Introduction to Sociology of Gender
Fall 2004 Dwight Fee
Twilight Auditorium Warner 403, x2533
Tues/Thurs 9.30—10.45 & weekly sections Office hrs: Mon. 1-3.30
"This is a story about you!"
-- Marx
Overview
This course provides an introduction to major issues within the rapidly diversifying area of gender studies. Our class will explore a number of topics and perspectives within the social sciences that understand gender and sexuality as "constructions" which are constantly being built, changed, and challenged. The course aims to provide a far-reaching foundation in gender studies, tracing its emergence within feminist movements through a range of contemporary debates. Recent issues that will concern us include: multicultural approaches, issues of culture, masculinity studies, sexualities, and gay and lesbian perspectives.
While we will survey a number of topics and problems, an important goal of the course is to promote a critical and sociologically informed approach that is as much existential as it is academic. That is, we will regularly address the everyday manifestations of gender/sexuality at the same time we tackle difficult theoretical problems. In this way, the class intends to cultivate a "sociological imagination"– an approach that attempts to link local or personal "troubles" to large-scale social processes. By definition, a sociological imagination inspires us to immerse ourselves in realities different from our own. This is what makes personal and intellectual connections possible, and in turn what makes learning meaningful and fun. Please be ready to challenge yourselves in all of these ways.
Finally, while this is an introductory level course, it demands dedicated reading, writing, talking, and reflecting. Let's all work together to push beyond what we already know, or what we think we know.
Books
Michael Kimmel, The Gendered Society (2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2004)
Stevi Jackson & Sue Scott, Eds., Gender:A Sociological Reader (Routledge, 2002)
Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us (Vintage, 1994)
Steven Seidman, Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life (Routledge, 2002)
Leila Rupp, A Desired Past: A History of Same-Sex Love inAmerica (Chicago, 1999)
*Coursepack of articles and chapters (available from the bookstore)
Requirements and Grading
Although this is a large course, your individual commitment and responsibility matters a lot. A central expectation is that you will be diligent in your work and that you will take seriously your overall accountability in all aspects of the course – attendance, assignments, readings, participation, etc. Your exams and written work will total 95 points, and your overall commitment-participation-responsibility ["CPR"] will also be taken into account on a five-point scale. Those five points often make a difference in the final grade; excellent attendance and informed, active participation are the best ways to ensure top marks here. Also, I may require attendance for campus lectures.
Please be aware that discussion sections are an important aspect of the course, and your attendance is required. For ten weeks, two students will lead the discussion in each section. (We'll schedule this early.) The pairs will be responsible for organizing and mediating the discussion, which will create an opportunity for lively and creative dialogue. The effort of each pair will figure in to the CPR assessment for the course. (More details forthcoming.)
You will complete two exams during the course and write one paper. There will also be a scheduled final exam. The format for the exams will generally be essay, but the first one will also assess your grasp of important concepts. Again, more on this as we go. Here's the basic grading scheme:
Assignments and grading:
Exam 1 10/12 25%
Exam 2 11/9 25%
Paper 11/23 25% = 100%
Final Exam TBA 20%
C/P/R Overall 5%
Lecture and Reading Schedule
(* coursepack reading)
I. The Social Constructions of Gender: what does it all mean?
September 14 plotting a course
September 16 'gendering' what's around us
*Molotch, "The Restroom and Equal Opportunity"
Kimmel, Chapter 1 (Introduction), The Gendered Society
West and Zimmerman, "Doing Gender," Chapter 2, Gender
Bornstein, Chapter 6 (pp. 45-52), Gender Outlaw
September 21 social construction and the sex-gender system
Kimmel, "Ordained by Nature," Chapter 2, The Gendered Society
*Lorber, "Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender"
Connell, "Hegemonic Masculinity," Chapter 5, Gender
Bornstein, Chapters 1-5 (pp. 3-43), Gender Outlaw
September 23 the cultural embeddedness of 'biology'
Stanley, "Should 'Sex' Really Be Gender…?," Chapter 1, Gender
*Steinam, "If Men Could Menstruate"
Laws, "Seeing Red," Chapter 42, Gender
Morgan, "You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine," Chapter 46, Gender
Kessler, "Defining and Producing Genitals," Chapter 50, Gender
September 28 gender, culture, knowledge
Martin, "The Egg and Sperm," Chapter 43, Gender
Kimmel, "Spanning the World…," Chapter 3, The Gendered Society
Kimmel, "So That Explains It…," Chapter 4, The Gendered Society
Bornstein, Chapters 7-8, 12, Gender Outlaw
September 30 defining and embodying a feminist sensibility
Smith, "Women's Perspective as a Radical Critique of Sociology," Chapter 6, Gender
Hill-Collins, "Learning from the Outsider Within," Chapter 7, Gender
*Connell, "Gender Politics for Men"
Ingraham, "The Heterosexual Imaginary," Chapter 8, Gender
II. Feminism and the Gendered Institutions of Work and Family
October 5 gender as a process and 'institution'
*Dworkin and Messner, "Just Do…What? Sports, Bodies, Gender"
Kimmel, "Inequality and Difference…," Chapter 5, The Gendered Society
Bornstein, Afterword (pp. 239-246), Gender Outlaw
October 7 gender and the workplace
Kimmel, "The Gendered Workplace," Chapter 8, The Gendered Society
Hochschild, "Emotional Labor," Chapter 23, Gender
Nain, "Black Women, Sexism and Racism," Chapter 13, Gender
Westwood, "Domestic Laborers…," Chapter 19, Gender
October 12 EXAM I > Oct. Break
October 19 family: institution or relationship?
