MIT OPENCOURSEWARE 2011: Feminist Political Thought

Feminist Political Thought

As taught in: Spring 2010

A postcard from 1913 depicts a cartoon of a girl scolding a boy about women not being allowed to vote.  Suffrage is discussed in session #3. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

Instructors:

Prof. Elizabeth A. Wood

MIT Course Number:

SP.601J / 17.006 / 24.237 / WGS.601J

Level:

Undergraduate

Course Features

• Assignments (no solutions)

Course Description

In this course we will examine the development of feminist theory over time. Some subjects we will examine in detail include suffrage and equality; radical feminism; psychoanalysis and feminism; theories of power; sexuality and gender; embodied knowledge; pornography; identities and global feminism; militarism; and the welfare state. Throughout the course we will analyze different ways of looking at power and political culture in modern societies, issues of race and class, poverty and welfare, sexuality and morality.

Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Seminar: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

Assignments

Students are responsible for:

• Each week's reading
• 2-3 page weekly response paper
• Co-leadership of one class, providing questions for discussion that day
• 10-12 page research paper
• Class presentation

We will also experiment with the forms in which we write. Students may choose to write their response papers in the form of letters to the editor and/or op-ed pieces.

Grading

Grading criteria.

ACTIVITies	PERCENTAGEs
Class participation and leading discussion	20%
Eight response papers	40%
Research paper and presentation	40%

 

Calendar

Course calendar.

SES #	TOPICS
1	Introduction to the course
2	What is feminist theory?
3	Suffrage and equality
4	Materialist feminism Guest lecturer: Anne McCants, Professor, History Department, MIT
5	Feminism and difference
6	Power and identity
7	Sexuality and gender
8	Embodied knowledge Guest speaker: Ian Smith, Student Activist, MIT
9	Pornography, rape, and the politics of consent Guest speaker: Rae Langton, Professor, Linguistics and Philosophy Department, MIT
10	Gender and the welfare system Guest speaker: Andrea Campbell, Professor, Political Science Department, MIT
11	Gender and militarism
12	Final presentations
13	Identities and global feminism
14	Third wave feminism and wrap-up discussion

 

Readings

Required Books

[Feminist Theory] = Kolmar, Wendy K., and Frances Bartkowski. Feminist Theory: A Reader. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. ISBN: 9780073512266.
[Exile and Pride] = Clare, Eli. Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780896086050.
[Curious Feminist] = Enloe, Cynthia. The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780520243811.
[Theorizing Feminisms] = Hackett, Elizabeth and Sally Haslanger. Theorizing Feminisms. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 187-88. ISBN: 9780195150094.

Course readings.

SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction to the course	No readings
2	What is feminist theory?	[Feminist Theory] pp. 2-54. [Curious Feminist] Chapters 1-5; pp. 1-10, 69-82. McIntosh, Peggy. "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." In Working Paper 189. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondence through Work in Women's Studies, 1988. (PDF) Parker, Pat. "For the White Person Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend." In Making Face, Making Soul. Edited by Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books, 1995. ISBN: 9781879960107. Uttal, Lynet. "Nods That Silence." In Making Face, Making Soul. Edited by Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books, 1995. ISBN: 9781879960107. Lorde, Audre. "I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities." In Making Face, Making Soul. Edited by Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books, 1995. ISBN: 9781879960107.
3	Suffrage and equality	[Feminist Theory] pp. 60-90, 93-100, 104-9, 201-210. Addams, Jane. "Women and Public Housekeeping." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 187-88. Young, Iris M. "Five Faces of Oppression." In Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. pp. 3-15. ISBN: 9780691023151. (PDF)
4	Materialist feminism	[Feminist Theory] pp. 90-92, 100-4, 109-22, 126-27, 299-307, 211-14, 230-44. (Engels, Gilman, Emma Goldman, Mother Jones, Kollontai, Eastman, Margaret Sanger, Heidi Hartmann, Charlotte Bunch, Gayle Rubin, "Traffic in Women".) Folbre, Nancy. The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values. New York, The New Press, 2002. Chapters 1-2; pp. 3-52. ISBN: 9781565847477.
5	Feminism and difference	[Feminist Theory] pp. 128-58, 215-21, 260-90, 312-19. (Stella Browne, Joan Riviere, Virginia Woolf, Karen Horney, Margaret Mead, Simone de Beauvoir, Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Nancy Chodorow, Mary Daly, Marilyn Frye, Audre Lorde, Monique Wittig, Carol Gilligan.) Young, Iris. "Humanism, Gynecentrism, and Feminist Politics." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 174-87.
6	Power and identity	[Feminist Theory] pp. 160-201, 245-48, 388-97. (Betty Friedan, Mary Douglas, NOW, Valerie Solanas, Kate Millett, "Redstockings Manifesto" (1969), Mary Ann Weathers, Anne Koedt, Pauli Murray, Radicalesbians, Older Women's League (OWL.) MacKinnon, Catherine. "Difference and Dominance." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 244-55.
7	Sexuality and gender identity	[Feminist Theory] pp. 209-97, 327-32, 413-23, 434-42, 502-7, 516-22. (Adrienne Rich, Carole Vance, Catherine MacKinnon, Judith Butler, Judith Halberstam, Anne Fausto-Sterling.) Rubin, Gayle. "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 527-40.
8	Embodied knowledge	[Exile and Pride] pp. 1-40, 67-138. Kadi, Joanna. "Stupidity 'Deconstructed'." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 40-50. [Feminist Theory] pp. 529-40. (Rosemarie Garland-Thomson.)
9	Pornography, rape, and the politics of consent	Stoltenberg, John. "Confronting Pornography as a Civil Rights Issue." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 298-310. Duggan, Lisa, Nan Hunter, and Carole S. Vance. "False Promises: Feminist Antipornography Legislation in the U.S." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 311-24. (PDF - 1.2MB) Marcus, Susan. "Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 368-81. Langton, Rae. "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts." Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993): 293-330. (PDF)
10	Gender and the welfare system	Fraser, Nancy and Linda Gordon. "A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State." Signs 19, no. 2 (1994): 309-36. Lubiano, Wahneema. "Black Ladies, Welfare Queens, and State Minstrels: Ideological War by Narrative Means." In Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power. Edited by Toni Morrison. New York, NY: Pantheon, 1992, pp. 323-63. ISBN: 9780679741459. Crittenden, Ann. "How Mothers' Work Was 'Disappeared'." and "The Welfare State Versus a Caring State." In The Price of Motherhood. New York: Holt, 2002, pp. 45-64, 186-201. ISBN: 9780805066197.
11	Gender and militarism	[Feminist Theory] pp. 508-15. (Cynthia Enloe) Cohn, Carol. "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals." In Feminist Theory in Practice and Process. Edited by Micheline R. Malson, Jean F. O'Barr, and Sarah Westphal-Wihl, and Mary Wyer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. pp. 107-138. ISBN: 9780226502946. [Curious Feminist] Chapters 7-10, 13, 15-16, pp. 99-144, 152-54, 193-232.
12	Final presentations	No readings
13	Identities and global feminism	[Feminist Theory] pp. 221-25, 319-26, 362-68, 397-401, 407-12, 466-69, 491-98, 533-61. (Fatima Mernissi, Chandra Mohanty, Gloria Anzaldua, Vandana Shiva, Ynestra King, Beijing Platform, Uma Narayan, Saba Mahmood.) [Curious Feminist] Chapters 2-4, 17, 19, pp. 19-68, 233-36, 268-305.
14	Third wave feminism and wrap-up discussion	[Feminist Theory] pp. 442-53, 469-72, 474-90, 499-501, 522-23, 541-45. (Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, Winona LaDuke, Third Wave feminists, Kimberle Crenshaw, Griselda Pollock, Baumgardner and Richards, Joanne Barker.)

