist and other sorts of social justice organizing, because the lives of soldiers and saving the world for democracy quite understandably took precedence over thinking about the causes and consequences of the existence of a “second sex” (de Beauvoir) or ensuring that a woman had “a room of [her] own” (Woolf).
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Virginia Woolf - A Room Of One's Own
Uploaded by poetictouch. - Independent web videos.
====
And in the aftermath of World War II, just like after World War I, women were encouraged to “return” home to fulfill their “natural” roles as wives and mothers, thus ushering in the allegedly idyllic 1950s that was depicted on television shows like Donna Reed and Leave It to Beaver.
You probably have read or heard, though, about how the notion of “returning” to “natural” gender roles within the patriarchal nuclear family was actually neither a “return” nor “natural.” The large majority of women in the world have always worked for wages outside the home, and feminist historians have argued that this statistical reality has been made invisible by the rhetoric of how “perfect” the 1950s was. But, of course, this “perfection” could only be achieved by families with a husband/father whose salary was high enough to provide for an entire family. The narrative of the alleged “perfection” of the 1950s is, consequently, not only sexist, but also classist and racist, as well.
The gay liberation, civil rights, and student movements during the 1960s were, in part, a reaction to the 1950s, and SECOND WAVE FEMINISM grew out of these movements. Large numbers of women were involved in each of these movements, but they began realizing a couple of things: (1) That they were often relegated to “assistant” or “secretarial” sorts of jobs within the movements, and (2) that the movements themselves, despite claims to the contrary, often ignored the concerns of women. Check out this short video about the WLM in the U.S. The posts at the end are particularly illuminating in their clear manifestation of sexism bordering on misogyny.
===
===
This is the history that lies at the foundation of this next section of our course, After Suffrage – Identifying Oppressions; Imagining Liberation. Our reading for Friday’s class is meant to serve as an introduction to the sorts of issues that feminist theorists since the late 1960s have been concerned with, and the accompanying Worksheet asks you to focus quite closely on the arguments that each theorist is making. As you’re reading, then, consider the following questions:
1. What oppression(s) have each of these theorists identified, and why?
2. What sort of liberation do they envision?
Some Fun Info
One of our authors this week, Wangari Maathai, is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work the the Green Belt Movement, which, as early as the 1970s focused on environmental sustainability as a feminist/social justice issue.
===
===
• As a reminder: Given the technological difficulties that we’ve had with the Blackboard Dropbox, we won’t be using it anymore this semester. From now on, with the exception of your Discussion Questions, please submit all your work in hard copy by the beginning of class on the date that it’s due. My hope is that this will eliminate any confusion and anxiety about whether I’ve received your assignments or not. The only exception to this is the Discussion Questions, which should be submitted to me via e-mail by 5 PM on Thursday evening the day before we’re scheduled to discuss your readings.
• Please start thinking about when you’d like to meet with me about your Term Project. Meeting with me is a requirement of the assignment, so don’t let that slip by. Of course, I’d love to talk to you about your project as many times as you’d like, but we’ve got to have at least one conversation in which you come prepared as described in the Term Project assignment sheet.
• On that note, if you have any questions or concerns at any point about anything this semester, please don’t hesitate to stop by to chat during my office hours or, alternatively, e-mail me to arrange an appointment.
After Suffrage – Identifying Oppressions; Imagining Liberation
You will notice of your readings this week that, historically speaking, we’ve skipped about a half century. This isn’t because there was no feminist activity happening between the achievement of women’s suffrage after World War I and the start of the WOMEN’S LIBERATION MOVEMENT (WLM) in the late 1960s, but because, for the most part, the 1920s and 1950s constituted a period of backlash with regard to the status of women.
As you read in Jenainti and Groves, during the period immediately following World War I, women in Western Europe and North America were thanked for their war-time service and support via the granting of suffrage, but were told quite soundly to “return” home and start making babies to replace the overwhelming numbers of (male) soldiers killed on the battlefields of Europe. So, just when women were first entering and graduating from universities and gaining ground in terms of their political, social, and economic status, everything was put on hold so that society could supposedly return to its pre-war status quo.
