WMST 101:  Syllabus

 

 

Description |Requirements |Links

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Iris by Georgia O'Keefe                                                                                                                                                             

 

 

1/10                 Course Introduction, Expectations, Requirements; Introduction to Web-Enhanced Features

                       

Small Group Activity:  Unpacking the “F” Word.

 

Viewing:  Iron-Jawed Angles

 

1/17                 Uttering the "F" Word:  What is Feminism?  What is Women's Studies?  And What Difference Does it Make?

 

                        Dialogue Journal #1 Due on the following required readings :

 

Required Readings from Women:  Images and Realities:  “What is Women's Studies" (8-15); "Talking Back" (15-18); "Sins of Silence” (18-19); “Claiming an Education” (19-21); “The Politics of Black Women's Studies" (21-4); "Men and Women's Studies:  Premises, Perils, and Promise" (24-8); "Have You Ever Heard of Asian-American Feminists?" (28-29); "Women's Studies as a Growth Process" (29-30); "Finding My Latina Identity through Women's Studies" (30-31); "What Women's Studies Has Meant to Me" (31-32); “Why Women’s Studies?” (32-33); "Women's Studies:  A Man's Perspective" (33-34).

 

Required Readings from Xeroxes:  "A Matrix of Oppressions";  "Feminisms: Tangling with the 'F' Word"; "Three Myths about Women's Studies"; “The Myth of Male Bashing”

 

ALL readings are required.  Your dialogue journal should touch upon readings from the text as well as those on the handouts.

 

                        Explanation of Web-Based Group Presentation on International Women's Issue

 

                        Viewing:  The F Word

 

1/24                 The Cultural Construction of “Femininity” (and “Masculinity):  Dominant Ideas about Women

 

                                Dialogue Journal #2 Due on required readings :

 

Required readings from Women:  Images and Realities:  “The Sperm and the Egg” and “Becoming a Woman in Our Society" (40-44); Dominant Ideas about Women and How They Are Learned" (45-6)); "To Be Real" (54-7); "Blazes of Truth” and Jap: The New Anti-Semitic Word" (57-60); "In Search of Liberation" (60-1); “Brideland” (61-2); "On Being a 'Good Girl': Implications for Latinas in the U. S." (63-6); “Girls:  We Are the Ones who Can Make a Change” (67-8); “not a pretty girl” (69). 

 

Required reading from Xeroxes: "Patriarchy, the System:  An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us."

 

Recommended but not required Xerox reading:  “The Social Construction of Gender”

 

Viewing:  Killing Us Softly 3 (34 mins)

 

1/31                 "Doing" and Undoing Gender / (En)Gendering Change 

 

                        Dialogue Journal #3 Due on required readings :

 

Required readings from Women: Images and Realities:  "Learning Gender" (70-71); “klaus barbie, and other dolls i’d like to see” (72-75); "Allegra Maud Goldman" (73-6); "An Educator’s Primer on the Gender War," “Reality Versus Perception,” and “Checklist for Inclusive Teaching” (76-83); "Teen Mags" (93-6); "No Respect:  Gender Politics and Hip-Hop" (99-104); "Mutineers in Mainstream Music" (105-7); India.Arie video (108); X:  A Fabulous Child's Story" (108-113)

 

Required readings from Xeroxes" The Five Sexes:  Why Male and Female Are Not Enough"

 

                        Explanation of Oral History Project:  Goals, Expectations, Strategies, Assessment Criteria

                       

Viewing:  Dreamworlds 2 (57 mins). Warning: this video contains a scene of sexual violence. If at any time you feel uncomfortable with the film, please feel free to leave the room. 

