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Montelaro & Ulbrich:
Introduction to Women's Studies

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What Is Women’s Studies?
	Add	View	2 pp.	Section-Divider
	Add		5 pp.	Introductory Essay by Vivian Ng
Women’s Movements
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	Add		9 pp.	Introductory Essay by Martha Schmidt and Verta Taylor
Feminist Theories and Feminist Philosophy
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	Add		6 pp.	Introductory Essay by Judith Lorber
Commonalities and Differences among Women: Race, Class, Gender
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Women Around the World
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	Add		9 pp.	Introductory Essay by Carol L. McAllister
Images of Girls and Women
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Women’s Bodies
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Women’s Physical and Mental Health
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	Add		9 pp.	Introductory Essay by Mary K. Zimmerman
Reproductive Rights
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Women’s Development Across the Life Course
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	Add		7 pp.	Introductory Essay by Sally N. Wall
Sexuality and Sexual Orientation
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	Add		7 pp.	Introductory Essay by Denise Fulbrook and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Psychology of Women
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	Add		8 pp.	Introductory Essay by Rhoda Unger and Mary Crawford
Educating Girls and Women
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	Add		6 pp.	Introductory Essay by Bernice R. Sandler
Mothering and Families
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Violence Against Women
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	Add		6 pp.	Introductory Essay by Diana Scully
Women and Work
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Women and the Law
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	Add		6 pp.	Introductory Essay by Martha Albertson Fineman
Media
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	Add		7 pp.	Introductory Essay by Therese L. Lueck
Women and Science
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Social Control: Oppression and Human Rights
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Art, Literature, and Cultural Traditions
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	Add		4 pp.	Introductory Essay by Jean Ferguson Carr
Gender, Language, and Communication
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	Add		6 pp.	Introductory Essay by Mary Crawford
Women and Sports
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Religion, Rituals, and Spirituality
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Readings
	Add		16 pp.	Acker, Joan, “Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations” In this article, Acker argues that organizations are not gender neutral and asexual structures. Rather images of men's bodies and masculinity pervade organizational processes, marginalizing women and contributing to the maintenance of gender segregation in organizations. Acker believes that presumption of gender neutral and disembodied organizational structures and work relations are part of the larger strategy of control in industrialized capitalist societies that are built, in part, on a substructure of gender difference.
	Add		20 pp.	Afary, Janet, “Steering Between Scylla and Charybdis” In this article, Afary maintains that in Iran women's bodies have become sites of political struggle. The author's thesis is that the reforms of Iranian regimes early in the century (changes in family law, unveiling, access to education) occurred during a period of growing centralization of power and repression of grassroots organizations that made the reactionary dictatorship of Khomeini possible. Likewise, the split between Khomeini's Marxist theory and feminist theory became total, with feminists viewed as the tools of imperialists. Khomeini and his followers wanted the technocratic aspects of modern society, not the social aspects of it. Reading Level: Middle to Advanced
	Add		2 pp.	Anonymous, “ ‘The Rape’ of Mr. Smith” By creating an imaginary courtroom dialog between a man who has been mugged and a defense attorney, the writer shows that no other victim of a crime is asked to tolerate what a rape victim routinely must. This article illustrates what the author describes as discrimination against rape victims. In addition, this sort of ``blaming the victim'' is viewed as indicative of society's position on rape and a reason many rapes go unreported. Reading Level: All Levels
	Add		6 pp.	Bowleg, Lisa, “Better in the Bahamas? Not If You’re a Feminist” This first-person memoir of a Bahamian native who became a feminist while attending college in the United States depicts the misconceptions and prejudice of fellow Bahamians. She describes losing friends and the necessity of forming a new primary group. Over time, she feels she has influenced her family and hopes to influence her culture more systematically in the future through teaching. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		12 pp.	Bunch, Charlotte, “Women’s Rights as Human Rights” In this essay Bunch states that gender-related violations of human rights are traditionally the most neglected internationally in terms of funding, prosecution, publicity, and trade decisions. Because the male is seen as the norm, women's rights are seen as trivial, few governments are committed to them, and women's experiences were only recently included in the list of international human rights violations. Bunch shows how women's rights violations are life-threatening. She discusses the problems that lead to ignoring women's rights violations: e.g., distinction between public and private, problems seen as individual rather than global. Bunch gives four practical suggestions for approaching change of this legally and politically. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		5 pp.	Burk, Martha and Heidi Hartmann, “Beyond the Gender Gap” In this essay from The Nation, Burk and Hartmann claim that in the midst of the current backlash against women's hard-earned gains, there are hopeful signs that may revitalize the women's movement. They outline five strategies, including new organizational structures, new forms of activism, renewed outreach efforts, and greater awareness of differences among women, to extend the movement's work beyond single issues and increase its relevance for women's lives. They urge the replacement of what they call ``flea-market feminism,'' protective of turf and competitive for grants, with a collective effort.