But university-educated feminists like Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf kept up the good fight by questioning the status of women (J&G, pp.79-84).
At the same time, feminist activists from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, and South America, along with a few from Western Europe and North America (especially women of colour and working-class women), joined social justice organizations such as anti-war/peace groups and/or socialist groups that weren’t necessarily explicitly woman-centred, but included gender justice as part of their broad political agendas.
These groups were just starting to make some headway at national and international levels when this guy named Hitler started wreaking havoc all over Europe, and the international focus became all about halting fascism. So, just like World War I, World War II effectively put a stop to feminist and other sorts of social justice organizing, because the lives of soldiers and saving the world for democracy quite understandably took precedence over thinking about the causes and consequences of the existence of a “second sex” (de Beauvoir) or ensuring that a woman had “a room of [her] own” (Woolf).
====
Virginia Woolf - A Room Of One's Own
Uploaded by poetictouch. - Independent web videos.
====
And in the aftermath of World War II, just like after World War I, women were encouraged to “return” home to fulfill their “natural” roles as wives and mothers, thus ushering in the allegedly idyllic 1950s that was depicted on television shows like Donna Reed and Leave It to Beaver.
You probably have read or heard, though, about how the notion of “returning” to “natural” gender roles within the patriarchal nuclear family was actually neither a “return” nor “natural.” The large majority of women in the world have always worked for wages outside the home, and feminist historians have argued that this statistical reality has been made invisible by the rhetoric of how “perfect” the 1950s was. But, of course, this “perfection” could only be achieved by families with a husband/father whose salary was high enough to provide for an entire family. The narrative of the alleged “perfection” of the 1950s is, consequently, not only sexist, but also classist and racist, as well.
The gay liberation, civil rights, and student movements during the 1960s were, in part, a reaction to the 1950s, and SECOND WAVE FEMINISM grew out of these movements. Large numbers of women were involved in each of these movements, but they began realizing a couple of things: (1) That they were often relegated to “assistant” or “secretarial” sorts of jobs within the movements, and (2) that the movements themselves, despite claims to the contrary, often ignored the concerns of women. Check out this short video about the WLM in the U.S. The posts at the end are particularly illuminating in their clear manifestation of sexism bordering on misogyny.
===
===
This is the history that lies at the foundation of this next section of our course, After Suffrage – Identifying Oppressions; Imagining Liberation. Our reading for Friday’s class is meant to serve as an introduction to the sorts of issues that feminist theorists since the late 1960s have been concerned with, and the accompanying Worksheet asks you to focus quite closely on the arguments that each theorist is making. As you’re reading, then, consider the following questions:
1. What oppression(s) have each of these theorists identified, and why?
2. What sort of liberation do they envision?
Some Fun Info
One of our authors this week, Wangari Maathai, is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work the the Green Belt Movement, which, as early as the 1970s focused on environmental sustainability as a feminist/social justice issue.
===
===
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
For September 24th
Fractures and Fissures in the Suffrage Movement
Last week was our first foray into some of the earliest feminist theories written in English. From Mary Wollstonecraft to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, you had a rapid and grand tour of the wide variety of issues that those concerned with “the woman question” in the long 19th century identified as potential problems for women.
As I said last week, the long 19th century is considered, roughly, the little more than one hundred years between 1790 and 1920. It is bookmarked at either end by the French Revolution (Wollstonecraft was writing during this major historic event) and the attainment of women’s suffrage in Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain just after World War I. Other major historical events that significantly influenced the women’s movement during this time were:
1. The abolitionist movement to end slavery, which was accomplished during the U.S. Civil War (1863- 1865).
2. The height of the British Empire, which reached the pinnacle of its global influence during the reign of Queen Victoria, who ruled England and its colonies in South and East Asia, the Americas, and Africa from 1837-1901.
3. The westward expansion of North America and the genocide of indigenous peoples in both Canada and the U.S. And both countries were growing exponentially via immigration.
