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30 them. Equal pay for equal work is only part of the argument- usually described as "the part I'll go along with." We are all housewives. We would prefer to be persons. That is the part they don't go along with. "That broad ..." begins a male guest who Hasn't Thought. "Woman," corrects the hostess, smiling meaningfully over her coffeepot. "Oh, no," groans the guest. "Don't tell me you believe in this Women's Lib stuff!" "Yes," says the hostess. "Well, 1'11 go along with some of it, equal pay for equal work, that seems fair enough," he ·concedes. Uneasy now, he waits for the male hoots oflaughter, for the flutter of wives rushing to sit by their husbands at the merest breath of the subject of Women's Liberation. But that was three or four years ago. Too many moments have clicked in the minds of too many women since then. This year the women in the room have not moved to their husbands' sides; they have ... solidified. A gelid quality settles over the room. The guest struggles on. "You can't tell me Women's Lib means I have to wash the dishes, does it?" "Yes.)) They tell us we are being petty. The future improvement of civilization could not depend on who washes the dishes. Could it? Yes. The liberated society- with men, women and children living as whole human beings, not halves divided by sex roles- d epends on the steadfast search for new solutions to just such apparently trivial problems, R E A D N G on new answers to tired old questions. Such questions as: Denise works as a waitress from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Her husband is a cabdriver, who moonlights on weekends as a doorman. They have four children. When her husband comes home at night, he asks: "What's for dinner?" In moments of suburban strife; Fred often asks his wife, "Why haven't you mended my shirt and lubricated the car? What else have you got to do but sit around the house all day?" How dare he ask such a question? What sort of bizarre social arrangement is post-industrial-revolution marriage? What kind of relationship involves two people sharing their lives without knowing, or apparently caring, what the other does all day? According to insurance companies, it would cost Fred $8,000 to $9,000 a year to replace Alice's services if she died. Alice, being an average ideal suburban housewife, works 99.6 hours a week-always feeling there is too much to be done and always guilty because it is never quite finished. Besides, her work doesn't seem important. After all, Fred is paid for doing whatever it is he does. Abstract statistics make no impact on Alice. "My situation is different;' she says. Of course it is. All situations are differ\nt. But sooner or later she will experience-in a blinding click-a moment of truth. She will remember that she once had other interests, vague hopes, great plans. She will decide that the work in the house is less important than reordering that work so she can consider her own life. The problem is, what does she do then? 4 A Day Without Feminism Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards (2000) We were both born in 1970, the baptismal moment of a decade that would change dramatically the lives of American women. The two of us grew up thou- sands of miles apart, in entirely different kinds of families, yet we both came of age with the awareness that certain rights had been won by the women's ADoy Without Feminism I 1uesp.m. ; on ren . .sks: 1sks lu, sit of on .VO plSt :es tn 1g ,e .'t n :t e f movement. We've never doubted how important feminism is to people's lives-men's and women's. Both of our mothers went to consciousness-raisingtype groups. Amy's mother raised Amy on her own, and Jennifer's mother, questioning the politics of housework, staged laundry strikes. With the dawn of not just a new century but a new millennium, people are looking back and taking stock of feminism. Do we need new strategies? Is feminism dead? Has society changed so much that the idea of a feminist movement is obsolete? For us, the only way to answer these questions is to imagine what our lives would have been if the women's movement had never happened and the conditions for women had remained as they were in the year of our births. Imagine that for a day it's still 1970, and women have only the rights they had then. Sly and the Family Stone and Dionne Warwick are on the radio, the kitchen appliances are Harvest Gold, and the name of your Whirlpool gas stove is Mrs. America . What is it like to be fe male? Babies born on this day are automatically given their father's name. If no father is listed, "illegitimate" is likely to be typed on the birth certificate. There are virtually no child-care centers, so all preschool children are in the hands of their mothers, a baby-sitter, or an expensive nursery school. In elementary school, girls can't play in Little League and almost all