Gender, Culture, Politics

Reading Questions 2/9 - 2/13.  Bring typed answers to class on 2/11.

 

As you fill in the blanks, please contemplate the implications of these passages.  As you consider the readings, think about which points you would like explore further in class discussion.

 

  1. In his lecture notes, Dr. Allen Farber quotes John Berger's Ways of Seeing: "A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood _______________________________________.

  1. In "Two Sexes Are Not Enough," Anne Fausto-Sterling writes, "Today children who are born "either/or -- neither/both" -- a fairly common phenomenon -- usually disappear from view because ____________________. In the past, however, intersexuals (or ___________, as they were called until recently), were __________________."

  2. In "My Life as an Intersexual," Max Beck writes, "I quickly came to understand that that tomboy -- the gender identity with which I had escaped childhood -- was _______________.'

  3. According to David Gauntlett in Media, Gender & Identity, "Today, it seems more appropriate to emphasise that, within limits, the mass media is a force for change. The traditional view of a woman as a ____________ has been kick-boxed out of the picture by the feisty, successful 'girl power' icons. Meanwhile the masculine ideals of ________________________ have been shaken by a new emphasis on men's emotions, need for advice, and the problems of masculinity.

  4. Theory.org summarizes Judith Butler's approach to gender identity by observing, "Butler argues that _________ is seen to cause _______________ which is seen to cause _______ (towards the other gender)... Butler's approach -- inspired in part by Foucault -- is basically to smash the supposed links between these, so that gender and desire are ________________ by other stable factors.

  5. A speculative question: What do you predict will happen in Miki Ann Dimarco's against the Wyoming Department of Corrections?