4. The rapid industrialization of Europe and the U.S., which led to the building of factories, the CULT OF DOMESTICITY, unbelievably poor working conditions for unprecedented numbers of people—including women, and a major concern among social justice advocates over what to do about it all.
5. An increasing anti-war sentiment among international peace activists in the decade or so before World War I.
6. Scientific innovations that brought closer and closer to reality the possibility of medically controlling women’s fertility.
So, within this milieu, the Western women’s movement in the long 19th century concerned itself, broadly, with several specific and interrelated issues:
• Girls’ and women’s education
• The institution of slavery, both in the U.S. and in the French and British colonies
• Exploitative working conditions for women, including long hours with low pay
• Women’s property rights
• Marriage laws, including domestic violence, child custody and divorce legislation
• Temperance
• Women’s low economic status, particularly their financial dependence on men
• Contraception
And in the middle of the 1800s, some of these concerns started to funnel into one overarching goal: universal women’s suffrage. This one objective enabled the many local and regional women’s organizations to cohere and work together more fluidly on national and international levels. Simultaneously, however, the newly-unified women’s movement faced its first large scale internal conflicts. In Canada, for example, the National Council of Women of Canada (you read the introduction to their major opus, Women of Canada: Their Life and Work for last week) was working to unite a many individual women’s groups across Canada into a single umbrella organization, but Quebecois women’s organizations resisted this homogenizing process because they resented the British-leaning liberal NCWC and advocated instead for a Francophone socialism as a way of achieving their goals. Quebecois feminists also insisted on a RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE as opposed to the INDIVIDUALIST PERSPECTIVE espoused by the NCWC.
Additionally, there was a major split in the women’s rights movement over the related issues of race and immigration. You may well already have read and/or heard a bit about the racism that seemed to make its way into the various women’s organizations on both side of the Atlantic. For example, in Iron Jawed Angels, black feminist Ida Wells Barnett asks to be included in the suffrage march on Washington, DC and is told by Lucy Stone that in order to gain the support of white supremacist southern feminists, black feminists must march separately. This was the kind of thing that caused friction within the women’s movement. The issues are complicated and differ slightly from country to country, but, by and large, the major umbrella organizations of the women’s movement in the late 19th century espoused eugenics as a way to solve the dual “problem” of poverty and immigration, which is in part why/how advocacy of birth control became part of some feminists’ portfolio during this period. Interestingly, contraception and birth control, which have always been available to women in various forms, were only made illegal in Canada 1892; the law prohibiting the use of contraceptives wasn’t changed until 1969.
Other sites of friction and fissure in the FIRST WAVE of feminist movement (which Schneir calls “old feminism”) included generational differences between the “old guard” and younger feminists, disagreements over tactics and strategies, clashes between urban and rural women, and the continuing conflict between the middle class, white, college-educated women who were leaders in the movement and poor, working class, and/or immigrant women whom they were trying to recruit to their cause. You can see lots of these scenarios at play in Iron Jawed Angels.
The women’s movement in Canada was distinctive because, unlike in the U.S. and the U.K.:
1. There was no flouting of laws; Canadian feminists worked entirely within rather than against the patriarchal legal structures of the state to accomplish their goals.
2. Although the NCWC existed (and still does today; check out their website at http://www.ncwc.ca/, the strength of the Canadian women’s movement was actually in local and regional organizations. Interestingly, Alberta-based organization were among the most vocal and influential in Canada.
3. Suffrage was seen as a means to an end rather than an end unto itself. The desire for enfranchisement came out of the RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE of Quebecois feminists, who argued that, as mothers of the next generation, women should participate in the political process in order to improve society for their children.
Toward the end of the 1800s, though, conflict arose within the NCWC because the white, middle-class women who were in charge refused to incorporate a concern for the lives and experiences of immigrant women, working class and poor women, and indigenous women into their advocacy efforts. In this respect, the Canadian women’s movement was quite similar to those in the U.S. and U.K. at the time.