Kimmel, "The Gendered Family,' Chapter 6, The Gendered Society
Bernard, "The Husband's Marriage and the Wife's Marriage," Chapter 25, Gender
*Nardi, "A Chance to Choose My Siblings"
III. Interactions and Intimacies: Gendering Bodies, Selves, and Relationships
October 21 gender identity: structure versus fluidity
*Chodorow, "Family Structure and Feminine Personality"
*Stein, "Becoming Lesbian"
Rupp, Introduction (Chapter 1), A Desired Past
*Kimmel, "Masculinity as Homophobia"
O'Brien, "The Things They Carried" (reserve)
October 26 bodies and selves
Kimmel, "The Gendered Body," Chapter 10, The Gendered Society
Davis, "From Objectified Body to Embodied Subject," Chapter 47, Gender
Mansfield & McGinn, "Pumping Irony," Chapter 48, Gender
October 28 heterosexual intimate relationships: collective patterns, historical changes
Kimmel, "Gendered Intimacies," Chapter 9, The Gendered Society
Seidman, "The Sexualization of Love," Chapter 27, Gender
*MacKinnon, "Rape: On Coercion and Consent"
November 2 intimacy: hetero/sexual struggles and shifts
*Vaughan, "Signals, Secrecy, and the Collaborative Cover-Up"
Duncombe & Marsden, "Whose Orgasm Is This Anyway?," Chapter 29, Gender
Holland et al., "In the Same Boat?," Chapter 39, Gender
Tolman, "Doing Desire" (reserve)
November 4 intimacy: friendship, gender, and sexuality
Rupp, Chapters 2-4, A Desired Past
*Katz, "No Two Men Were Ever More Intimate"
Deitcher, excerpt from Dear Friends (reserve)
IV. Sexualities and Gender: Histories, Diversities, Trajectories
November 9 EXAM II
November 11 intimacy: the sex-gender system and same-sex relationships
Frye, "Lesbian Sex" (reserve)
Weston, "Lovers Through the Looking Glass," Chapter 31, Gender
Heaphy, Donovan & Weeks, "Sex, Money, and the Kitchen Sink," Chapter 32, Gender
November 16 FILM -- TBA
Rupp, Chapters 5-6, A Desired Past
November 18 sexuality the invention of relationships
*Simon, "The Postmodernization of Sex"
*Weeks, Heaphy & Donovan, "The Friendship Ethos"
*Foucault, "Friendship as a Way of Life" (interview)
November 23 sexuality as experiments in democracy
*Giddens, "Intimacy as Democracy"
Seidman, Introduction & Chapter 1, Beyond the Closet
*Jamieson, "Intimacy Transformed?," Chapter 33, Gender
Thanksgiving
November 30 sexual identity: towards new stories and 'fictions'
*Plummer, "Intimate Citizenship and the Culture of Sexual Story Telling"
Butler, Performative Subversions," Chapter 3, Gender
V. The Sex-Gender System: Crossovers, Experiments, Re/Inventions
December 2 pluralities, crossovers, and contradictions
Seidman, Chapters 2 & 3, Beyond the Closet
Tillmann-Healy, "Talking Through Meaning" (reserve)
December 7 the future of sexual and gender diversity
Seidman, Chapters 4, 5 & Epilogue, Beyond the Closet
*Talyor and Whittier, "The New Feminist Movement"
December 9 where are we now?
Kimmel, "A Degendered Society?," Epilogue, The Gendered Society
Weeks, "Necessary Fictions: Sexual Identities and the Politics of Diversity"
Final Exam – TBA