of the teachers are female. (The latter is still true. ) In a few states, it may be against the law for a male to teach grades lower than the sixth, on the basis that it's unnatural, or that men can't be trusted with young children. In junior high, girls probably take home ec; boys take shop or small-engine repair. Boys who want to learn how to cook or sew on a button are out of luck, as are girls who want to learn how to fix a car. Seventeen magazine doesn't run feminist-influenced current columns like "Sex + Body" and "Traumarama." Instead, the magazine encourages girls not to have sex; pleasure isn't part of its vocabulary. Judy Blume's books are just beginning to be published, and Free to Be . .. You and Me does not exist. No one reads much about masturbation as a natural activity; nor do they learn that sex is for anything other than procreation. Girls do read mystery stories JENNIFER BAUMGARDNER ANO AMY RICHARDS 31 about Nancy Drew, for whom there is no sex, only her blue roadster and having "luncheon." (The real mystery is how Nancy gets along without a purse and manages to meet only white people.) Boys read about the Hardy Boys, for whom there are no girls. In high school, the principal is a man. Girls have physical-education class and play half-court basketball, but not soccer, track, or cross country; nor do they have any varsity sports teams. The only prestigious physical activity for girls is cheerleading, or being a drum majorette. Most girls don't take calculus or physics; they plan the dances and decorate the gym. Even when girls get better grades than their male counterparts, they are half as likely to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship because many of the test questions favor boys. Standardized tests refer to males and male experiences much more than to females and their experiences. If a girl "gets herself pregnant;' she loses her membership in the National Honor Society (which is still true today) and is expelled. Girls and young women might have sex while they're unmarried, but they may be ruining their chances of landing a guy full-time, and they're probably getting a bad reputation. If a pregnancy happens, an enterprising gal can get a legal abortion only if she lives in New York or is rich enough to fly there, or to Cuba, London, or Scandinavia. There's also the Chicago-based Jane Collective, an underground abortion-referral service, which can hook you up with an illegal or legal termination. (Any of these options are going to cost you. Il1ega1 abortions average $300 to $500, sometimes as much as $2,000.) To prevent pregnancy, a sexually active woman might go to a doctor to be fitted for a diaphragm, or take the high-dose birth-control pill, but her doctor isn't likely to inform her of the possibility of deadly blood clots. Those who do take the Pill al~o may have to endure this contraceptive's crappy side effects: migraine headaches, severe weight gain, irregular bleeding, and hair loss ( or gain), plus the possibility of an increased risk of breast cancer in the long run. It is unlikely that women or their male partners know much about the clitoris and its role in orgasm unless someone happens to fumble upon it. Instead, the myth that vaginal orgasms from penile penetration are the only "mature" (according to Freud) climaxes prevails. 32 CHAPTER l I Womens Studies: Perspectives and Practices Lesbians are rarely "out," except in certain bars owned by organized crime (the only businessmen who recognize this untapped market), and if lesbians don't know about the bars, they're less likely to know whether there are any other women like them. Radclyffe Hall's depressing early-twentieth-century novel The Well ofLoneliness pretty much indicates their fate. The Miss America Pageant is the biggest source of scholarship money for women. Women can't be students at Dartmouth, Columbia, Harvard, West Point, Boston College, or the Citadel, among other all-male institutions. Women's colleges are referred to as "girls' schools." There are no Take Back the Night marches to protest women's lack of safety aft.er dark, but that's okay because college girls aren't allowed out much after dark anyway. Curfew is likely to be midnight on Saturday and 9 or 10 p.m. the rest of the week. Guys get to stay out as late as they want. Women tend to major in teaching, home economics, English, or maybe a language-a good skill for translating someone else's words. The women's studies major does not exist, although you can take a women's studies course at six universities, including Cornell and San Diego State College. The absence of women's history, black history, Chicano studies, Asian-American history, queer studies, and Native American history from college curricula implies that they are not worth studying. A student is Iucky if he or she learns that women were "given" the vote in 1920, just as Columbus "discovered" America in 