	Add		7 pp.	Chernik, Abra Fortune, “The Body Politic” In this essay Chernik recalls when ``people told me that I resembled a concentration camp prisoner, a chemotherapy patient, a famine victim, or a fashion model.'' This memoir of an anorexic details the self-hatred and loss she experienced, as well as the praise and rewards she received for becoming silent and vanishing. She summarizes her healing process, along with her move toward feminism, and discusses the political and social pressures to render women impotent through self-obsession. She found recovery a political move, necessitating a rejection of societal mores for women's size, and finds signs of eating disorders epidemic among women. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		10 pp.	Chesler, Phyllis, “What Is Justice for a Rape Victim?” Chesler argues that during times of war, the rape of women (by men) is at best noted, most always unchallenged and at worst, received with indifference by both women and men of the world. She calls for a recognition of rape, particularly in times of war, as either a war crime or human rights violation. Without such recognition, Chesler argues that the continued rape of women by men in the name of war will continue to inflict devastating harm and increased strife among women in war-torn nations. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		12 pp.	Chodorow, Nancy, “Gender Personality and the Sexual Sociology of Adult Life” Chodorow argues that men and women are located in asymmetric positions of production and reproduction from both psychological and sociological influences, women's dominant role in child-rearing and domestic work contributes significantly to negative definitions of masculinity, positional roles and personality types. Women, on the other hand, develop strong relational identities for the same reasons and are positioned to assume gendered identities without the significant external socialization of men, thus assuming nurturing roles as extensions of the primary caretaker, the mother. The capacity for intimacy generated by relational/positional roles influences men's continued absence from caretaking roles and women's continued prominence.
	Add		28 pp.	Christian, Barbara, “Images of Black Women in Afro-American Literature” In this excerpt from Black Feminist Criticism, Christian briefly outlines the stereotypes of black women in southern white literature before 1940 (the mammy, the concubine, the conjure woman,) then focuses on those found in black literature of the same period, particularly the ``tragic mulatta,'' whom she finds significant for reasons she describes. She discusses the oral tradition and its reversals of white stereotypes, particularly of the mammy. She gives case histories of black women authors and their increasing departures from and humanizing of ``stereotypical'' black women: Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry, Gwendolyn Brooks, Paule Marshall, Nikke Giovanni, and Toni Morrison. These authors often broke the stereotype by starting with it and transforming it. Extensive explications of particular texts are included. She finds most male black authors more prone to use stereotypes.Reading Level: Middle to advanced
	Add		24 pp.	Collins, Patricia Hill, “Black Women and Motherhood” In this chapter from Black Feminist Thought, Collins argues that Black mothers have been harshly criticized by white males while being glorified in the Black community as ``super-strong'' with little attention paid to the personal cost of that strength. She describes the concept of ``other mothering'' in the African-American community and its relationship to West African family patterns, female esteem, and political activism. Collins sees ``other mothering'' as a revolutionary move undermining capitalism and discusses the dilemmas that African-American mothers face raising daughters. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		9 pp.	Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement” The Combahee River Collective was organized in 1974 by Black women responding to particular needs of empowerment as women of color. During the 1970s, when this statement was first articulated, political writings by women of color were rare and most often distributed hand-to-hand. It was not until 1986 that the Collective issued its writing in a pamphlet, at which time it was widely distributed throughout women's organizations in the Third World. One of the most concise statements of Black feminist theory and practice, The Combahee River Collective Statement clearly delineates competing issues women of color encounter as persons marginalized by both gender and racial identities.
	Add		6 pp.	Curry-Johnson, Sonja D., “Weaving an Identity Tapestry” This selection is a response to a W.E.B DuBois quote on the duality of life as a Negro male. Here the author shows how African-American women, and indeed every woman, must dwell continually at the intersection of multiple, conflicting identities. Although these conflicting identities can produce self-criticism, they can also be a source of pride and achievement. Curry-Johnson finds it necessary that women support each other in these multiple roles.
	Add		8 pp.	Daly, Mary, “Sin Big” In this essay, Daly traces the development of her radical feminist consciousness from childhood incidents through college and graduate school. She believes patriarchy has stolen women's knowledge and calls herself a Pirate, stealing it back. Daly claims that her writings are decoding Christian myths to show the goddess-centered origins underlying them. She discusses her checkered relationship with academia: fired, reinstated, observed, mistreated. She also expresses concern about the last 16 years during which society has experienced backlash against feminism as well as an upsurge in gynocidal crimes. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		6 pp.	Daly, Mary, “Spiraling into the Nineties” This article is a call to a renewed spirituality, stating that a woman's spirituality is based on certain principles based on unity with other living things, shedding elements of patriarchy, living moment to moment, piracy, and witchcraft. Daly argues that women need to see themselves as ``being/becoming'' rather than as ``vessels/carriers.'' She also speaks of envisioning our true past, forging true connectedness, fighting the fragmentation of our now, celebrating ``cronehood,'' and protecting ``Sister Earth.'' She also provides her own list of ``Virtues'': Rage, Courage, Sin, Disgust, Laughter. Reading Level: Middle to Advanced.
	Add		15 pp.	Davis, Angela Y., “Racism, Birth Control, and Reproductive Rights” In these pages from Women, Race & Class, Davis examines the extent to which the women's movement in the United States has been shaped by the racist and classist biases of its leaders. She reviews the early history of the birth control movement. Davis argues that population control policy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was eugenic, privileging white women's right to birth control and dictating birth control as the duty of poor women of color, including massive forced sterilization. Not surprisingly, women of color did not swell the ranks of the pro-abortion struggle of the 1970s. Writing in 1981, Davis calls for an inclusive and history-conscious women's movement struggle for both the right to abortion and the end of forced sterilization.
