Midterm Study Guide

Philosophy of Gender
Louis Andrade
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Table of Contents
9/15 – Sex & Gender........................................................................................3
E – X: A Fabulous Child’s Story (Gould)........................................................3
SS – Intro......................................................................................................3
SS – 1: Maleness and Femaleness................................................................3
SS – 2: Sexing the Brain................................................................................ 4
E – The Five Sexes (Fausto-Sterling).............................................................5
E – Gender Socialization (Renzetti and Curran)............................................6
FT – 13: Gender and Race (Haslanger).........................................................6
9/22 – First- and second-wave feminism..........................................................8
FT – 1: Of the Pernicious Effects… (Wollstonecraft)......................................8
FT – 2: The Subjection of Women (Mill)........................................................8
FT – 3: Introduction from The Second Sex (De Beauvoir).............................9
FT – 27: Conclusion from The Second Sex (De Beauvoir)...........................11
9/29 – Sexism & Oppression...........................................................................12
E – A Person Paper…(Hofstadter)...............................................................12
E – ‘Pricks’ and ‘Chicks’… (Baker)..............................................................12
FT - 8: Five Faces of Oppression (Young)....................................................14
FT – 9: On Psychological Oppression (Bartky).............................................16
10/6 – Third-wave feminism...........................................................................17
FT – 28: Difference and Dominance… (MacKinnon)....................................17
FT – 5: Black Women (hooks).....................................................................18
FT – 30: Feminism, Utopianism… (Cornell).................................................20
Terms............................................................................................................. .20
1. Gender Essay.............................................................................................23
2. Feminism Essay.................................................................................... ......24
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9/15 – Sex & Gender

E – X: A Fabulous Child’s Story (Gould)
Project Baby X
• Raise a child without making it follow social gender norms
• Eexlpose it to what boys and girls do
• The parents must set an example by performing non-traditional
gender roles
• Other parents become outraged when their kids mimic the “x”
child, demand that “xperts” to find out what “x” is
• Xperts say by the time it matters what x is , you won’t have to
ask
• Everyone’s happy for x, and raising an x is said to be a good idea

SS – Intro
• Mental experiment – imagine you’re in love with someone of the
same sex – now the opposite – its hard to imagine what seems
unfamiliar or unnatural, for both gays and straights
• We must have a “radical new understanding of sexuality, one
that goes beyond simple either-orts like male-female and gay-
straight.” p. 3
• Gender – refers to a person’s social role; sex is biological
• Transsexual – someone who’s sexual identity is at variance to
their body

SS – 1: Maleness and Femaleness

• Left-handers used to be considered evil, it was discriminated
against and tried to be cured
• Homosexuality today seems to be an illness needed to be cured
• The author’s son came out to her, seemed happy – she was
scared for him
• She thought she fucked him up or that this was a phase; she was
sad that she would have no grandchildren from him, she
considered him foolish
• “As scientists discover more and more about human
developments behavior, its becoming obvious that hhuman
sexuality is much closer to a complex mosaic than it is to simple
either/ors.” p. 10
Feminine Men and Masculine Women
• Some couples compliment each other well although they do not
fit traditional gender norms
Determinism – Biological & Social
• Biological – behavior flows directly from our biology
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• Social constructionists – people’s behavior is constructed from

their family environment, friends, and culture
• Reject both – genes code for proteins, not behavior and without
genes, nothing is possible; behavior occurs through interactions
of biological and social
Male & Female Hormones
• Both sexes have each other’s hormones, with different ratios
• Sex is determined in the womb, but it doesn’t always match up
• One theory – early hormones  erotic orientation
Male & Female Brains
• Animal experiments – certain hormones make them gay
Four Unusual Human Syndromes
• Congenital adrenal hyperplasia – women born with an enzyme
deficiency  adrenal glands to produce excessive amounts of
male hormones before birth and shortly afterwards. Their later
behavior is more masculine
• Androgen insensitivity syndrome – male fetus have
malfunctioning receptors for androgen (male hormone) so they
don’t get enough and usually are hyperfeminine, identify as
females
• Girls whose mothers received diethylstilbestrol (synthetic
estrogen)  made them more masculine; as they got older, they
suffered physical defects like cancer and organ failure
• 5-alpha Reductase Deficiency – profound enzyme deficiency that
interferes with fetal testosterone; boys born with female like
genitals, raised as girls – caused by inbreeding; at puberty,
testosterone is released and women become masculinized
Maleness and Femaleness are separate qualities
• Maleness and femaleness not ends of the same spectrum, but
instead are completely independent
• The brain has 2 separate neural pathways for masculine and
feminine behavior
• People’s masculine and feminine psychological characteristics
are independent
Sex is not just for Reproduction
• Erotic desire vs. procreative desire  move to the former kills the
homo/hetero distinction
• Many animals have different kinds of sex not for reproduction
5 facets of sexuality
1. Genetic Sex – chromosomes (xx=female, xy=male)
2. Physical sex – genitals and interior sex organs
3. Sexual identity – internal sense of male or female
4. Sexual orientation – erotic attraction
5. Gender – social behavior
• Sometimes facets don’t match, even 1 &2
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SS – 2: Sexing the Brain