1492. They might also learn that Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell, and Fannie Lou Hamer were black abolitionists or civil-rights leaders, but not that they were feminists. There are practically no tenured female professors at any school, and campuses are not racially diverse. Women of color are either not there or they're lonely as hell. There is no nationally recognized Women's History Month or Black History Month. Only 14 percent of doctorates are awarded to women. Only 3.5 percent of MBAs are female. Only 2 percent of everybody in the military is female, and these women are mostly nurses. There are no female generals in the U.S. Air Force, no female naval pilots, and no Marine brigadier generals. On the religious front, there are no female cantors or rabbis, Episcopal canons, or Catholic priests. (This is still true of Catholic priests.) Only 44 percent of women are employed outside the home. And those women make, on average, fiftytwo cents to the dollar earned by males. Want ads are segregated into "Help Wanted Male" and "Help Wanted Female." The female side is preponderantly for secretaries, domestic workers, and other lowwage service jobs, so if you're a female lawyer you must look under "Help Wanted Male." There are female doctors, but twenty states have only five female gynecologists or fewer. Women workers can be fired or demoted for being pregnant, especially if they are teachers, since the kids they teach aren't supposed to think that women have sex. If a boss demands sex, refers to his female employee exclusively as "Baby;' or says he won't pay her unless she gives him a blow job, she has to either quit or succumb-no pun intended. Women can't be airline pilots. Flight attendants are "stewardesses"-waitresses in the sky-and necessarily female. Sex appeal is a job requirement, wearing makeup is a rule, and women are fired if they exceed the age or weight deemed sexy. Stewardesses can get married without getting canned, but this is a new development. (In 1968 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission-EEOC-made it illegal to forcibly retire stewardesses for getting hitched.) Less than 2 percent of dentists are women; 100 percent of dental assistants are women. The "glass ceiling" that keeps women from moving naturally up the ranks, as well as the sticky floor that keeps them unnaturally down in low-wage work, has not been named, much less challenged. When a woman gets marri~, she vows to love, honor, and obey her husband, though he gets off doing just the first two to uphold his end of the bargain. A married woman can't obtain credit without her husband's signature. She doesn't have her own credit rating, legal domicile, or even her own name unless she goes to court to get it back. If she gets a loan with her husband-and she has a job-she may have to sign a "baby letter" swearing that she won't have one and have to leave her job. Women have been voting for up to fifty years, but their turnout rate is lower than that for men, and they tend to vote right along with their husbands, not with their own interests in mind. The divorce rate is about the same as it is in 2000, contrary to popular fiction's blaming the women's movement for divorce. Feminist Politics I However, divorce required that one person be at fault, therefore if you just want out of your marriage, you have to lie or blame your spouse. Property division and settlements, too, are based on fault. (And at atime when domestic violence isn't a term, much less a crime, women are legally encouraged to remain in abusive marriages. ) If fathers ask for custody of the children, they get it in 60 to 80 percent of the cases. (This is still true.) If a husband or a lover hits his partner, she has no shelter to go to unless she happens to live near the one in northern California or the other in upper Michigan. If a woman is downsized from her role as a housewife (a.k.a. left by her husband), there is no word for being a displaced homemaker. As a divorcee, she may be regarded as a family disgrace or as easy sexual prey. After all, she had sex with one guy, so why not all guys? If a woman is not a Mrs., she's a Miss. A woman without makeup and a hairdo is as suspect as a man with them. Without a male escort she may be refused service in a restaurant or a bar, and a woman alone is hard-pressed to find a landlord who will rent her an apartment. After all, she'll probably be leaving to get married soon, and, if she isn't, the landlord doesn't want to deal with a potential brothel. Except among the very poor or in very rural areas, babies are born in hospitals. There are no certified midwives, and women are knocked out during birth. Most likely, they are also strapped down and lying down, made to have the baby against gravity for the doctor's convenience. If he has a schedule to keep, the R E A D N G BELL HOOKS 33 likelihood of a cesarean is also very