	Add		6 pp.	Deford, Frank, “Jackie! Oh!” In this interview, primarily with Jackie Joyner-Kersee's coach and husband, and occasionally with Jackie herself, Deford explains in detail how the couple divides the roles of coach and husband/coached and wife, portraying him as very much ``in charge.'' Deford uses his skill as a sportswriter to sketch the athletic exploits and Olympic record-setting triumph of Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Having been rejected by the NBA because she was the wrong sex for basketball, she won gold and silver medals as a heptathlete (a truncated decathlon for females) that established her as the greatest woman athlete. No one but Jackie Joyner-Kersee has ever won three gold medals in successive Olympics: decathlon, heptathlon, and pentathlon. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		19 pp.	Deitch, Cynthia, “Gender, Race, and Class Politics and Women in Title VII” In this article, Deitch examines the historical circumstances surrounding the inclusion of gender in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Two levels of analysis are presented. One focuses on political conflict within the state. The other is a textual analysis of the actual congressional debate on the gender amendment to Title VII. Deitch reveals how race, class, and gender operate in complex and contradictory patterns to shape social policy in a given historical context and how the configuration may change over time.
	Add		3 pp.	Edelson, Vivian Choy, “What You May Call Me”
	Add		10 pp.	Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Annette Fuentes, “Life on the Global Assembly Line” Ehrenreich and Fuentes expose how multi-national corporations exploit Third World women and perpetuate gender-based oppression. Material production demands in the global economy override the provision of reasonable work environments, a living wage, and health considerations in developing countries.
	Add		2 pp.	Eisenstadt, Jill, “The Virgin Bride” This humorous essay argues that the subtext of the wedding rituals is sex, ``a public performance of erotica.'' While these rituals were once significant, as was a bride's chastity, they have lost their basis in an age of sexually experienced brides who may be too exhausted for sex on their wedding night. The expectation that a couple have sex on their wedding night, like the rituals signifying it during the reception, is outmoded. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		11 pp.	El Saadawi, Nawal, “Circumcision of Girls” Saadawi describes the typical Egyptian female circumcision and quotes statistics on its overwhelming frequency and women's common belief that it is a ``cleansing and purifying'' operation. She also discusses its prolonged psychological effects, especially frigidity and shock. She discusses the opposition of the medical establishment to her ``shameful'' research on sex. She then refutes a wide variety of arguments for female circumcision as follows: Mahomet was opposed to female circumcsion; God intended sexual pleasure for women also, it is necessary for their mental health; education protects women from immorality better than surgery. She concludes by stating that its only purpose is to limit women's desire for sex in order to ensure succession — the passing on of the patriarchal name and the political and economic interest of property.Reading Level: All levels
	Add		3 pp.	El Saadawi, Nawal, “The Grandfather with Bad Manners” In this article one woman's experience of incest by her grandfather is recounted. Her story shows the mixed emotions produced by the incest: shame, pleasure, anger, fear, and relief and happiness when he died. The woman discusses her fantasy that she had two grandfathers and the double standard: she was scolded for having bad manners for playing after his funeral, but his bad manners were never discussed. El-Saadawi discusses her view of the doctor's role — to remove a patient's masks — as similar to taking off one's clothes for a doctor's examination and that being nonjudgmental is required if one wants to hear the truth. She states that a male doctor would never have heard the stories she has heard.Reading Level: All levels
	Add		7 pp.	El Saadawi, Nawal, “The Injustice of Justice” This article focuses on the aftermath of rape and sexual aggression in a society where loss of the hymen means the loss of the family honor. Rape is usually dealt with inside the family, to protect its honor, with perpetrators often meting out justice — including execution — on their victims. This is quite common, and when cases do come to court they are usually closed for the sake of the family, at times with marriage between victim and rapist as the solution. Brothers who murder their sisters are let off because their intention — defending family honor — was good; teachers who assault girls are often transferred to other teaching positions in different cities. Her statistics indicate over 45% of women from uneducated Egyptian families suffered from sexual aggression during childhood, and over 33% of women from educated families did.Reading Level: All levels
	Add		5 pp.	El Saadawi, Nawal, “The Question That No One Would Answer” This is a memoir of El-Saadawi's childhood, focusing on her circumcision at age six and the shock and betrayal that was its aftermath. She discusses the differences between her upbringing and her brothers: his freedom to move, laugh, play, look at people, while she was expected to be still, to look down, to stifle her laughter. All of this was true even in her educated family. Her constant questioning of these rules was judged as unladylike. Her book is her answer to her questioning. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		4 pp.	El Saadawi, Nawal, “Sexual Aggression Against the Female Child” In Arab society girls are taught to be ashamed of their bodies and to suppress their desires and serve others. Their education is a ``process of annihilation.'' All sex outside of marriage is seen as horribly sinful, including masturbation. Male family members are prone to reach toward their female relatives for sexual release, so prone that incest and sexual assault on young girls is an epidemic in Arab society. Due to their training in obedience and shame, girls tell no one, but suppress these occurrences. Even if they told, they would be blamed. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		8 pp.	El Saadawi, Nawal, “The Very Fine Membrane Called ‘Honor’ ” In Arab society, a daughter's hymen is symbolic of the family's pride; it is prized above her life, and if she fails to bleed on her wedding night she may lose her marriage or even her life. The fact that women have hymens and men don't is used to justify the double standard requiring virginity for females but not for males. A physician, Saadawi refutes this by showing that not all girls are born with hymens, and not all hymens bleed or even break during intercourse. She cites case studies of girls murdered on the mistaken assumption they were not virgins or were pregnant. Although increased education and economic independence are bringing change, injuries are still caused to satisfy familial expectations because the honor of a girl's father and brothers is centered on her behavior rather than their own.Reading Level: All levels
	Add		12 pp.	Enloe, Cynthia, “Bananas, Bases, and Patriarchy” In this essay, Enloe looks at the negative impact of militarism and imperialism on the lives of women in Central America and the Caribbean. She examines how militaries help protect class, race, and gender hierarchies that profit from control of products for export in these regions. Enloe also points to the way in which women's labor in these regions is marginalized and trivialized, so that their unpaid labor makes possible the survival and reproduction of the lowest paid laborers who are usually men. U.S. militarization more often than not enforces the feminization of cheap and unpaid labor that enables corporate profit. In other countries, such as the Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea, militarization affects sexual politics by creating and perpetuating prostitution involving not only women but teenage girls and female children as well.