• Sexual reproduction provides greater chance of survival than
asexual, we get a more diverse gene pool
Adam & Eve Revisited
• We all come from an ancesteral “Eve” from Africa 143,000 years
ago, “Adam” came second, 59, 000 years ago
Brains are not Sexually Neutral
• they become masculine and feminine in womb men and
women’s brains are structure different and work different
Structural and Functional Differences Between Male and Female Brains
• Male’s brain bigger than female
• Women’s brain cells are packed more densely
• Men have more white matter and cerebrospinal fluid, women
have more grey matter
• Men have larger left brains
Right Brain/ Left Brain – Sex Differences
Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities
• Hormones directly cause behavior and unique brain functioning
Sex Differences in Communication and Relationships
• Women want intimacy, empathy; men want independence, and
sex
Sex Differences in Behavior
• “both boys and girls are capable of most of the same activities,
but the likelihood of doing certain things differs between them”
p. 52
The Role of Testosterone
• “One of the biggest contributors to male aggression (though not
the only one) is testosterone” p. 54
• testosterone is a cause and effect of behavior
Peculiar Physical differences Between the Sexes
Sex Differences in mate selection
• Women are gold diggers, men want’ young women, men want
pretty girls, men are more likely to cheat, but value faithfulness
more

E – The Five Sexes (Fausto-Sterling)

○ Fausto-Sterling is committed to breaking down the idea that sex is
dichotomous  according to her, there are at least 5 sexes.
 3 Intersexes
• Herms: True Hermaphrodite: posses one testis and one
ovary
• Ferm: Female Pseudohermaphrodite: ovaries but no
testis but has some male genitalia; the primary sex
organs are female
• Merm: Male Pseudohermaphrodite: testes and no
ovaries but some female genitalia; the primary sex
organs are male
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 Could be more than 5 sexes, because the intersexes are on a

continuum – it’s not an all or nothing thing.
 Contiuum from masculine to feminine
• The continuum
○ Male
○ Male Pseudohermaphrodite
○ True Hermaphrodite
○ Female Pseudohermaphrodite
○ Female
• From F and FP to TH, you’ve got to loose an ovary and
gain a testis
• Spectrum of secondary sexual characteristics for TH
• From TH to MP, you’ve got to loose an ovary and get two
testes.
• So if you want to answer more than five, you say there’s
not just one or one continuum, there are three continua.
There’s not male and female and one continuum in the
middle, but we’re all on this continuum.
• Fausto-Sterling doesn’t think there’s anything wrong
with sex – the problems are in gender.
○ How should intersexual babies be treated?
 Education will play a big role in allowing intersexuals to be out
in the open rather than forcing them to choose one gender
role or the other.
 It’s the social pressures that we’re worried about, but those
are things we can change by getting people to change and
talk more openly about these things.
 Something is going to have to give: we’re either going to have
to change intersexuals’ biology to fit our categories, or we’re
going to have to change our conceptions of gender to allow
intersexuals to fit into them.

E – Gender Socialization (Renzetti and Curran)

• R & C think your behavior comes from your gender socialization –
they think they’re imposed by society and that affects how
people end up; however, Skene Johnson offers an alternative
explanation that it’s biological.
• What should we do depending on whether we think R&S or Skene
Johnson are right?
○ R & S: be gender neutral – we should socialize people with respect
to gender, because it disadvantages them – it shuts down particular
capabilities they have. They imply that people are more malleable
that Skene Johnson thinks.
○ Johnson: people and sex aren’t as malleable – they have distinct
abilities and advantages.
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FT – 13: Gender and Race (Haslanger)

An epistemological framework for defining gender and race
I. The Question(s)
a. Conceptual – articulate concepts of race/gender (society,
general, common usage)
b. Descriptive – develop better concepts
c. Analytical – explore pragmatics of concepts
i. This essay doesn’t try ot capture what we mean, but
ow we might usefully revise what we mean for
certain purposes
II.Critical (feminist, anti-racist) Theory
a. Need to idenityf inewuality
b. Need a framework that’s sensitive to both similarities and
differences
c. Need an account to track how race/gender impacts us
d. Increase agency
i. Race and Gender are valuable categories
III.What is Gender
a. Slogan” Gender is the social meaning of sex”
b. Author: gender is a social class (materialist feminism)
c. Commonality problem – men have something in common
that  gender
d. Normativit problem – definitions marginalize, essentialize
e. Materialist feminism – define gender in terms of men
subordinate positioning systems of male dominance;
theory grounded in material realities of men’s lines
i. Gender categories defined in terms of social
positions
ii.Gender one of many categories o oppression
iii.Sexual difference  physical marker distinguishing
between men and women
iv.–p. 159 logic problem defining men and women
f. What does it mean to say that women are oppressed and
what does the qualification “as women” add? P. 159
g. Oppression – an enclosing structure of forces and barriers
which tends to the immobilization and reduction of a group
or category of people  can lead to exploitation,
marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and
(systematic) violence
h. Representation  implication for gender, race, etc
i. The definitions above don’t lock us into using reproduction
as a key indicator of gender
IV.What is Race
a. Slogan: “race is the social meaning of the geographically
marked body, familiar markers include skin color, hair type
eye shape, physique
b. Def of race in logic from p. 162
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c. Doesn’t mean these markers must be key in how race is