high. Our Bodies, Ourselves doesn't exist, nor does the women's health movement. Women aren't taught how to look at their cervixes, and their bodies are nothing to worry their pretty little heads about; however, they are supposed to worry about keeping their little heads pretty. If a woman goes under the knife to see if she has breast cancer, the surgeon won't wake her up to consult about her options before performing a Halsted mastectomy (a disfiguring radical procedure, in which the breast, the muscle wall, and the nodes under the arm, right down to the bone, are removed). She'll just wake up ,md find that the choice has been made for her. Husbands are likely to die eight years earlier than their same-age wives due to the stress of having to support a family and repress an emotional life, and a lot earlier than that if women have followed the custom of marrying older, authoritative, paternal men. The stress of raising kids, managing a household, and being undervalued by society doesn't seem to kill off women at the same rate. Upon a man's death, his beloved gets a portion of his Social Security. Even if she has worked outside the home for her entire adult life, she is probably better off with that portion than with hers in its entirety, because she has earned less and is likely to have taken time out for such unproductive acts as having kids. Has feminism changed our lives? Was it necessary? After thirty years of feminism, the world we inhabit barely resembles the world we were born into. And there's still a lot left to do. s Feminist Politics Where We Stand bell hooks (2000) Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. This was a definition of feminism I offered in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center more than 10 years ago. It was my hope at the time that it would become a common definition everyone would use. I liked this definition because it did not imply that men were the enemy. By naming sexism as the problem it went The readings. https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/coverture-word-you-probably-dont-know-should https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/suffrage-movement-racism-black-women.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-abortion-timeline-story.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/21/health/women-reasons-abortion-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/politics/2020-blue-red-state-abortion-politics/index.html https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romaniaalabama/?fbclid=IwAR3WiGIrA5gjoy2q2ZnMp84JElILl6z5v9YMK0HYpcra5gV-wtxUyM5Dhzg Podcast: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/30/728297370/scotus-and-abortion film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzfHXyk9TT0 EADI NG Still Needing the F Word Anna Quindlen (2003) Let's use the F rvord here. Peopie say it's inappropriate, o1}'ensive, that it puts people off. But it seems to rne it's the best way to begin, when it's simultaneously devalued and invaluable. Feminist. Feminist, Feminist, Feminist. Conventional wisrlom has it that rve've moved on to a postfeminist era, rvhich is meant to suggest that the issues have been settled, the inequities addressed, and all is right rvith the world. And then suddeniy from out of the South like Hurricane Everywoman, a level 03 storm, comes something like the nerv study on the status of women at Duke University," and the notion that rve're post-anything seems absurd. Tirne to use the F rvord again, no matter how uncomfortable people may find it. Fem-i-nism tu l. Belie.f in the socittl, political antl ecottontic ecpalitl' o.f the sexes. That wasn't so hard, rvas it? Cefiainly not as hard as being a fernale undergraduate at Duke, where apparently the operative ruling principie is something described as "effortless perfection," in rvhich young women report expending an enormous amount of effort on clothes, shoes, workout programs and diet. And here's a blast from the past: they're expected "to hide their inteliigence in order to succeed with their male peers." "Being 'cute' trumps being sniart for rvotnen in the social environment," the report concludes. That's not postfeminist. That's prefenrinist. Betty Friedan wroleThe Ferninine Mystiqre exactly 40 years ago. and yet segments of the Duke report could have come right out of her book. One 17-year-old girl told Friedan, "I used to rvrite poetry. The guidance office sa1,s I have tl:is creative ability and I should be at the -ln the Fal[, 2003. Duke Univer'ity published a comprehensive \\'omen's Initiative Report that docurnented the full range of \iorlren's experiences at the university. top of the class and have a great future, But things like that aren't what you need to be popular. The important thing for a girl is to be popular." Of course, things have changed. Now young women find themselves facing not one, but two societal, and