This week, we’re going to start by finishing Iron Jawed Angels. After that, we’ll do some work together on Worksheets #2 and #3 in preparation for next Friday’s exam. Be sure as you’re reading this week to think of these materials as in conversation with those from last week. Our focus in class will be not only on the variety of issues that concerned women’s rights advocates in the long 19th century, but also the differences and conflicts among them and the various strategies and tactics they proposed to achieve their goals.
Administrative Stuff
• Remember that when you’re posting to the Bb Dropbox that your file name should be entirely free of funky characters such as #$%^&, etc.
• Lastly, please start thinking about what you’d like to work on for your Term Project: Which academic discipline/profession would you like to research this semester to learn how advocates of feminism approach their work in that area? We're having a workshop next week with the Women's Studies librarian, and I'd like to give her some idea of what you're working on so that she can help you find some appropriate research materials. I’ll also be making the actual assignment available at that time, so you’ll have a clearer idea of your responsibilities and my expectations.
Feminist Stuff Around Town
• Calgary’s annual Take Back the Night march is tomorrow, September 23rd. Check out the website for more info. Yeah, What She Said, Calgary’s only feminist radio show, has posted a list of six reasons why you should attend, but I'll remind you of one more: You can earn extra credit! Go to the “Extra Credit Info” link to learn how.
Also from Yeah, What She Said: "Spike TV (you know, that men's tv channel) has an article on their website called, "The Top Seven Cutest Feminists." I'm not sure whether it's really insulting or really hilarious. Maybe a bit of both. What do you think?"
Last week was our first foray into some of the earliest feminist theories written in English. From Mary Wollstonecraft to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, you had a rapid and grand tour of the wide variety of issues that those concerned with “the woman question” in the long 19th century identified as potential problems for women.
As I said last week, the long 19th century is considered, roughly, the little more than one hundred years between 1790 and 1920. It is bookmarked at either end by the French Revolution (Wollstonecraft was writing during this major historic event) and the attainment of women’s suffrage in Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain just after World War I. Other major historical events that significantly influenced the women’s movement during this time were:
1. The abolitionist movement to end slavery, which was accomplished during the U.S. Civil War (1863- 1865).
2. The height of the British Empire, which reached the pinnacle of its global influence during the reign of Queen Victoria, who ruled England and its colonies in South and East Asia, the Americas, and Africa from 1837-1901.
3. The westward expansion of North America and the genocide of indigenous peoples in both Canada and the U.S. And both countries were growing exponentially via immigration.
4. The rapid industrialization of Europe and the U.S., which led to the building of factories, the CULT OF DOMESTICITY, unbelievably poor working conditions for unprecedented numbers of people—including women, and a major concern among social justice advocates over what to do about it all.
5. An increasing anti-war sentiment among international peace activists in the decade or so before World War I.
6. Scientific innovations that brought closer and closer to reality the possibility of medically controlling women’s fertility.
So, within this milieu, the Western women’s movement in the long 19th century concerned itself, broadly, with several specific and interrelated issues:
• Girls’ and women’s education
• The institution of slavery, both in the U.S. and in the French and British colonies
• Exploitative working conditions for women, including long hours with low pay
• Women’s property rights
• Marriage laws, including domestic violence, child custody and divorce legislation
• Temperance
• Women’s low economic status, particularly their financial dependence on men
• Contraception
And in the middle of the 1800s, some of these concerns started to funnel into one overarching goal: universal women’s suffrage. This one objective enabled the many local and regional women’s organizations to cohere and work together more fluidly on national and international levels. Simultaneously, however, the newly-unified women’s movement faced its first large scale internal conflicts. In Canada, for example, the National Council of Women of Canada (you read the introduction to their major opus, Women of Canada: Their Life and Work for last week) was working to unite a many individual women’s groups across Canada into a single umbrella organization, but Quebecois women’s organizations resisted this homogenizing process because they resented the British-leaning liberal NCWC and advocated instead for a Francophone socialism as a way of achieving their goals. Quebecois feminists also insisted on a RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE as opposed to the INDIVIDUALIST PERSPECTIVE espoused by the NCWC.
