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29 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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feminism
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1. Feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression; thus, it must not focus exclusively on any one group of women, any particular race or class of women
2. Feminism can be embraced “not as a set of prescriptions but as a critical stance, one that seeks to interrogate and disrupt prevailing systems of gender, one that assumes that what worked in the 1980s might not work in the new millennium.” |
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sex
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• Biological traits that signal that you are male, female, or intersex
• Often assumed to be fixed (it’s not quite that simple, thought) |
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gender
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• Socially constructed expressions of “maleness” and “femaleness” (binary)
• There are more than two genders • Sex and gender do not necessarily need to match up • CRESSIDA HEYES (Philosopher) o Gender isn’t always fixed, it’s a performance It’s performed in our everyday lives • Mannerism, clothes, how one carries oneself, how one talks This challenges the idea of “woman” as a fixed category o When looking at “women” as a group, we “see a complicated network of similarities” o We can still use the notion of women “for a special purpose” |
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gender essentialism
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• The belief in an innate essence or set of qualities that unites all women
• Critiqued for obscuring differences and power relations between women • An additive model of identity o Ex) racism + sexism = black woman’s experience o Ex) ableism + sexism = disabled woman’s experience |
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Phallocentrism
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Treating masculinity as:
• Central • Representative of the universal • Neutral and unbiased |
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Situated Knowledge
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• Knowledge is
o Not an objective concept o Always emerging out of a social context • Critique of enlightenment thinking • Donna Haraway • Self-reflexivity |
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Standpoint Theory
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• The experience of oppression can provide the basis for theorizing
• Critique of complete objectivity and neutralization • Knowledge is shaped by experience, location, and context • Major thinkers of this theory o Sandra Harding o Donna Haraway o Bell Hooks |
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Feminist Postmodernism
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• Focuses on how bodies are shaped by discourse (language, what can and cannot be said)
• Deconstructs identity categories (such as woman/man) • Critique of Truth (capital T) and objectivity • Major thinkers o Judith Butler o Joan Walalch Scott o Linda Hutcheon o Patti Lather *** Language cannot quite do justice to our experiences and even thoughts *** |
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Privilege
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• Unearned benefits and advantages (whether one wants them or not) that accrue on the basis on belonging to a privilege social group
• Not all privilege functions in the same way o White privilege EX) I can go into a store and not have people follow me thinking that I’ll steal something o Male privilege EX) I can walk around late at night and not have to worry if something will happen to me o Class privilege EX) I can have an edge on getting into college if my parents are high in social and economic status o Heterosexual privilege EX) I can make out with my partner in public without stares of disgust or nasty remarks |
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Anti-Racist Feminism
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• Focuses on how race and gender work together in structuring inequality
• Emerged out of critique of liberal, socialist, and radical feminism • Focuses on difference |
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Post-Colonial and Native Feminist Theorists
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Focused on:
• How processes of colonization are gendered • The experience of the First Nations women • Developing theory from a First Nations perspective Critiques the western perspective of much feminist theory, but also generate theory from a native/indigenous perspective |
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Canadian Context
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• Settle society
• Constructions of nationalism: o The ‘two solitudes’ (French Canada and English Canada) White francophone/ white Anglophone o Multiculturalism • Hyphenated and unhyphenated “Canadians” • “Canada” is a discursive construct |
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Construction of Canadian Nationalism
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• There’s a large contrast with America
• Trying to dispel stereotypes of eating blubber or living in an igloo o Things that native people probably did, but is now seen as absurd or simply weird o Trying to eradicate one stereotype while creating a new one |
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Native Feminist Theorizing
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• Impact of colonialism
o Restructuring of Aboriginal governance according to European models o Residential schools To ‘educate’ and ‘civilize’ in harsh conditions and often punished for speaking in their native languages o Poverty & health problems • Honoring of survival |
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Jeanette Armstrong
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• First native person to write a book (1985)
• Indigenous means to adapt to your surroundings • Being one with the nature • Native people are surviving- something that is honored and simply wonderful |
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Acts of Resistance by First Nations Feminists
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• Rebecca Belmore
o “Vigil” performance addressing missing/murdered indigenous women in Vancouver Marking the space that indigenous women were abused/killed Links to the survival Jeanette Armstrong frequently talks about • Himani Bannerji’s o Article Critiques the silencing of women of color within feminism Draws on Antonio Gramsci’s notion of “common sense” • Related to the notion of “hegemony” • Clearly stated racism VS. Common sense racism (racism that is mean to be a joke and it’s common sense to see it so) o Racism structures the principles of self-definition within Western Culture Self/Other Civilized/Savage Male/Female Rational/Irrational or Exotic White/Non-white West/East o The LEFT SIDE of the binary becomes more valued in society o Binary structures are troubling because they leave so much out |
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Hegemony
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• Coined by Antonio Gramsci
• Describes the dominant social order o People gaining power by other people consenting to be dominated • Hegemony is a process • Usually invisible: it’s “just the way things are” o People just see it as the way the world is as opposed to power relations/ structures |
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Common Sense Racism
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• “Common sense is accretional, leaving plenty of room for contradictions, myths, guesses, and rumors” (Bannerji 31)
• Common sense racism- it’s just for fun, it’s obviously not meant to be racist o However, common sense racism accumulates and gradually adds up o Analogy: Ton of feathers |
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Racism as Systemic
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• Racism is a system, a ongoing process, not just a series of individual incidences
• Racism is far more than individual comments however, it can involve processes of: o Erasure EX) Leaving out significant history about First Nations people when teaching students about Canadian history in high school o Denial EX) Thinking that someone was being sexist to you, but your friend just says ‘oh, you’re just overreacting, it’s not big deal’ o Invisibility EX) Someone is being sexually harassed in a workspace and instead of firing the harasser, the harasser is simply being moved to another position in the building o Tokenism EX) A committee is working on something and adding a gay person on the committee to prove that they’re not homophobic or heterosexism |
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• Third-Wave Anti-Racist Feminism (1980s)
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o Literature in this period
Interrogates mainstream feminist theory and praxis Asks how the interconnection between race and gender might be theorized Documents how racial differences are created between women Discourse between similar women creates power relations |
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• Practices of Anti-Racist Feminism
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o Attempts to alter shelter, crisis lines, immigrant women’s services, and cultural institutions
o Attempts to diversify the National Action Committee (NAC) on the Status of Women o Challenging the curricula of various disciplines (canons and pedagogical paradigms) Canon- a general law/ criterion by which something is usually judged • EX) Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, etc are canons of a English lit major |
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Standpoint epistemology
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- Cons: no singular woman's experience
- Pros: allows race and class to factor into feminism - Tries to bring all women together |
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Political economy
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- Recognizing the differences between races, the way that race/class/etc impact a woman's experience
- Separates people rather than uniting them - Interpretive account, takes in different factors |
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post-feminism
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a discourse: feminism is over, no longer necessary
view that equality has been achieved popular in mainstream media |
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neo-liberalism
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economic: embrace small gov, low tax, privatization of services, embrace individualization rather than notions of "collective value and social responsibility"
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feminist activism
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institutional
building new political spaces coalition work sisters in spirit campaign zines |
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intersectionality
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identity categories interacts to produce qualitative differences in how people experience the world
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spatialized justice
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pamela george was considered to belong to a space of violence
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constructing white identity
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experience of "slumming" as a thrilling excursion that helps young white men understand their own place in the
removed from spaces of violence |