	Add		23 pp.	Enloe, Cynthia, “Are UN Peacekeepers Real Men?” In this excerpt from The Morning After, Enloe traces the ways in which Cold War militarization was a gendered process on both sides, e.g. the 1950s U.S. portrait of the world as dangerous, with women and children needing protection. She discusses how the military and government have defined masculinity and the impact of that on women. As demilitarization proceeds on both sides, feminist watchfulness, presence, and voices are needed. There are both opportunities and dangers, particularly as masculinity undergoes redefinition, such as with the U.N. peacekeeping forces and what it means for both soldiers and noncombatants to separate soldiering from nationalism. She mentions particular dangers: a sexualized society, women being pushed out of jobs, government posts, and their concerns being ignored.Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		26 pp.	Enloe, Cynthia, “Beyond Steve Canyon and Rambo” This article explores in depth the symmetry between militarism and masculinity. Enloe shows how both ``femininity'' and ``masculinity'' have been self-consciously shaped in similar ways by governments on both sides of the Cold War. Enloe also demonstrates how militarism requires both the ``saintly wife'' to fight for and the ``prostitute'' to service soldiers' sexual ``needs,'' as well as other gendered stereotypes. She claims that militarism can only be rolled back by analyzing and critiquing constructs of gender. She calls for specific additional studies in the relationship between gender roles and militarism, especially as that changes in various parts of the world. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		29 pp.	Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs, “It’s All in the Mind” While it is increasingly common to hold the view that personality is a product of both biological and social factors, the question of sex differences remains contested in the social sciences. In this chapter from Deceptive Distinctions, Epstein reviews the debate among different disciplines about whether gendered personality characteristics are set early in childhood or whether social circumstances have greater weight in explaining the differences in the life experiences of men and women. She concludes that unexamined social expectations perpetuate the status quo and contribute significantly to the different life outcomes of women and men.
	Add		20 pp.	Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs, “Social Control: Law, Public Policy, Force” In this chapter from Deceptive Distinctions, Epstein argues that social theorists' re-emergent interest in the state and the growing scholarship in the construction of gender distinctions remain two separate trends. She explores how the use/threat of violence against women, sexual harassment, and men's control of public space are used to maintain gender distinctions. Epstein concludes that the state's purposeful demarcation of gender lines discredits the claim that gender differences are natural.
	Add		25 pp.	Ferree, Myra Marx, “The Time of Chaos Was the Best” In this published version of her lecture, Ferree argues that the women's movement in East Germany went through three phases — emergence, white-hot mobilization, and demobilization — in rapid succession. She analyzes these stages with regard to the resources, political opportunities, and personal meanings of feminism that activists used at the time. Ferree uses the post-unification crisis of the movement to examine issues of collective identity between East and West and to highlight challenges to dichotomies between public and private capitalism and socialism posed by the movement.
	Add		8 pp.	Frye, Marilyn, “The Problem That Has No Name” Frye considers the term ``male chauvinism'' insufficient to capture the problem of men who, through malice — and outmoded and insufficient categories of thought — consider all males superior to all females. The problem is not just exclusion but also conceptual banishment. She uses the term ``phallist'' to describe such men and shows a variety of strategies often unconsciously used by such men to reinforce their views. The ``phallist's'' self- deception exists not only at the level of analysis and principles but also determines the structure and content of his conceptual framework. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		11 pp.	Gittins, Diana, “What Is the Family? Is It Universal?” In this chapter from The Family in Question, Gittins deconstructs the sociological definitions of the family, particularaly Murdock's. She claims that such definitions universalize American middle-class values and expectations and anthropological notions of kinship are freer of such assumptions. In particular, Gittins argues that both motherhood and fatherhood are social constructs rather than biological facts and that co-residence is not universal in families. She also states that gender and age determine economic access and power, that notions of economic cooperation negate the reality of oppression, and that sexual relations and childrearing are handled more variously across cultures than described in such definitions. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		13 pp.	Gordon, Linda, “Why 19th-Century Feminists Did Not Support ‘Birth Control”’ In this article, Gordon argues that modernization and technology are frequently used in arguments concerning changes in reproductive issues and family, but the arguments do not adequately address birth control through a historical lens. Gordon identifies key shifts in feminist identity and its implications for the current politically charged focus on abortion and family values.