 

Assignments

Research Paper: Feminist Theory & Current Life

Your mission, should you accept it, is to take a current or relatively recent set of events or topic of concern that has been in the media and think about how the issues of feminism come to bear on this topic.
What are the feminist theory angles in your topic? How has the media portrayed your topic? How can theories about gender and language or gender and performance or the ideological formations relating to sexuality (to take a few examples) help us better understand real conflicts and politics in the world today? What can theory tell us about what observers have and have not understood about your topic?
The papers should be 10-15 pages in length, double-spaced.
Possible Topics:

• Prostitution and morality
• Chromosomes and gender identification
• Work and family studies
• The reform of welfare
• Paternity/maternity issues in childrearing and/or divorce
• Global organizing of women's labor
• Pornography and the Internet
• Women and military service
• Race, class and gender in the 2008 election campaigns
• Women's body image
• Discrimination against people who don't conform to the dominant beauty ideal
• Date rape and other issues of violence against women on college campuses
• Women in sports: Title IX
• Can men be feminists?
• Women and credit in the Third World
• Femininity, masculinity and political leadership

Resources for paper topics

Shah, Anup. "Women's Rights." Global Issues: Social, Political, Economic, and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All. March 14, 2010.
Abortion Conservation Project, Inc.
Pro+Choice Forum

Pedagogy

My philosophy of teaching is based in the notion of student-centered learning. My working hypothesis is that students can learn most effectively when they feel a direct need to take in new material, digest it thoroughly, and integrate it into their understanding of the world.
Accordingly, my goal is to provide readings that will challenge students to think about the world around them in new ways, whether to open their eyes to the suffering associated with poverty or to introduce them to the global interconnectedness in sneaker production. I ask them to analyze thorny issues such as pornography, free speech, and the protection of women; the evolution of motherhood and the devaluation of women's work in the home; the politics and practices of the welfare state; the challenges and dilemmas of militarism for women's participation in the body politic, and so on.
Recently, I have asked students to learn practical forms of writing as well: how to write a letter to the editor and an opinion piece and how to analyze the materials they are reading from a feminist theory perspective. Letters to the editor and op-ed pieces can empower students to feel that their views matter; and, writing such pieces can encourage students to research a topic thoroughly so that they have all the information at their fingertips. The world we live in has grown so complicated that it more than ever requires everyone to add his or her voice, to demonstrate a sense of citizenship through careful attention to issues and to communicate those insights and understanding.

 

 

Related Resources

Internet Resources

Shah, Anup. "Women's Rights." Global Issues: Social, Political, Economic, and Environmental Issues That Affect Us All. March 14, 2010.
Abortion Conservation Project, Inc.
Pro+Choice Forum

Boston-Area Public Service Learning Opportunities

The My Life My Choice Project
An initiative designed to reach adolescent girls most vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation
Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women
A city department that works to promote equality and justice for all women and girls and advocates on their behalf with other city departments and officials
Rosie's Place
Offers long-term and emergency assistance to poor and homeless women who have nowhere else to turn
Teen Voices & Women Express
An organization that supports and educates teen girls to create social change through media and writing
Barakat
Improves the well-being of marginalized groups in South and Central Asian by increasing access to quality education and a healthy environment
Science Club for Girls
Increases the science literacy of girls from Kindergarten through 12th grade by providing free programs in hands-on learning, mentorship, and leadership
Project Have Hope
Works with a group of 100 women by helping to improve the quality of their lives
ReVision Urban Farm
Provides fresh, affordable and locally grown produce to families in the city with limited resources
Fenway Community Health
Enhances the wellbeing of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and all people through access to health care, education, research, and advocacy
Crittenton Women's Union
Helps low-income women achieve economic independence
Nutrition Education Outreach Project
Fights hunger and teaches families nutrition skills in the Boston area.
United South End Settlements
Provides comprehensive programs that address the needs of individuals and families, from infants to seniors
Ministries of Aides International, Inc.
Offers diverse programs such as basic computer classes, resume building classes, job placement, translation services, and ESL courses
The Second Step
Offers a comprehensive program for survivors of domestic violence

 

 

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