WMST 1110E: Module 2
a structure of relationships that analyzes a continuous spectrum of people, in
order to show how gender is organized and experienced differently through sexual,
racial/ethnic, social class, physical abilities, age, and national citizenship
differences - ANS-What is the "prism of difference" as presented by Maxine Baca
Zinn, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, and Michael Messner in "Gender Through the Prism
of Difference"?
women's studies focused on the differences between women and men rather than among
women and men; led scholars to overgeneralize, Women and men were cast as
opposites, (Essentialism, simply put, is the notion that women's and men's
attributes and indeed women and men themselves are categorically different.), -
ANS-Describe the framework of early women's studies. How did it limit the study of
gender?
the historical and systematic denial of rights and privileges based on
other differences as well. - ANS-women were not victimized by gender alone but by
__________
- what we think of as "masculinity" is not a fixed, biological essence of men, but
rather is a social construction that shifts and
changes over time as well as between and among various national and cultural
contexts
- power is central to understanding gender as a relational construct,
and the dominant definition of masculinity is largely about expressing difference
from—and superiority over—anything considered "feminine."
- there is no singular "male sex role." Rather, at any given time there are
various masculinities
- When race, social class, sexual orientation, physical abilities,
immigrant, or national status are taken into account, we can see that in some
circumstances, "male privilege" is partly—sometimes substantially—muted - ANS-How
has the study of men and masculinity changed?
hegemonic masculinity - ANS-the dominant form of masculinity at any given moment
- Decisions made in corporate
headquarters located in Los Angeles, Tokyo, or London may have
immediate repercussions on how women and men thousands of miles away organize their
work, community, and family lives
- Around the world, women's paid and unpaid labor is key to global development
strategies
- Gender shapes immigration policies (Direct labor recruitment programs generally
solicit either male or female labor)
- The occupations in which immigrant and refugee women concentrate—paid domestic
work, informal sector street vending, assembly or industrial piece work performed
in the home—often blur the ideological distinction between work and family and
between public and private spheres - ANS-Why is it important to study gender in
international contexts?
- nobody experiences themselves as solely gendered
- Although the categories "woman" and "man" have multiple meanings, this does not
reduce gender to a "postmodern kaleidoscope of lifestyles. Rather, it points to the
relational character of gender"
- differences among women and among men are also created
in the context of structured relationships
- go beyond what we call the "patchwork quilt" phase in the study of women and men—
that is, the phase in which we have acknowledged the importance
of examining differences within constructions of gender, but do so largely by
collecting together a study here on African American women, a study there on gay
men, a study on working-class Chicanas, and so on; "adding difference and
stirring."; overemphasize boundaries rather than to highlight bridges of inter-
dependency; does not explore the ways that social constructions of femininities and
masculinities are based on and repro - ANS-What are the criticisms of the "prism of
difference"? How do the authors respond to these arguments?
disabled men, gay