self-imposed, straitjackets. Once they obsessed about being the perfect homemaker and rneeting the standards of their male counterparts. Now they also obsess about being the perfect professional and rneeting the standards of their male counterparts. In the decades since Friedan's book became a best seller, women have won the right to do as much as rnen do. They just haven't won the right to do as little as men do. Hence, etfortless perfection. While young women are given the impression that all doors are open, all boundaries dorvn, ernpirical evidence is to the contrary. A study from Princeton issued at the same time as the Duke study showed that faculty women in the sciences reported less satisfaction in their jobs and less of a sense of belonging than their maie counterparts. Maybe that's because they made up only 14 percent of the faculty in those disciplines, or because one out of tbur reported their male colleagues occasionally or freqtrentiy engaged in unprofessional conduct focusing on gender issues. Californians rvere rvilling to ignore Arnold Schrvarzenegger's alleged career as a serial sexual bigot, despite a total of l6 women coming forward to say he thought nothing of reaching up your skirt or into your blouse. (Sure, they're only allegations. But it was Arnold himself who said that where there's smoke, there's fire. ln this case, there was a couflagration.) The fact that one of the actor's defenses r.vas that he didn't rcalize this was objectionableand that voters were OK with that-speaks volumes about enduring assumptions about women. What if he'd habitually publicly humiliated black mer, or Latinos, or Jervs? Yet the revelation that the gul' My Heroines I NnRcr often denreaned women with his hands rvas rvritten off as partisan politics and even personal behavior. Personal behavior is rvhen you have a girllriend. When you touch someone intimately rvithout her consent, it's sexual battery. The point is not that the rvolld has not changed lobbecl a hand grenade into the houres of pseudohappy house- tbr women since Frieclan's book rvives rvho couidn't understancl the malaise that accompanied sparkling Forrnica and good-looking kids. Hundreds of arenas, t}om governnteut ofHce to the construction trades, have openecl to rvorking rvomen. Of course, when it leaks out that the Vatican is proposing to scale back on the use of altar girls, it shorvs that the ibrces of reaction are ahvays rvaiting, u,herher beneath hard hats or miters. My Heroines Marge Piercy (2010) Who stand behind attempts to open doors long bolted shut to tedms or clubs or professions. I think of women who dress 'respectably' and march and march and march again, for the abilitl, to choose, for peace, for rights their ou,n or others. Who fornt phone banks, who stutT envelopes u,ho do the invisible political rvork. They do not get their taces on magaziue covers. They don't get tan mail or receive arvards, But ivithout them, no \\,oman or liberal man 47 But the world hasn't changed as much as rve like to teil or"rrselves. Otherrvise, The Ferninirte lulystique wouldn'tfeel so contemporary. Othemise, Duke Universiry wouldn't find itself concentrating on eating disorders and the recruitment of female faculty. Otherrvise, the govemor-elect of California wouldn't be a guy who thinks it's "playful" to grab and grope, and the voters rvouldn't ratity that attitucle. Part fair game, part perl-ection; that's a tough standard fbr 5l percent of everyone. The first rvomen's-rights activists a century ago set out to ptove, in Friedan's words, "that wornan was not a passive empty minor." How dispir. iting it rvould be to those long-ago heroines to read of the women at Duke focused on their "cute" reflections in the eyes of others. The F word is not an expletive, but an ideal----one that still has a way to go. READING When I think n heroes. it's not Joan of Arc olll,Pitcher but rnothers rvho quietl to their daughtels. xrl co,t. errncv rvould ever be elected, no larv rvould be passed or changed. We rvould be stuck in sexist rnud. It's the receptionist in the clinic, the escorts to tiightened wornen, the volunteers at no kill shelters, women sorting bottles at the dunp, rvornen holding signs in the rain, rvomeD rvho take calls of the abused, of rape victims, night after night. Ihe rvoman at her computer or cle\when the family's uslcep rvriting l\rs, organizing fr.iends. Big change ibrns on small pushes Heroes and clirnb into historl' books, but it\qsuch wotnen who actually rvrite our)uture. U.S. Women’s History, Progress, and Resistance DR. DAWN CAMPBELL WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA Women’s Movement/Feminism The U.S. Women’s Movement Beginning of the U.S. Women’s Movement Seneca Falls Convention of 1848—first women’s rights convention and beginning of the U.S. Women’s Movement: Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions • based on U.S. Declaration of