 

2/7                   Women's Bodies, Domestic and International Contexts:  The Beauty Myth

 

Dialogue Journal #4 Due on required readings:  

Required readings from Women: Images and Realities:  "Gender and Women's Bodies" (116-18); "Female Beauty" (119); "The Beauty Myth" (120-25); "When I Was Growing Up" (125-26); "To Other Women Who Were Ugly Once” (126); “Nose Is a Country . . . I Am the Second Generation” (127-29); One Spring" (132); "Homage to my Hair” and “Our Crowning Glory, Our Roots”  (129); “The Body Politic” (130-34); “Breaking the Model” (134-38); “The Fat Girl Rules the World” (138); "Homage to my Hips" (139) 

 

                         Viewing:  Slim Hopes (30 mins)

 

Group Presentation(s) on any of the following:  eating disorders; internet web sites promoting eating disorders; advertising and media images of women’s bodies; “make-over” reality TV and women’s bodies, cosmetic surgery, and vaginoplasty surgery in U. S. to “correct” women’s “unattractive” genitals; female genital mutilation in an international context; intersexual activists and their work for informed consent before genital surgery; popular culture images of the female body.

 

2/14                 "Excavating" the Categories of Race and Class "from the Inside":  Structural Inequalities in the U. S.

 

                        Dialogue Journal #5 Due on required readings: 

 

Required readings from Women: Images and Realities:  “Take a Closer Look: Racism in Women’s Lives” (380); "Defining Racism:  Can We Talk?" (380-85) “Salad” and "I Am Not Your Princess" (387-88); "Take a Closer Look" (368);  "White Privilege:  Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (388-92); "An Autobiography" (392-3); “The Legacy of Class” (394); “Tired of Playing Monopoly” (394-98); “Poverty, Hopelessness, and Hope” (390-93)

 

Required readings from Xerox:  "A Question of Class"

 

Also read pages 1-50 of Bastard Out of Carolina

 

Also consult poverty statistics on our web pages: Recent U.S. Poverty Statistics (Just click on link.)

 

Viewing:   Eyes on the Prize, Awakenings

 

2/21                 Dialogue Journal #6 Due on required readings:  

 

Required readings Bastard Out of Carolina (the rest of the novel)

 

                        Recommended Reading: Baker, Moira: "'The politics of they':  Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina as Critique of Class, Gender, and Sexual Ideologies.  (Just click on link.)

 

                        Group Presentation(s):  African-American women in U. S. history; Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement; Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the anti-lynching movement; Madame C. J. Walker and the beauty industry for Black women; Anna Julia Cooper and the education of Blacks; the National Association of Colored Women and the National Black Women’s Club Movement (before WW I).

 

2/28                 Recognizing and Embracing Differences Based on Sexual Orientation, Age, Physical Ability, and Culture

 

Dialogue Journal #7 Due on required readings:

 

Required readings from Women: Images and Realities: “’Are You Some Kind of Dyke?’" (415); “Homophobia and Sexism" (416-19); “Cat” (420-23); "Chicana Lesbians:  Fear and Loathing in the Chicano Community" (423-27); “Livin’ in a Gay Family” (406-8);  “Older, Wiser, and Marginalized: Ageism in Women’s Lives” (434); “Older Women:  The Realities” (412-16);  “Understanding and Valuing Difference” (447); “Rights, Realities, and Issues of Women with Disabilities” (448-52); "Age, Race, Class, and Sex:  Women Redefining Difference" (454-58); “Boundaries:  Arab/American” (464-68); “Why Race Matters to a White Dyke” (468-69)

 

Viewing:  Out of the Past

 

3/7                   Women and Work:  Economic Inequality and Women’s Lives

 

Dialogue Journal #8 Due on required readings:

 

                        Required readings from Women: Images and Realities: “Institutions that Shape Women’s Lives” (170-78);  “An Overview of Women and Work” (180-85); “Questions and Answers on Pay Equity” (185-88); “Office Double Standards” (188); “The Price of Motherhood:  Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued” (191-94);  “9 to 5:  Organizing Low-Wage Women” (203-7); “Sexual Harassment and the Law” (204-6);  “In Case of Sexual Harassment:  A Guide for Women Students” (206-8) 

 

Viewing:  Fast Food Women

 