interpreted, context key; ex: Blacks in America vs. Brazil
V.Normativity& Commonality
a. Material and ideological forces  oppression
b. Certain women aren’t “real”  its all good because its for
the greater good, and fuck them by the way
VI.Negotiating Terms
a. “to ask what I should be called is to ask what norms I
should be judged by”
b. terms are always open to interpretations
c. instable defs and flexibility with terms key to fight
oppression
VII.Emerging Concerns, Promising Alternatives
a. Don’t be utopian, we need to define gender, race
b. Not just deconstruction – reconstruction
c. Better if we have multiple definitions
d. Hierarchal defnitions are key
VIII.Conclusion
a. Both gender/race are real, social categories, neither is
chosen but both are contested, both are hierarchical yet
not permanently so, and gender/race intersect

9/22 – First- and second-wave feminism

FT – 1: Of the Pernicious Effects… (Wollstonecraft)
Equality is a precondition to morality
Ex.1 – while women are dependent on their husbands, they will be
cunning, mean, & selfish
Ex.2 – the devil loves idle hands… who is more idle than rich people?
They have everything handed to them
Society is not properly organized, men and women ignore their
respective duties to each other.
Women think compliments about their beauty make them happy, but
don’t hold men accountable to turn compliments into material gestures
of affection
Women are affected worse by the perversions of capitalism than men,
because men can forsake economics for politics or war
Men get around social constraints and oppression easier than women
Women should use their reason, otherwise its gift is a mockery
Motherhood makes women “mere dolls”
Women are forced to choose between civil duties and duties of the
home
Capitalism in general is fucked up, the poor keep up the rich by taking
care of there duties (as if duties can be delegated away) and the few
that are lucky enough are able to barely be at the heels of the rich as
they work themselves to death
But in order to render their private virtue a public benefit, they must
have a civil existence in the state, married or single; else we shall
continually see some worthy woman, whose sensibility has been
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rendered painfully acute by undeserved contempt, droop like "the lily

broken down by a plough share."
If women were treated equal, they would be better citizens, mothers,
wives, and daughtes because they respect themselves for their own
worth instead of the worth given to them by men (calling them pretty,
“letting them” stay home with the family, supporting them financially.)

FT – 2: The Subjection of Women (Mill)

Sexism is bad, it hinders human improvement, and the sexes should be
equal.
It be a different story if sexism had some philosophical grounding, or
political or social justification that had been throught out and proven,
but in reality, its just men clinging to tradition, and reaping the benefits
of inequality.
They say its unnatural, but really its uncustomary
Some say sexism is voluntary, or women want it. –this is obviously not
true, as militant feminists will attest to.
Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their
sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the
woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a
willing one, not a slave merely, but a favourite.
The masters of all other slaves rely, for maintaining obedience, on fear;
either fear of themselves, or religious fears. The masters of women
wanted more than simple obedience, and they turned the whole force
of education to effect their purpose.
Women are taught from an early age to accept submission to men, to
be their counterpart.
Today is different, back then men were thought to not be created equal
– but today, we think everyone should have an equal chance at life,
liberty, and happiness (democracy)
THe social subordination of women is unique today, men have no ban
on their gender.
We need a real discussion about sexism, one that does not rely on just
experience and custom, because we haven’t exerpeicend the
alternative yet.
Standing on the ground of common sense and the constitution of the
human mind, I deny that anyone knows, or can know, the nature of the
two sexes, as long as they have only been seen in their present
relation to one another. If men had ever been found in society without
women, or women without men, or if there had been a society of men
and women in which the women were not under the control of the
men, something might have been positively known about the mental
and moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of each.
No one wants to put women above men, we just want to take away the
protective duties that favor men. Women will do what they are best at,
and men will do the same, no need to fear a take over of either sex -----
[but isn’t that what already happened? Maybe that’s why we think
women are subordinate? Perhaps we need to put women on top, like
affirmative action, to give them a real chance]
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And here, I believe, is the clue to the feelings of those men, who have
a real antipathy to the equal freedom of women. I believe they are
afraid, not lest women should be unwilling to marry, for I do not think
that anyone in reality has that apprehension; but lest they should insist
that marriage should be on equal conditions