Independence • Signed by 68 women and 32 men • authored by Elizabeth Cady Stanton First Wave Women’s Movement First wave - late 19th into early 20th century ? suffrage - suffragists ? abolitionists ? opened opportunities for many women…but not all women ? First wave focused on White, middle class women https://www.google.com/search?q=susan+b+anthony&rlz=1 C1CHBF_enUS800US800&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X& ved=0ahUKEwjo98zpvPncAhWiVN8KHXVODyMQ_AUICig https://www.google.com/search?q=first+wave+women%27s+m ovement&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS800US800&source=lnms&tbm=is ch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8y6HIvPncAhXDmuAKHXaVDvcQ_A Harriet Tubman Sojourner Truth https://www.google.com/search?q=first+wave+women%27s+movem ent&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS800US800&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X& ved=0ahUKEwj8y6HIvPncAhXDmuAKHXaVDvcQ_AUICigB&biw=12 Frederick Douglass Lucretia Mott First Wave Women’s Movement ? The First Wave of the Women’s Movement benefited middle- and upper-class White women, not women of color. ? “The suffrage struggle itself took on a similar flavor, acquiescing to white supremacy — and selling out the interests of African-American women — when it became politically expedient to do so. This betrayal of trust opened a rift between black and white feminists….” – Staples (NYT article) African American Women Reformers ? 1890’s: Black Women’s Club Movement – to end lynching (Ida B. Wells-Barnett) ? Black women’s clubs addressed similar concerns as White women’s clubs: health, sanitation, education, and women’s suffrage; however, also focused on racism and racial uplift ? 1896: Mary Church Terrell – National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACW) Influential African American Women Ida B. Wells-Barnett Mary Church Terrell African American Women Reformers ? Black women: ? founded settlement houses and schools ? unionized and led strikes ? were involved in the formation of the NAACP and performed much of the local work ? Mary McLeod Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women, the Southeastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, and the Bethune-Cookman institute. Mary McLeod Bethune 1875-1955 – Mayesville, South Carolina • American educator • Stateswoman • Philanthropist • Humanitarian • Civil rights activist • Started private school for African American students in Daytona Beach, Fla https://www.google.com/search?q=mary+bethune&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS8 00US800&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT36HrxsrcAhV OyVMKHVYoCL8Q_AUICigB&biw=1280&bih=584 First Wave Progress What is the relevance of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution? ? It granted women the right to vote (1920) Margaret Sanger: Progress and Challenges ? Known as mother of birth control ? 1916: Opened first Planned Parenthood clinic (with sister, Ethel Byrne and Fania Mindell in Brooklyn, NY) ? 1917 Wrote and distributed birth control pamphlet, Family Limitation ? ? Comstock Act made it a federal crime to distribute or use contraceptives, as they were considered obscene and illicit. Sanger was arrested and charged with distributing advice on contraceptives. Still, she persisted. Second Wave Women’s Movement Second wave - 1960’s to 1980’s (PostWWII) ? drew in Women of Color ? political injustices ? access to jobs ? access to education ? equal pay ? reproductive freedom https://www.google.com/search?q=we+can+do+it+rosie&e spv=2&biw=1366&bih=638&tbm=isch&imgil Second Wave Progress ? The Feminine Mystique (1962) – Betty Friedan ? Civil Rights Movement/Act (1964) -prohibition on ? ? ? ? gender discrimination National Organization for Women (NOW) (1966) Gloria Steinem – founded Ms. Magazine (1972) Title IX (1972) Roe v Wade (1973) – legalized abortion throughout the U.S. Second Wave Progress (cont.) Jane O’Reilly coined the phrase, “the personal is political” to explain how things taken as personal have broader social, political, and economic causes and consequences. Can you think of any examples? ? Domestic violence ? Rape ? Reproduction/abortion/birth control ? Domestic work/child care/(2nd shift) Second Wave Progress (cont.) Women’s Studies (WOST) originated in the “second wave” women’s movement: ? Addresses inequalities in the workplace and family (public and private spheres) ? Addresses issues surrounding sexuality and reproductive freedom Women’s Studies WOST is… ? an interdisciplinary academic field ? deals with topics concerning women, gender, and feminism ? places women at the center of analysis ? examines women’s status in society ? seeks to improve the condition of women’s lives (socially, politically, economically…) Third Wave Women’s Movement Third wave - early 1990’s to today? ? women as diverse ? domestic violence ? sexual harassment ? challenges the notion of gender ? global reach ? postmodernism https://www.google.com/search?q=third+wave+feminism+pho tos Third Wave (cont.) ? challenges gender roles ? challenges stereotypes, media portrayals and language ? post-structuralism – binaries as artificial constructs created to maintain power Third Wave Progress ? Baumgardner and Richards’ Manifesta: Young ? ? ? ? Women, Feminism, and the Future (2000) The Vagina Monologues – Eve Ensler Riot Grrrls Movement – punk rock band Guerilla Girls – women artists who wore gorilla masks to expose female stereotypes and fight discrimination against female artists Madonna, Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Beyonce Terminology/Concepts Relevant Terms Coverture – the legal status of a married woman, considered to be under her husband’s protection and authority ? Husband and wife treated as one entity ? Wives could not own or control property…husbands could buy and sell property without her consent ? Wives required to take husband’s last name ? Husband did not need wives’ consent for sex; rape was legal within marriage (until 1980’s!) ? Laws shifted some in late 18th and early 19th centuries Terms/Concepts Feminism—concerns equality and justice for all women; seeks to eliminate systems of inequality and injustice in all aspects of women’s lives Gender—a socially constructed system of classifications that ascribes qualities of masculinity and femininity to people; the way society organizes understandings of sexual difference Relevant Terms Sex – female or male; intersex Patriarchy—a male dominated system; power and authority are in the hands of adult men Misogyny—the hatred of, or contempt for, women Androcentrism—placing men at the center and relegating women to outsiders in society Relevant Terms (cont.) Gender roles – gendered division between men and women Gender stereotypes – beliefs about the qualities of each gender Gender norms – social rules regarding what is appropriate for each gender (supports divisions) Relevant Terms (cont.) Gender socialization – process by which societal beliefs and expectations about gender are instilled in us How/where do we learn gender socialization? ? Parents ? Peers ? Myths ? Literature ? Media ? Religion Relevant Terms (cont.) Empowerment – ability to advocate for one’s rights and have decision-making power in one’s public and private lives Multiculturalism – emphasis on helping people understand, accept, and value cultural differences between groups, with the ultimate goal of diversity Ethnocentrism – when someone thinks their culture’s way is the right and only way and are quick to judge and reject the way other cultures do things FEMINISMS Feminisms Transnational feminism—movement for the social, political, and economic equality of women across national boundaries ? Focus on: problems associated with “essentialism” or the claiming of a universal sisterhood that ignores differences between women (i.e. privileged First World societies making decisions for Third World nations)-Can you think of any examples? Feminisms Liberal feminism—belief in the viability of the present system and work within this context for change in public areas. ? Focus on: education, federal and state policies, and legal statutes Feminisms Radical feminism—recognizes the oppression of women as a fundamental political oppression where women are categorized as inferior based upon their gender. ? Focus on: “the private sphere of everyday individual consciousness and change” Feminisms ? Marxist feminism—uses economic explanations from Marxist Theory to understand the workings of capitalist patriarchal institutions and societies. ? Multiracial feminism—asserts that gender is constructed by a range of interlocking inequalities that work simultaneously to shape women’s experience (connects with intersectionality). Feminisms Postmodern feminism—belief that “truth” is a relative concept and that identity is more complex than we imagine. ? Focus on: how language constructs reality; our lives are shaped in the context of various social systems Feminisms ? Third Wave Feminism—shaped by the material conditions created by globalization and technoculture; tend to focus on issues of sexuality and identity ? Anti-feminists—groups who believe they would lose from a redistribution of power who work to discredit and destroy feminist movements. Feminisms ? Post-feminism—recognition of feminism as an important perspective but believe its time has passed and is now obsolete (many post-feminists believe women have gained equality in all areas). References Rampton, Martha. “The Three Waves of Feminism.” Pacific University Oregon. 23 October 2014. Web. 5 January 2015. THE 1960S-70S AMERICAN FEMINIST MOVEMENT: BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS FOR WOMEN https://tavaana.org/en/content/1960s-70samerican-feminist-movement-breaking-downbarriers-women Women’s Studies Questions?