Gender & War Discussion/Test; Women & Gender: Part 1

Lab:

Test/Discussion on your chosen novel. 

1. Please get into your "reading groups" for your chosen novel. 

2. Together complete the following tasks for your novel as written on the handout/notes. 

3. Finally, rank the participation of your teammates. (See rubric and handout for details). 

Between passing time, please go to the library to pick up Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and The Handmaid's Tale or Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood.

Period 2: 

 

• "In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." —Gloria Steinem
• "The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race." —Susan B. Anthony
• "In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman." —Nancy Astor (British Politician)

Feminism is the theory that men and women should be equal politically, economically and socially. Notice that this theory does not subscribe to differences between men and women or similarities between men and women, nor does it refer to excluding men or only furthering women's causes. Most other branches of feminism do. Why you believe in feminism and what your ideas are to make feminism a reality is what causes arguments within the feminist movement. Next class we'll take a look at those arguments. Where do you see yourself on this continuum?

Once again, gender role critical theory includes:

From the Purdue OWL:

Common Space in Feminist Theories

Though a number of different approaches exist in feminist criticism, there exist some areas of commonality. This list is excerpted from Tyson:

1. Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which women are oppressed.
2. In every domain where patriarchy reigns, woman is the other: she is marginalized, defined only by her difference from male norms and values.
3. All of Western (Anglo-European) civilization is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideology, for example, in the Biblical portrayal of Eve as the origin of sin and death in the world.
4. While biology determines our sex (male or female), culture determines our gender (scales of masculine and feminine).
5. All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality.
6. Gender issues play a part in every aspect of human production and experience, including the production and experience of literature, whether we are consciously aware of these issues or not (91).

Feminist criticism has, in many ways, followed what some theorists call the three waves of feminism:

1. First Wave Feminism - late 1700s-early 1900's: writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792) highlight the inequalities between the sexes. Activists like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull contribute to the women's suffrage movement, which leads to National Universal Suffrage in 1920 with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment.
2. Second Wave Feminism - early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal working conditions necessary in America during World War II, movements such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le Deuxième Sexe, 1949) and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movement.
3. Third Wave Feminism - early 1990s-present: resisting the perceived essentialist (over generalized, over simplified) ideologies and a white, heterosexual, middle-class focus of second-wave feminism, third wave feminism borrows from post-structural and contemporary gender and race theories (see below) to expand on marginalized populations' experiences. Writers like Alice Walker work to "...reconcile it [feminism] with the concerns of the black community...[and] the survival and wholeness of her people, men and women both, and for the promotion of dialog and community as well as for the valorization of women and of all the varieties of work women perform" (Tyson 97).

Typical questions to ask when reading:

• How is the relationship between men and women portrayed?
• What are the power relationships between men and women (or characters assuming male/female roles)?
• How are male and female roles defined?
• What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
• How do characters embody these traits?
• Do characters take on traits from opposite genders? How so? How does this change others’ reactions to them?
• What does the work reveal about the operations (economically, politically, socially, or psychologically) of patriarchy?
• What does the work imply about the possibilities of sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy?
• What does the work say about women's creativity?
• What does the history of the work's reception by the public and by the critics tell us about the operation of patriarchy?
• What role does the work play in terms of women's literary history and literary tradition? (Tyson)

Readings; Read, comment, reflect, write....

• Gloria Steinem: "If Men Could Menstruate"
• Women Against Feminism (Rush Limbaugh)
• Judy Syfer's essay: "Why I Want a Wife" (1971)
• Camille Paglia: "The Modern Campus Cannot Comprehend Evil" (2014)
• Ann Coulter "I Hate Feminism" (video/audio media, 2017)

HOMEWORK: Please read Fun Home for next Monday. As you read, consider some of these gender and feminist ideas/questions. Once you finish Fun Home, please begin reading your Margaret Atwood selection.