FT – 3: Introduction from The Second Sex (De Beauvoir)

We must ask, “what is a woman?” – its hard to define it biologically, or
socially, or even economically. But the definitions we do have are given
to us by men
Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as
relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being.
She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with
reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to
the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.’
Femininity is defined vaguely, and in dazzeling terms
The fact is that every concrete human being is always a singular,
separate individual. To decline to accept such notions as the eternal
feminine, the black soul, the Jewish character, is not to deny that Jews,
Negroes, women exist today – this denial does not represent a
liberation for those concerned, but rather a flight from reality.
Regardless, women are “forced” into defining themselves because men
have already been defined, they are they positive and neutral sex,
women are the deviation, the afterthought
Otherness is a fundamental category of human thought.
Yet, otherness necessarily requires a denial of one’s own uniqueness,
and consequently a realization of the reciprocity of their realizations –
this is true in war, trade, festivals, contests, etc.
There has to be a dominant and a submissive, the Other has to accept
its lower status, when did this happen for women historically? –blacks,
Mexicans, jews, all have been thrust into minority status, yet women
have always been half the population – its women’s own fault for not
realizing their potential, They have gained only what men have been
willing to grant; they have taken nothing, they have only received.
The reason for this is that women lack concrete means for organising
themselves into a unit which can stand face to face with the correlative
unit. They have no past, no history, no religion of their own; and they
have no such solidarity of work and interest as that of the proletariat.
They live dispersed among the males
If they belong to the bourgeoisie, they feel solidarity with men of that
class, not with proletarian women; if they are white, their allegiance is
to white men, not to Negro women.
Men have written history and shaped culture, so its hard for women to
revolt
the bourgeoisie clung to the old morality that found the guarantee of
private property in the solidity of the family. Woman was ordered back
into the home the more harshly as her emancipation became a real
menace. Even within the working class the men endeavoured to
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restrain woman’s liberation, because they began to see the women as

dangerous competitors – the more so because they were accustomed
to work for lower wages.
Anti-feminists created “separate-but-equal” treatment of women, a la
Jim Crow
Family life disguises oppression to children – they see the mom happy
in her role as caretaker and wife, ignoring the lack of freedom she had
in choosing this life, in choosing to take on her role in the home – she’s
just happy with what she got
Ignore feminists too, because their attempt to prove women’s worth as
more than men is just as silly as its opposite
we must get out of these ruts; we must discard the vague notions of
superiority, inferiority, equality which have hitherto corrupted every
discussion of the subject and start afresh.
For our part, we hold that the only public good is that which assures
the private good of the citizens; we shall pass judgement on
institutions according to their effectiveness in giving concrete
opportunities to individuals. But we do not confuse the idea of private
interest with that of happiness, although that is another common point
of view.
In particular those who are condemned to stagnation are often
pronounced happy on the pretext that happiness consists in being at
rest. This notion we reject, for our perspective is that of existentialist
ethics. Every subject plays his part as such specifically through exploits
or projects that serve as a mode of transcendence; he achieves liberty
only through a continual reaching out towards other liberties.
One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.

FT – 27: Conclusion from The Second Sex (De Beauvoir)

Hostility between the male and female human is a historical event, it is
not the cause of physiological difference or sexual tension that is
purely biological. Men try to say sex is woman’s greatest weapon, but
such a statement ignores women’s unique experience of the world,
their femininity and their oppression
Psychoanalysis has been a big oppressor of women.
All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception.
Women are not trying to imprison men, but instead are trying to free
themselves.
The emancipated woman, on the contrary, wants to be active, a taker,
and refuses the passivity man means to impose on her. The ‘modern’
woman accepts masculine values: she prides herself on thinking,
taking action, working, creating, on the same terms as men; instead of
seeking to disparage them, she declares herself their equal.
Man feels like he’s fucked either way – he treats here like a beauty
queen and she uses sex to brainwash him, he treats her equal then she
won’t give him any pussy, which would doom the whole species, so
whatever pussy he gets is shitty
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The quarrel will go on as long as men and women fail to recognise each
other as equals; that is to say, as long as femininity is perpetuated as
such.
Men understand it sucks to be a women, but think how lucky they are
to have men supporting them
Time spent together is viewed differently, women want to kill time,
men want to use time.
You can’t blame men for this though, they’re just being men, they can’t
help it if women are being women
De Beauvoir envisions a world where men and women are equal, but
that might not be enough
Woman is determined not by her hormones or by mysterious instincts,
but by the manner in which her body and her relation to the world are
modified through the action of others than herself.
Sexuality can be a medium through which equality could be reached –
notions of dominance and submission are played with between the
sexes, fraternity could soon follow.
Women can be equal – men have already begun to bend, women just
have to keep bending.
Some say the alt is a world of one sex that is weird and boring, but just
because men won’t be fucking loose hoes and gold diggers doesn’t
mean they can’t enjoy sex with an empowered woman,
Let us not forget that our lack of imagination always depopulates the
future; for us it is only an abstraction; each one of us secretly deplores
the absence there of the one who was himself. But the humanity of
tomorrow will be living in its flesh and in its conscious liberty; that time
will be its present and it will in turn prefer it.
Equal sexes might lead to better sex, don’t knock it till you try it.
To begin with, there will always be certain differences between man
and woman; her eroticism, and therefore her sexual world, have a
special form of their own and therefore cannot fail to engender a
sensuality, a sensitivity, of a special nature. This means that her
relations to her own body, to that of the male, to the child, will never
be identical with those the male bears to his own body, to that of the
female, and to the child; those who make much of ‘equality in
difference’ could not with good grace refuse to grant me the possible
existence of differences in equality
To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she
bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent
existence and she will continue none the less to exist for him also:
mutually recognising each other as subject, each will yet remain for
the other an other.
On the contrary, when we abolish the slavery of half of humanity,
together with the whole system of hypocrisy that it implies, then the
‘division’ of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the
human couple will find its true form. ‘
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9/29 – Sexism & Oppression