	Add		5 pp.	Gorelick, Sherry, “The Gender Trap” From her perspective as a new mother, Sherry Gorelick expresses her frustration with other new parents who insist on gender stereotyping infant children according to current social or cultural conventions. She examines parental expectations that girls be socialized as passive and boys as aggressive. She notices how often adults expect male children to exhibit heterosexual models of dominance while female children are expected to accept and comply with this model of socialization. Gorelick suggests that adults be more cognizant of projecting their ideas about gender dominance and compulsory heterosexuality on to their children.
	Add		9 pp.	Gould, Lois, “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story”
	Add		4 pp.	Greer, Germaine, “The Backlash Myth” In this essay, Greer states that the notion of backlash assumes that women have made progress against patriarchy; however, they have not. She cites the example of abortion: it is not a choice if the mother is threatened into it. The preoccupation with abortion reveals the male preoccupation with intercourse. In terms of economics, though more women are working, they are actually earning less. What we are seeing is not backlash but revenge, hostility, and rage; ``all men hate at least some women some of the time.'' Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		20 pp.	Hall, Nora, “African-American Women Leaders and Politics of Alliance Work” In this essay, Hall states that African-American women have honed both mediation and negotiation skills through building alliances within the ``black community,'' at work, and across cultural lines. She discusses the history, and necessity of alliances, and particular areas in which African-American women have built alliances, as well as what is required for effective alliance building. However, alliance building is not always recognized as a source of power. As a case study of this alliance building and to help African-American women acknowledge this power and support each other, the author founded the Leadership for Black Women in 1987 at the University of Minnesota. She gives the history of that group, both internally and as it has struggled for funding and recognition.Reading level: Middle to Advanced
	Add		13 pp.	Hammonds, Evelynn, “Clarence Thomas, Affirmative Action, and the Academy” Hammonds analyzes the first round of the Senate hearings on Thomas' nominations to the Supreme Court to explain the political dynamics of the affirmative action debate. She argues that the conservative political agenda distorts dissent within the Black community and overlooks disagreements between scholars on race, gender and class, and the general public. Hammonds characterizes the hearings as another ``public forum for the backlash against hard won principles of equal opportunity.'' The parallel between the distorted messages about affirmative action programs and the attack on inclusive curriculums in higher education necessitates the continuing efforts to communicate the increasing sophisticated scholarship on race, gender, and class issues to a wider audience.
	Add		5 pp.	Hartmann, Heidi, “A Feminist Perspective on the Federal Budget” In this paper, Hartmann observed that patriarchial governments base public policy, and hence budgetary allotments, on assumptions of traditional models of life experiences. What if women were in charge and a feminist ideal of freedom, dignity, and security were used as the basis for policy and budget decisions? In her brief yet comprehensible national budget proposal, Hartmann challenges the government-as-usual process of taxing and spending — from a women's point of view of course.
	Add		5 pp.	Hill, Anita, “Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, October 11, 1991” Anita Hill's statement at the Senate confirmation hearings on Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court unmasked the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace and renewed women's struggle against all discrimination. Her courageous testimony illustrates that ability and hard work are still not enough for women to be accepted as equal partners in government and corporate offices. Since the Senate hearings, sexual harassment is increasingly recognized as criminal behavior.
	Add		11 pp.	hooks, bell, “Dreaming Ourselves Dark and Deep: Black Beauty” This article focuses primarily on African-American women's perceptions of their bodies and how that influences the care — or neglect — of themselves. She discusses the problem of internalized racism and its effect on African-American women's self-perceptions. Hooks points to four specific qualities of the black woman's body: darkness, largeness, hair, and feet. She notes the relationship between self-sacrifice and lack of physical care and the problem TV presents African-American self-perceptions. Hooks calls for African-American women to invent creative, loving self-representations to combat the effects of internalized racism. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		17 pp.	Keller, Evelyn Fox, “Gender and Science” Keller examines the history of science, the mythologies of science, and how traditional child development reinforces the notion of the scientist as ``objective,'' ``autonomous,'' and male. Keller shows how the notion of the scientist's autonomous domination of nature casts the scientist as the distant, reasoning husband and nature as the mysterious, unreasonable wife. She discusses how traditional child development recreates such a relationship — with the father as distant and the mother as that which a young boy must separate himself from. Keller points to test results of scientists' scores on masculinity tests to bolster her argument and discusses pressures both within and outside the scientific community to examine its mythologies. Reading Level: Middle to Advanced.
	Add		14 pp.	Kramarae, Cheris, “Joking Matters” In this chapter from Men and Women Speaking, Kramerae observes that women and women's issues are frequently at the core of popular cultural humor. Struggling to appreciate the humor in life, women are caught in a dilemma — to go along and display the existence of a sense of humor, or to challenge the humor and risk accusations of lacking humor. Kramerae studies the existence of humor in men and women, what is funny and why, and makes important observations about the gendered nature of jokes.
	Add		16 pp.	Kurz, Demie, “Social Science Perspectives on Wife Abuse” In this critical review of family and violence and feminist perspectives on wife abuse, Kurtz examines the premises, methodology, and conclusions regarding each perspective's emphasis on gender. The family violence perspective recognizes the extent and implications of abuse, but Kurtz argues that the assumption that all family memebers are aggressors and victims deflects attention from women as primary targets of violence. She suggests that the feminist perspective, centered on male/female relations, more accurately portrays the power dynamics of abuse against women and children by male intimates.
