women and gender studies midterm potential questions and answers PDF

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women and gender studies midterm question and answers...

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WOS midterm potential questions 1. What misconceptions Christie Launius and Holly Hassel discuss regarding feminism?  “feminism is dead”. This misconception is meant to derail or shut down gender inequality by saying that equality has already been achieved.  “feminists are ugly, hair, braless, and makeup-less. The article said that this is the easiest way to steer women away from being feminists because women care about their appearances and don’t want to be perceived that way.  “feminist hate men”. This is a strategy to mischaracterize feminism and to see it as a “battle of the sexes” rather than women just wanting the same rights as men  “only women can be feminists”. More and more men are starting to become feminist  “feminist are lesbians”. This is meant to scare women admen away from being feminists because even though LGBT community has grown some people don’t want that title.  “feminists are making a big deal out of nothing” and this is meant to reinforce traditional gender roles and sexualities

2. Discuss two principles for constructive engagement from the reading “How to engage constructively  Everyone has an opinion. Opinions are not the same as informed knowledge. Opinions allow us to fill up discussion space without engaging in course material. The goal is to exchange scholarly evidence. If we don’t understand or aren’t interested in material that we are assigned, the easiest thing to do is give an opinion, or a personal response  Notice your own defense reactions and attempt to use these reactions as entry points for gaining deeper self-knowledge. A constructive response is using emotions to gain a deeper self awareness. Connect personally to issues that are discussed. Defensiveness, cognitive dissonance, feelings of guilt, shame, and grief are not uncommon. These feelings can indicate movement and change. We choose what to do with our feelings… will we be constructive or destructive?

3. What issues are discussed in the “The Combahee River Collective” reading under “problems in organizing Black feminists” topic?  The major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are not just trying to fight oppression on one front or even two, but instead to address a whole range of oppressions.  The psychological toll of being a Black woman and the difficulties this presents in reaching political consciousness and doing political work can never be underestimated. There is a very low value placed upon Black women's psyches in this society, which is both racist and sexist.  In the fall, when some members returned, we experienced several months of comparative inactivity and internal disagreements which were first conceptualized as a Lesbian-straight split but which were also the result of class and political differences. 4. Discuss all four types of masculinity from the C.J. Pascoe’s reading, “Making masculinity.”  Hegemonic Masculinity: Type of gender practice that supports gender inequality, is at the top of this hierarchy.  Complicit Masculinity: Men who benefit from hegemonic masculinity but do not enact it.  Subordinated Masculinity: Men who are oppressed by definitions of hegemonic masculinity, primarily gay men.  Marginalized Masculinity: Men who may be positioned powerfully in terms of gender but not in terms of class or race.

5. How does Allan Johnson describe patriarchy as a system? Discuss 2-3 examples that the reading offers to understand patriarchy as a system. 

Patriarchy as a system - Johnson describes patriarchy as a system by saying everyone and everything shapes and feeds into it subconsciously. He even says that women feed into the system by conforming to certain standards such as beauty standards like wearing makeup or dressing down, or even dressing revealing. Men will look at one standard or another and unfairly judge a person based on either side of their decision.

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2-3 examples to understand this as a system-

o Johnson recognizes a pattern in which women feel free to blame men for oppressing them and therefore men take it personally and become defensive. He argues that women will blame men for patriarchy “simply because they’re men.” o Johnson provides an interesting perspective on how we participate in our social lives. He makes a very good point when he suggests that patriarchy can exist without men being portrayed as the villains. People tend to follow along with what society deems is the norm. 6. According to “The five sexes…” reading, why is it important to challenge two sexes—male and female—system?  We are fixed on only two genders, male and female and so when someone is born with mixed genetalia we try to fix that and assign them either male or female, we should rather accept them for who they are and not try to fix how they were born. Unless there is a health risk we should not be making those choices. 7. Why and how in “Guilty pleasures” reading Jackson Katz argues that the pornography industry contributes to dehumanizing girls and women and desensitizing men and boys to women’s suffering.  We socialize normal boys to be sexually dominant and normal girls to be sexually subordinate. Normal boys learn to objectify and dehumanize women and girls. Normalizing men’s pleasure - taking as it sexualizes the woman’s degradation. Women are described as a whore and getting what she wants. Porn gives problematic messages to men, such as how women and men should interact with each other.  Young men are taught at a young age and socialized to grow up thinking that you need to desensitize women in order to be overpower women.  Glamorizing pain inflicted on women  Women are getting the message that they need to be sexually available according to the man’s terms.

8. Discuss two examples from Andrea Smith’s reading to illustrate why colonization and sexism need to be addressed simultaneously to understand Native American women’s issues  we are unable to achieve sovereignty for Native people without addressing Native women first  The main idea of this reading is that sexual violence in native communities is linked to processes of genocide and colonization, so in order to fix one they both need to be fixed because they are related.

9. Discuss the following concepts/terms. Your discussion must include an example from the course readings to illustrate your understanding of the concept/term. a. Feminism- Feminism is defined as the advancement of women's rights and fight for equality among the sexes. In an excerpt of Susan B. Anthony's court case, we see her stand against the patriarchy while demonstrating her feminist views. She argues that all of her fundamental rights as a human being are ignored due to the fact that she is a woman. b. Gender Role- Gender roles are defined as learned behaviors of your gender determined and structured by cultural norms. We see gender roles being discussed in the reading Making Masculinity about a high school play in which the boys put on an act to demonstrate what male masculinity should look like and to show that it is rewarded by attracting women. c. Race- Race is distinguished among people with similar physical characteristics, we see race as in issue in the reading A Black Feminist Statement about the Combahee River Collective and how they struggled to fight for equal rights as African American Feminists d. Social Construction - Social construction is the way our culture constructs norms and labels for certain types of people. We see this talked about in both the movie Tough Guise and the reading Guilty Pleasures. In both, social construction is shown by the way boys are taught how to avoid feeling emotions and how they are supposed to act in certain ways in order to attract females. e. Intersectionality- Intersectionality is the theory that various social identities like race, gender, sexuality, and class, all contribute to oppression. We see an example of this in the reading There is No Hierarchy of Oppressions, it actually argues that all the social identities are intertwined and that discriminating against one means you're discriminating against all of them because we are all in this together and we are all different in our own ways. f. Privilege - Privilege is a form of advancement granted to a particular person or

group of people. Privilege is discussed in the reading White Privilege, it explains how the privileged group of people subconsciously recognize their unfair advantages but tend to ignore them and think of them as neutral compared to the unprivileged group....