E – A Person Paper…(Hofstadter)
• A Person Paper (i.e. a white paper) is a satire meant to draw an
analogy between racism and sexism. Hofstadter’s point is that if
language was embedded with racism (like ‘whe’ and ‘ble’ etc) we
would see why that is wrong; thus, the sexism in language is
much the same, but we’ve become so used to it that we simply
accept it unquestioningly.
• Specific examples:
○ He/She etc  no reason sex / gender is a more important
distinction than age, race, height, eye color, etc…
○ “One small step for man,” “All men are created equal,” etc
all exclude women by forcing them to see themselves as a
subgroup whereas men see themselves in these
statements on the surface
○ Miss / Mrs. / Ms.  women shouldn’t be categorized
according to marital status – men are just Mr.  equates
Mr. with Master
○ Suffix –ress and the like(waitress, actress, etc…) demean
women
○ Calling women ‘girl’ is offensive / demeaning
○ Men have monopolized religion  God must be male and
white
• Based on columns of William Safire

E – ‘Pricks’ and ‘Chicks’… (Baker)

• To understand a concept we have to understand the words we
use to talk about it
• Baker also draws a comparison between racism and sexism
• Baker uses the word “black” in reference to prove his earlier
linguistic point  it is used because it is the antonym of white
not because it accurately describes the skin color of most
African-Americans  The word black captured both what racist
saw in their inferiority but also the Black Power sentiment that
there could be no integration – a feeling of irreconcilable
separateness (internal colony)
• Proper names and personal pronouns reflect sex rather than
other attributes such as class, age, etc  Overs and Unders
rather than he/she
• Man is essentially human, while woman is only accidentally so:
○ Man can be substituted for humanity, mankind, etc while
woman cannot
• Terms for women
○ Categories (* = acceptable to M & F; + = restricted to
black students; neither * or + = accepted by males but not
normally used by females)
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 Neutral Terms: *lady, *gal, *girl, *+sister, *broad

(refers to pregnant cow though that’s not present in
the current meaning)
 Animal: *chick, bird, fox, vixen, filly, bitch
 Playing: babe, doll, cuddly
 Gender: skirt, hem
 Sexual: snatch, cunt, ass, twat, piece, lay, pussy,
+hammer
○ Neutral and animal classifications are most commonly
used, while sexual was the least frequently used.
○ Women do not typically refer to themselves in sexual,
gender, plaything, or animal terms  only males use non-
neutral terms to identify women  Evidence that men
have a prejudiced conception of women – they have
certain properties of animals, toys, and playthings.
○ Animal and plaything classifications are prima facie
denigrating: reflect a male conception of women as
domesticated servants, pets, or both  Fox is a bit
different – it can be positive but it is also something to be
hunted and killed
 “Doll” equated with male paternalism (like “boy” is to
white paternalism)
○ There isn’t anything wrong with gender classifications per
so
• Man ought not to think of women as sex objects: feminist mantra
○ Strange because a sex object is an object one has sex with
in the same way a known object is one we’ve identified 
this is part of a woman’s role
○ Different interpretations
 Men ought not to conceive of women exclusively as
sexual partners: too easy / simple / everyone would
agree
 Men should not treat women as animate machines
designed to masturbate men or as conquests: being
treated as an objected is to be treated as less than
human  fails because it is correct is some sense –
women are sex objects sometimes
• Our Conception of Sexual Intercourse
○ Terms / verbs we use for sex put the male in the active role
of doing something to the female (Jack fucked Jill) putting
him in the position of power.
○ Grammatical asymmetry doesn’t reflect natural asymmetry
because we could use words like “engulfed”
○ Passive construction of sex verbs can also be used to
indicate that a person is being harmed (Jill was fucked; Jack
had Jill; Jill was had; etc…)
○ Middle finger = male cock…right…
○ “Fuck you,” “Screw you,” etc imply harm
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○ “Prick” = penis = harm