	Add		7 pp.	Lamm, Nomy, “It’s a Big Fat Revolution” This essay is Lamm's account of how her weight has produced oppression and efforts by herself and others to control her eating, as well as verbal abuse and vulnerability to such. Lamm feels feminists have not supported those like herself and, when addressing the topic, have assumed that thin is better. Lamm defends fat as normal for some people. She feels that by struggling to accept and express herself as fat, lesbian, disabled, and sexual, she is participating in the revolution. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		13 pp.	Lorber, Judith, “Believing Is Seeing: Biology as Ideology”
	Add		8 pp.	Lorde, Audre, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” In this essay from Sister Outsider, Lorde succinctly addresses the quest for homogeneity in market economics and its implicit denial of difference. By not acknowledging differences in class, age, and race in addition to sex, this promotion of homogeneity among women perpetuates the polarization of groups and hierarchial relations. It is through the recognition of differences as women that joint efforts can be made to address the systematic gendered discrimination.
	Add		20 pp.	Lorde, Audre, “Breast Cancer: A Black Lesbian Feminist Experience” In this chapter from The Cancer Journals, Lorde candidly recounts her diagnosis of breast cancer, subsequent mastectomy and the healing process. The pain, physical and emotional, of her changed physical landscape as a woman, the well-intentioned prothesis which denies her blackness, the assumptions of heterosexuality throughout discussions of other survivors underscore subtle reinforcements of homogenous, and thus discriminating, experiences.
	Add		6 pp.	Lorde, Audre, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” In this essay from Sister/Outsider, Lorde states that the ability to enter fully into the moment emotionally, to ``self-connect,'' is a source of power and produces a desire to live all of life that way. She claims that the erotic has been feared and suppressed by men, who have wanted women to have such moments only for them, only sexually. Lorde views the pornographic as the opposite of erotic. She believes that by learning to ``live from within outward'' we will strive for excellence and transform our lives. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		4 pp.	Mainardi, Patricia, “The Politics of Housework” Mainardi states that men are used to pursuing ``great achievements,'' not engaging in repeated tasks for which there is no glory. They view such as women's function. Even liberated men fall into biological and other arguments to avoid housework. Women need to use charts and other devices to ``oppress'' their men into doing housework. After all, as bachelors, most of them did do it. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		15 pp.	Millet, Kate, “Theory of Sexual Politics” In this chapter from Sexual Politics, Millett explains how psychoanalysis represented a counterrevolution subverting the freedoms of the sexual revolution. Freud and other psychoanalysts equate learned behavior with biology, specifically with anatomy. Freud's notions of penis envy, women's innate masochism and narcissism, their ``drive'' for maternity, and their inability to contribute to culture formed the backbone of a reactionary movement used against women. Later Erikson celebrated the feminine while being unable to unlock it from the female, and so argued that women should be in councils and stay home with the kids. Inability to separate the feminine and the masculine from women and men has always been a shortcoming of psychoanalysis.
	Add		3 pp.	National Committee on Pay Equity, “The Wage Gap” This report defines the wage gap and explains how it is calculated. Four graphs and one table distinctly display the effect of sexism and racism on people's wages. White men continue to earn considerably more compared to all women and men of color. The widest gap in earnings is between White men and Hispanic women (55.6% in 1994); the narrowest gap is between White and Black men (25.1% in 1994). Women's median income lags 30% behind men's median income as we end the twentieth century.
	Add		2 pp.	National Organization for Women, “Expanded Bill of Rights for 21st Century” The National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded in 1966 in response to the failure of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. NOW became a watchdog for women's rights. The major strategies for change were to gain legal and economic equalities and to gain access to positions in the workplace and in politics. In response to the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment and the growing anti-abortion movement, NOW proposed this Expanded Bill of Rights for the 21st Century.
	Add		2 pp.	National Women’s Studies Assn., “Constitution: Preamble, Statement of Purpose” The National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) was founded in 1977 to promote feminist education ain any educational setting. The preamble and statement of purpose of the NWSA's current constitution, adopted in 1982, proclaims a vision for a world society free of ideologies and institutions that oppress different groups of people. More specifically, NWSA is a forum committed to a feminist educational strategy released from artificial boundaries between academia (women's studies) and social processes (women's movements) that seek to promote ``knowledge, theory, pedagogy, and organizational models appropriate to that vision.''
	Add		8 pp.	Pearce, Diana M., “The Feminization of Poverty: Update” An active sociologist who documented the ``feminization of poverty'' in 1978, Pearce is an advocate for the needs and rights of women workers. In this update, she identifies ongoing patterns of poverty among women and places those patterns within macro-economic paradigms.