Additionally, there was a major split in the women’s rights movement over the related issues of race and immigration. You may well already have read and/or heard a bit about the racism that seemed to make its way into the various women’s organizations on both side of the Atlantic. For example, in Iron Jawed Angels, black feminist Ida Wells Barnett asks to be included in the suffrage march on Washington, DC and is told by Lucy Stone that in order to gain the support of white supremacist southern feminists, black feminists must march separately. This was the kind of thing that caused friction within the women’s movement. The issues are complicated and differ slightly from country to country, but, by and large, the major umbrella organizations of the women’s movement in the late 19th century espoused eugenics as a way to solve the dual “problem” of poverty and immigration, which is in part why/how advocacy of birth control became part of some feminists’ portfolio during this period. Interestingly, contraception and birth control, which have always been available to women in various forms, were only made illegal in Canada 1892; the law prohibiting the use of contraceptives wasn’t changed until 1969.
Other sites of friction and fissure in the FIRST WAVE of feminist movement (which Schneir calls “old feminism”) included generational differences between the “old guard” and younger feminists, disagreements over tactics and strategies, clashes between urban and rural women, and the continuing conflict between the middle class, white, college-educated women who were leaders in the movement and poor, working class, and/or immigrant women whom they were trying to recruit to their cause. You can see lots of these scenarios at play in Iron Jawed Angels.
The women’s movement in Canada was distinctive because, unlike in the U.S. and the U.K.:
1. There was no flouting of laws; Canadian feminists worked entirely within rather than against the patriarchal legal structures of the state to accomplish their goals.
2. Although the NCWC existed (and still does today; check out their website at http://www.ncwc.ca/, the strength of the Canadian women’s movement was actually in local and regional organizations. Interestingly, Alberta-based organization were among the most vocal and influential in Canada.
3. Suffrage was seen as a means to an end rather than an end unto itself. The desire for enfranchisement came out of the RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE of Quebecois feminists, who argued that, as mothers of the next generation, women should participate in the political process in order to improve society for their children.
Toward the end of the 1800s, though, conflict arose within the NCWC because the white, middle-class women who were in charge refused to incorporate a concern for the lives and experiences of immigrant women, working class and poor women, and indigenous women into their advocacy efforts. In this respect, the Canadian women’s movement was quite similar to those in the U.S. and U.K. at the time.
This week, we’re going to start by finishing Iron Jawed Angels. After that, we’ll do some work together on Worksheets #2 and #3 in preparation for next Friday’s exam. Be sure as you’re reading this week to think of these materials as in conversation with those from last week. Our focus in class will be not only on the variety of issues that concerned women’s rights advocates in the long 19th century, but also the differences and conflicts among them and the various strategies and tactics they proposed to achieve their goals.
Administrative Stuff
• Remember that when you’re posting to the Bb Dropbox that your file name should be entirely free of funky characters such as #$%^&, etc.
• Lastly, please start thinking about what you’d like to work on for your Term Project: Which academic discipline/profession would you like to research this semester to learn how advocates of feminism approach their work in that area? We're having a workshop next week with the Women's Studies librarian, and I'd like to give her some idea of what you're working on so that she can help you find some appropriate research materials. I’ll also be making the actual assignment available at that time, so you’ll have a clearer idea of your responsibilities and my expectations.
Feminist Stuff Around Town
• Calgary’s annual Take Back the Night march is tomorrow, September 23rd. Check out the website for more info. Yeah, What She Said, Calgary’s only feminist radio show, has posted a list of six reasons why you should attend, but I'll remind you of one more: You can earn extra credit! Go to the “Extra Credit Info” link to learn how.
Also from Yeah, What She Said: "Spike TV (you know, that men's tv channel) has an article on their website called, "The Top Seven Cutest Feminists." I'm not sure whether it's really insulting or really hilarious. Maybe a bit of both. What do you think?"
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