○ Woman who has sex with a lot of men is a whore (negative:
decreases social status), while a man who has sex with a
lot of women is a pimp (positive: increases social status)
• Men ought not to think of women as sex objects is a call for a
new conception of the male and female roles
• We are preoccupied with sex thus it permeates our language,
because we believe sex tells you a lot about someone which is
antithetical to sexual egalitarianism since women are viewed
negatively.
• Conclusion: feminists should advocate the utilization of netural
proper names and the elimination of gender from our language;
and they should vigorously protest any utilization of the third-
person pronouns “he” and “she” as examples of sexual
discrimination – “The limits of our language are the limits of our
world.”

FT - 8: Five Faces of Oppression (Young)

• There is no one definition of oppression – each oppressed person
has subjective qualities
• Oppression refers to several distinct structures/situations
A) New Left Revision of the Concept of Oppression
• Oppression is not used very much as a term. It carries a strong
connotation of conquest and colonial domination – lots of groups
have been oppressed in history.
• “In dominant political discourse, it is not legitimate to use the
term to describe our society because “oppression” is the evil
perpetuated by “Others.”’ P. 92
• We use the term “discrimination instead – but this term has been
very individually identified, needing a specific discriminator and
discriminated.
• Marilyn Frye – “oppression reefers to ‘an enclosing structure of
forces and barriers which tends to be the immobilization and
reduction of a group or category of people.” P.93
B) The Concept of Social Group
• “Individuals constitute associates, they come together as already
formed persons and set them up, establishing rules, positions,
and offices. Groups on the other hand constitute individuals.” P
93
• You can join an association and it not change your identity, but if
you are part of a group, you “find yourself” as a member, and it
does affect your self identity.
• Examples of social groups: Class, gender, race, sexual
orientation.
1. Exploitation
 16

a. “Every commodity’s value is a function of the labor time

necessary for the production of labor power labor power is
the one commodity which in the process of being
consumed produces new value. Profit then comes from the
difference between the actual labor an d the value of that
capacity to labor which the capitalist purchases and puts to
work.” P. 95  this is exploitation, the capacity for the
capitalist to reach a profit with someone else’s work.
b. Power is transferred from the worker to the capitalist
c. Class division and injustice exists not only because some
people have and other’s don’t, it is because the relation of
power and inequality is “produced and reproduced through
a systemic process in which the energies of the have-nots
are continuously expended to maintain and augment the
power status and wealth of the haves.” P. 96
d. This exchange of power can be seen between men and
women as well – transfer of the fruits of material labor to
men, and the transfer of nurturing and sexual energies to
men (gender exploitation, p. 96)
e. Women clean up the house, cook, and clean for someone
they are dependent on – that is exploitation, they’re labor
only produces more for their master.
f. Women are exploited by that state too as they become
dependent on gov’t to support their children when daddy
isn’t around.
2. Marginalization
a. Marginals are people the system of labor markets cannot or
will not employ. P. 98
b. Marginalization is the most dangerous form of oppression –
a group is expelled from useful participation in social life,
possibly subject to extermination.
c. We see the exclusion of dependent persons from equal
citizenships
d. Feminists have challenged the notion that moral agency
and full citizenship require that a person be autonomous
and independent. This was made by men that value
competition, and solitary achievement.
3. Powerlessness
4. Cultural imperialism
5. Violence

FT – 9: On Psychological Oppression (Bartky)

• There’s a brief bio at:
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/Bartky.html. She also has an
entry in Contemporary Authors.
 17