Group Presentation on the Gendered Pay Gap:  Is Women’s Work Still Worth Less than Men’s? OR on sexual harassment in the workplace or university campus

 

Group Presentation on the Pittston Strike and the Role of Women

 

3/21                 Oral History Essay Due

 

                        Presentations of essays in small groups

 

                        Viewing:  Strangers in Good Company

 

3/28                 Women and Work: The Global Economy and Women's Lives

 

Dialogue Journal #9 Due on required readings: 

 

Required readings from I, Rigoberta Mench:, Chapters 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20;

 

Required readings from Women: Images and Realities: "The Globetrotting Sneaker" (587-91).

 

Group Presentation(s) on International Women's Issue:  The U. S. sponsored military coup of 1954 and its impact on Guatemalan society; Guatemala's indigenous people's struggle against military repression and global capital; U. S./CIA intervention in Guatemala since the 1954 coup to install dictatorships that favor repression of workers and the poor. 

 

4/4                   Globalization and its Discontents

 

Dialogue Journal #10 Due on required readings: 

 

Required Readings:

 

Required readings from I, Rigoberta Menchu: Chapters 23, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34;

 

Required readings from Women: Images and Realities:  “Bringing the Global Home” (550-6) 

 

Group Presentation(s) on International Women's Issue:  The Maquiladoras in Mexico and Central America; International Sweatshops; women's labor activism in the maquiladors of El Salvador or elsewhere; the U. S. student movement to end sweatshop exploitation

 

Group Presentation on International Women's Issue: Sex tourism; the sexual exploitation of women and children in the international sex industry and international women’s activism to stop such practices

 

Viewing:  "The Global Assembly Line"

 

4/11                 Violence against Women:  Domestic and International Contexts

 

                        Dialogue Journal #11 Due on required readings: 

Required readings from Women: Images and Realities:  “Violence against Women” (478-80); "Battering:  Who's Going to Stop It?" (482-87); “Violence in Intimate Relationships: A Feminist Perspective” (495); "Holding Up More than Half the Heavens" (496-7); “Sexual Violence against Women and Girls” (469); “Whose Body is it, Anyway?” (507-10); “With No Immediate Cause” (510-11); "Naming and Studying Acquaintance Rape" (511-18); “Rape and Gender Violence:  From Impunity to Accountability in International Law” (518-20); “Stronger than You Know” (520-22); “Protecting Male Abusers and Punishing the Women Who Confront Them:  The Current Status of Child-Sex Abuse in  America” (490-944)

 

Required readings from Xerox:  Alicia Partnoy,  The Little School:  Tales of Disappearance and Survival. 

 

Group Presentation on International Women's Issue:  Argentina's "Dirty War" and the use systematic of torture and rape; the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo) who denounced the military regime; U.S. business and military support of the regime

 

Group Presentation on International Women's Issue:  Ethnic cleansing and the use of rape as a systematic part of war in Bosnia or Rwanda or Darfur (or elsewhere)

 

Group Presentation on International Women’s Issue:  The battered women’s shelter movement and activism to confront domestic violence in the U. S.

 

4/18                 Women’s Health and Reproductive Justice

 

Dialogue Journal #12 Due on required readings:  

 

Required readings from Women: Images and Realities:  "Health and Reproductive Justice” (310-15); "Abortion:  Is A Woman a Person?" (348-51); “Talking with the Enemy” (351-56); “Parental Consent Laws:  Are they a Reasonable Compromise?" (357-9);  “Abortion in the U. S.:  Barriers to Access” (367-73)

 

Viewing:  Vagina Monologues

 

Group Presentation on International Women's Concerns:  Margaret Sanger and the contraception movement in the U. S

 

4/25                 Final Reflection Essay Due  What is Women's Studies?  What is feminism?  And what difference does it make?

 

                        Pot-luck supper in Heth and oral presentations on final papers.  Prepare a 3-5 minute overview of your final reflection essay for oral delivery to the class.

 

Description |Requirements |Links