	Add		13 pp.	Penelope, Julia, “The Lesbian Perspective” Penelope argues that courage and willfulness are necessary in order for someone to identify herself as a lesbian, and that when she does so she steps out of the male map of reality into uncharted territory, which requires continuous and furious self-definition. Every lesbian has to some extent developed distrust and the habit of lying as a result of living as part of ``heteropatriarchy,'' and these feelings are carried into the lesbian community and affect lesbian's communications with one another. She believes argument is necessary to the development of community and that the perspective that argument is war is a male one. She believes lesbians must recreate language for their needs, and says both ``woman'' and ``gay'' are categories constructed by men which make lesbians and their agendas invisible.Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		4 pp.	Phillips, Jan, “The Craft of the Wise: Who Salem’s Witches Really Were” Phillips recounts the story of one victim of the Salem witch trials, showing how these trials were primarily crimes of hate and fear. She descibes the modern-day witches of Salem and defines the woman-centered practice of Wicca. She defines ``magic,'' for example, as an altered state of consciousness cultivated by Wicca's practitioners. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		23 pp.	Pringle, Rosemary, “What Is a Secretary?” Pringle asks the question ``What is a secretary?'' only to find that business defines a secretary as not a boss, much as woman is described as not a man. She believes this negative definition gives rise to the trivialization of a secretary's work, vagueness of her job definition, and the denial that her skills are management skills. She traces the historical views of the secretary: office wife, the sexy secretary, and the career woman. The lack of a clear job definition prevents being distinguished from other personnel, such as typists from executive secretaries, and makes transition to management status difficult. She outlines aspects of how secretaries are making the transition to career women. Pringle provides lengthy discussion of how ``office wife'' duties (e.g. making coffee) are handled, and how these are often still inescapable.Reading Level: All levels
	Add		15 pp.	Rich, Adrienne, “Split at the Root”
	Add		30 pp.	Riessman, Catherine Kohler, “Women and Medicalization: A New Perspective” In this article, Reissman argues that women as well as physicians have contributed to the process of increased medicalization of women's lives. Increased medical professionalization and economic benefits provide institutional impetus for the increased medical categorization of women's lives. Women's contributions stem from needs and motives generated through their very class-specific subordination. While women stand to gain from increased attention to biological differences, it is critical that ownership, production, and use of scientific knowledge continue to be critically examined for their impact on women's lives.
	Add		13 pp.	Ross, Susan, et al., “Constitutional Rights” The authors set out to make the law accessible to women in their daily struggles for real equality in all arenas of life. The question and answer format provides a brief historical background, current status of court interpretations, and possible applications of the constitutional rights women can use to contest discriminatory practices. Advocates for women's rights are well served in their advocacy efforts by the user-friendly presentation of legislative knowledge.
	Add		5 pp.	Saxton, Marsha, “Reproductive Rights: A Disability Rights Issue” Saxton argues that people with disabilities are not afforded the same reproductive rights as others are. She lists five choices which society often makes for the disabled: choices to be sexual, to have babies, to be born, to live after birth, and to raise children. Although the American Disabilities Act addresses the civil rights issues, a change needs to occur in people's perceptions. The stereotype of asexuality is lifting, but specifc issues need to be addressed where the disabled are discouraged from reproducing and discriminated against. She discusses the following issues in-depth: the lack of reproductive health care for the disabled, the need for sex education, legal disincentives to marriage, opposition to reproduction, barriers to parenting, sterlization abuse, abortion and prenatal screening as discriminatory toward the disabled.Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		6 pp.	Shah, Sonia, “The Co-optation of Asian American Feminism” This article explores the co-optation of feminism and Asian culture by the media, which tends to portray contemporary history as a ``postfeminist'' era where the battle against patriarchy has been won, despite the fact that little real inequality has been eradicated. If women are focused on being consumers, the market is strong and the true feminist agenda is undermined. Asian-American feminism is at once anti-patriarchy, anti-racist, and anti-Imperialist. When Asian-Americans are portrayed by the media as ``multiculturally chic,'' Imperialism and patriarchy are reinforced because they are ignored. Asian-Americans need to resist the pressure to market themselves, Asian-American feminists need to cultivate their own media, nonprofit organizations, and friends in the movie business to assure that their story is told truly, apart from and in opposition to the mainstream media.
	Add		7 pp.	Sittenfeld, Curtis, “Your Life as a Girl” This is the memoir of a teenage girl, detailing the progressive awareness of the differences of a girl's experience — and her increasing awareness of male hostility toward her for being a girl. She was aggressive and athletic, but recalls being discouraged by a teacher, and of the transition in junior high from athletic pursuits to discussions of how often one should shave one's legs in junior high. She was assaulted by a boy who was, fortunately, stopped, but she told no one; and he minimized the importance of the incident. She describes her coming of age as characterized by an increasing separation between the sexes, and a growing passivity — a sense of waiting for life to start when the boys come. She also addresses the romanticization of violence in popular fiction and the effect of that on her.
	Add		4 pp.	Skipper, James Jr., and William L. McWhorter, “A Rapist Gets Caught in the Act’ In a chapter from their book Deviance: Voices from the Margin, Skipper and McWhorten offer a nonjudgmental interview with a convicted rapist. They offer a glance into the thinking of a man who considers raping a woman uninteresting and ordinary. The rapist sees himself as an ordinary man without a criminal record and describes his arrest for rape as unlucky. His account of the rape illustrates how women are objectified and construed as available for men's discharge of violence, frustration, and sexual ``urges.'' The rapist does not believe that women have a different view about rape.