• One of the ways an anthology is useful is that one can trace out
relationships among the pieces, thus enhancing one’s
understanding of all of them as one reads further. Bartky’s piece
touches on points in both Freire and Young. Freire writes: “Self-
depreciation is another characteristic of the oppressed, which
derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors
hold of them. So often do they hear that ther are good for
nothing, know nothing and are incapable of learning anything –
they are sick, lazy, and unproductive – that in the end they
become convinced of their own unfitness.” (19) The closest
connection I could find to Young comes in her section ‘Cultural
Imperialism:’ “Those living under cultural imperialism find
themselves defined from the outside, positioned, placed, by a
network of dominant meanings they experience as arising from
elsewhere, from those with whom they do not identify and who
do not identify with them. Consequently, the dominant culture’s
stereotyped and inferiorized images of the group must be
internalized by group members at least to the extent that they
are forced to react to the behavior of others influenced by those
images” (55). Bartky takes this internalization of “inferiorizing”
images (what she calls “psychological oppression”) as the central
topic of her essay on the oppression of women.
• The beginning of Bartky’s article makes it clear that she is taking
over an analysis of racism from Frantz Fanon and applying it to
oppressive relations between men and women. She claims at the
outset that three central ideas from Fanon’s analysis of racism
will also describe oppressive relations between the sexes:
stereotyping, cultural domination, and sexual objectification.
• Stereotyping -- Bartky’s protest against stereotyping is partly
something like Freire’s. She is concerned that people who have
an identity thrust upon them will have great difficulty discovering
or constructing their identity. For Freire, this
discovery/construction is the authentically human activity, so
that being deprived of this opportunity is de-humanization. Note
that this critique would apply to the imposition of any identity; it
is a kind of wrong to people who are labeled “genius” and
“savior” just as much as to people who are labeled “imbecile”
and “good-for-nothing.” A second layer of Bartky’s criticism
concerns the content of the stereotypes of women: stereotypes
that preclude independence or authority. It is important,
however, to notice that these are two different criticisms.
• Cultural domination – Here, Bartky distinguishes between the
situation of women and the situation of colonized peoples. Like
victims of colonialism, women exist in a culture that underlines
male supremacy. But, unlike those under colonial rule, women
cannot take refuge in or hark back to an alternative, suppressed
culture. They are dominated by their own culture.
 18

• Sexual objectification – Bartky’s definition is worth holding on

to: “A person is sexually objectified when her sexual parts or
sexual functions are separated out from the rest of her
personality and reduced to the status of mere instruments or
else regarded as if they were capable of representing her” (28).
In this definition, sexual objectification seems to be partly a
special form of stereotyping – or at least a close relative of
stereotyping. Bartky is careful to strike a balance here, to affirm
that there is a legitimate place for identifying a person with his or
her sexuality. At the same time, she wants to point out that this
identification is often part of a pattern of domination, in that it
narrows the objectified person’s focus to one aspect of her
complex personality and mind and that it encourages the pursuit
of impossible bodily ideals, thus generating a pervasive sense of
inferiority.
• The limitations of ordinary concepts of oppression – Like
Young, Bartky points out that unfairness and economic
exploitation are only part of the syndrome of oppression. One
can be economically well off and yet prevented by one’s picture
of oneself from using one’s economic advantages to achieve
autonomy: a creative and constructive stance towards one’s own
life.
• Mystification: the double bind – On Bartky’s analysis, the
situation of women is that they are caught in a society that works
in various ways to disable them, vis-à-vis men, and yet claims
that they are “of course” equal. Thus the fact that they don’t feel
equal is experienced not as a cultural product but as a personal
hang-up or neurosis.
• Connection to the Marxist theory of alienation – Marx has
an ideal for essentially human life: “the free, conscious, and
creative transformation of nature in accordance with human
needs” (33). Capitalist production breaks up this natural process,
so that the work is separated from its natural outcomes, which
belong to the owner of the factory. The person is not creative but
just a kind of mindless tool for someone else’s projects.
Extending Marx’s point, Bartky points out that people don’t
merely produce objects: they also produce culture and they
produce themselves, their identities. And when the freedom of
cultural production is disrupted by cultural domination, when the
freedom of self-production is disrupted by stereotyping and
sexual objectification, the same kinds of harm are done to the
person that Marx identifies with the term “alienation.” She
extends the notion of alienation in this way: “Alienation occurs in
each case when activities which not only belong to the domain of
the self but define, in large measure, the proper functioning of
this self, fall under the control of others” (34).
 19

10/6 – Third-wave feminism

FT – 28: Difference and Dominance… (MacKinnon)
○ Difference vs. Dominance approach
 Difference approach
• Reference to sex differences is bad – politically,
legally, socially…
○ Shouldn’t treat men and women different
for alimony 
• Androcentrism: the male is the standard.
• Treat likes alike; unlikes differently: the idea is
that if you’re different, you should be treated
differently, but if you’re the same, then you
should be treated the same.
• Tension between treating everyone the same
and treating people who are different
differently.
 Dominance approach
• Gender is a matter of distribution of power
(men over women)
• Redistribution of power is a priority
○ List on 397: violence against women,
equal pay, etc
○ Not a classic piece of 3rdWave Feminism, but shares the
characteristic that it’s talking about something in general –
social norms. It’s easy to see how you might translate
MacKinnon’s argument into another type of oppression.
○ Why can’t women be prison guards? Should we repeal the
laws? They’ll get raped! MacKinnon would say we want to
work on rape in general and take it more seriously than it is
taken now.