	Add		4 pp.	Spender, Dale, “An Alternative to Madonna” This essay focuses on the traditional high school and college curriculum's suppression of women's contribution to a variety of fields: history, sociology, philosophy, the sciences, and mathematics. Spender discusses how legal textbooks, political science courses, and history textbooks distort the past and ignore the spread of patriarchy. Women, when they are mentioned, are in the margins, a subtype, a problem. She links this improper education to negative views, by men and women, of feminism and its contributions. ``Half of everything taught should be about women'' — if we teach feminism and its history, everyone will want to sign up, but new curriculum materials are needed. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		12 pp.	Steinem, Gloria, “Womb Envy, Testyria, and Breast Castration Anxiety” Steinem deconstructs Freud in two ways: by telling the story reversing the assigned gender roles and by giving a detailed history of Freud's own abandonment of ``the seduction theory'' in favor of the Oedipus complex. She writes a fictional biography of ``Dr. Phyllis,'' a psychoanalyst in a matriarchal society, using biological and historical arguments for women's superiority and evidence of men's ``womb envy'' and their tendency toward ``testyria.'' She turns every aspect of Freud's arguments upside down systematically, including discussing the male need to move from an immature phallic orgasm to a more mature mrgasm through his fingers and tongue. She also discusses Freud's biographical data, including his life-long yearning for fame.Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		3 pp.	Steinem, Gloria, “If Men Could Menstruate — A Political Fantasy” This essay shows that in our society the characteristics of the powerful are valued, and Steinem imagines what would happen if men, rather than women, menstruated. Menstruation, she argues, would become enviable, men would boast of how long and how much. They would use their courageous, sacrificial monthly flow as qualifications for political office, the military, the priesthood. Participation in the ``Cycle of Enlightenment,'' the ``Symbolic Death and Resurrection,'' and so on would be seen as necessary for mastery of any discipline. Steinem calls such terms ``power justifications'' and urges us to put a stop to them. Reading Level: All levels.
	Add		37 pp.	Steinem, Gloria, “Sex, Lies, and Advertising” In this expos<130> of sexism in the advertising industry, Steinem uses women's magazines to unveil the double standard in the industry. She argues that the industry's refusal to advertise in independent women's magazines creates a significant financial disadvantage that threatens the future of feminist publications. Steinem challenges the advertisers' editorial control over the content and format of women's magazines they sponsor. She observes that in a society that claims to value freedom of speech the ironic result is the loss of space for expression.
	Add		19 pp.	Style, Emily J., “In Our Own Hands: Diversity Literacy” Style and Powell introduce key concepts about diversity to construct a definition of diversity literacy which is ``the ability to observe multiplicity, analyze power relations; and use both to understand and/or intervene in group dynamics'' for greater effectiveness in how we as individuals and groups relate to one another in society. A number of awareness exercises are provided ``to discover our multi-cultural selves,'' and to develop diversity literacy. This essay and its exercises are ideal for classroom discussion on gender and other categories of difference.
	Add		25 pp.	Taylor, Verta, “The Future of Feminism: A Social Movement Analysis”
	Add		15 pp.	Thompson, Becky W., “‘A Way Outa No Way’: Eating Problems among Women” This article offers a feminist theory of eating problems based on life histories of African-American, Latina and white women. Thompson shows that eating problems begin as strategies for coping with various traumas including sexual abuse, racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and poverty. Identifying eating problems as survival strategies shifts the focus from portraying them as issues of appearance to ways women take care of themselves as they cope with trauma.
	Add		29 pp.	Thorne, Barrie, “Creating a Sense of ‘Opposite Sides”’ In this chapter, Thorne observes that ``boys-chase-girls, girls-chase-boys'' and asks if this is child's play or gender work? Reified gender boundaries and their subsequent negotiation on the playground through borderwork provide opportunities for insight on dominant cultural dimensions of dualistic social relations between the sexes. Chasing, Invasion, and ``Cooties'' play and ritual are closely observed by Thorne, her insight reveals gender dualisms toyed with on the playground yet carried on into adulthood.
	Add		10 pp.	U.N. 4th World Conf. on Women, “Platform for Action Summary,” China, 1995 The Platform for Action developed at the fourth conference embodies the unanimous commitment of 189 countries to the empowerment of women and recognizes women's rights as human rights. The Platform identifies areas of critical concern and details specific actions to rectify lingering inequalities. The summary includes the mission statement and global framework, and a brief commentary on the current status of women in thirteen arenas of social life. Each commentary is followed by the Platform for Action recommendations.
	Add		7 pp.	U.N. 4th World Conf. on Women, “Report to the President from U.S. Delegation” The United States Delegation to Beijing was made up of forty-five women who represented the range of interests in the in the country. This delegation played a vital role in establishing bridges among the delegations from other nations and between the UN Conference and the NGO Forum. Their negotiating experience both at the conference and during preparatory meetings can serve as a model that is inclusive of women's skills and sensitive to women's needs. Committed to build on the path breaking consensus reached at the conference, the delegation announced specific steps to implement the Platform for Action's goals for the advancement of women's status in the United States.
	Add		8 pp.	Wagner, Sally Roesch, “Is Equality Indigenous?” In this essay, Wagner asks what would a matriarchal society offer its members? The matriarchal societies of the indigenous populations of the Americas, resisting the Euro-centric ideals of progress (i.e., patriarchal institutions of Christianity and ``civilization''), provided models upon which radical women suffragists based their vision, bypassing a ``fix-it,'' reactionary women's movement. The absence of exploitation, oppression and violence 200 years ago by women within North American Indian populations echoes the feminist pursuit of freedom, dignity, and security.


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