FT – 5: Black Women (hooks)

○ Critique of 2nd Wave Feminism (Friedman)
 2nd Wave Feminism popularized feminism in 1960s
America in the mold of deBeauvoir  this is the idea
of feminism most Americans without in depth
knowledge have: fighting against “women belong in
the kitchen” etc…
 What does hooks think 2nd Wave Feminism gets
wrong?
• Focused on middle-class, white women: all
women don’t experience oppression in the
same way  2ndWave represents itself as
covering all women’s experience but only
focuses on one subcategory of all women. It’s
also not a coincidence that it’s white, middle-
 20

class women – it’s the white middle-class that

has power: access to universities etc…
• Racist: one of the goals of 2nd Wave feminism
was to get women out of the kitchen and into
profession, but an implicit assumption is the
existent of an under class which can take over
the work that the white, middle class women
leave behind.
○ hook’s personal experience: 2nd Wave
Feminism was run by white, middle class
women in the 60s or 70s and were racist
in the sense that black women didn’t
have anything to offer feminism
• Androcentric: you take maleness as the
standard to which things are compared as
deviant or Other. There’s a problem with
androcentrism for many reasons including that
it involves moving from being oppressed to
being an oppressor necessarily Otherizing
other groups.
• Co-opts the term ‘oppression,’ where
‘exploitation’ or ‘discrimination’ would be more
accurate. Definition of oppression: not having
any choices. Contrasted with discrimination
and exploitation as having fewer choices than
white, middle class men. 2ndWave Feminism co-
opted the term oppression, but they are not
oppressed because it is not the case that they
have no choices, while it is the case that there
are women with no choices. Thus, by co-opting
the term, they make white-middle class
women’s situation seem the same as that of
black working class women.
○ What would Young / Bartkey say?
 Oppression was unintentional /
unconscious  idea of
systematicity. The idea of
oppression as a complete lack of
choices is radical in that it narrows
the group down significantly. Young
and Bartkey think there is a
continuum of oppression (not
conscious or explicit) where as
hooks wouldn’t necessarily
disagree with this – more she would
say to reserve the term oppressed
to the bottom rung – those who
have no choices.
 21

○ Suggestions for what black women in particular have to

contribute to feminism  3rd Wave Feminism
 What does hooks think black women have to
contribute to Feminism in general? What about their
experience makes them unique?
• They are oppressed, but do not oppress.
Because they occupy the lowest position on the
social hierarchy, they are oppressed but do not
oppress anyone; thus, they have a unique
perspective on oppression. The 2nd Wave
Feminist would say that though there are group
that are oppressed, there are not groups that
do the oppressing – it’s unconscious. They’d
say that everyone engages in oppression: you
can participate in your own oppression by
conforming to norms.
• Black (esp. working class) women are well
placed to observe the interaction of various
oppressions. Feminism is just one movement
against oppression (including racism, classism,
etc). You can’t just talk about gender if you
want to talk about feminism, because for many
women, gender is just one position they occupy
in the interlocking web of social interactions.
○ “Privileged feminists have largely been
unable to speak to, with, and for diverse
groups of women because they either do
not understand fully the inter-relatedness
of sex, race, and class oppression or
refuse to take this inter-relatedness
seriously. Feminist analyses of woman’s
lot tend to focus exclusively on gender
and do not provide a solid foundation on
which to construct feminist theory” (67).
• The feminism that hooks is imagining would
say different things about different people in
different places. She thinks 2nd Wave Feminism
is too narrow and doesn’t apply to most
women.
○ Characteristics of 3rd Wave Feminism:
 1st Wave: biological answer for what is woman
 Moving to 2nd Wave: reconceptualizing what a woman
is
 2nd to 3rd Wave:
• Idea of intersectionality: feminism’s role is not
just about gender – it’s about group and how
we sort people. We don’t sort people by eye
color, and race is much more complicated than
 22

simply skin color. A lot of these distinctions

and norms don’t seem to be based on anything
independent of themselves. Just like there is
no blue-eyeism, if there was no conception of
race, there could be no racism  Feminism as
part of a bigger idea

FT – 30: Feminism, Utopianism… (Cornell)

Cornell considerscharges that feminism is too utopian, and defends her
ideal of liberationl Liberation is the freedom of what she calls the
“imaginary domain,” which is the “freedom to create ourselves as
sexed beings, as feeling and reasoning persons. Cornell thinks tha our
sexual freedom is at the ver heart of freedom and our emotional and
intellectual capacities. Freedom, rather than equality, is the primary
demand of feminism. We are not feminazi’s, no totalitarianism cuz
everyone should be able to express themelves sexually, as long as
they allow others to do so too. The ideal of the imaginary domain
expresses the desires implicit in actiosn of feminists and gay rights
activists to expres their sexuality freely, answering utopian charge
can’t be brought into practice. What is possible cannot be known in
advance of social transformation, so fem must take freedom as the
ideal rather than some substangeive notion of equality

Terms
• Normative: something you should do, a social rule – doesn’t have to
be ethical e.g. basketball, chess, etc rules.
○ Heteronormativity: people should be heterosexual
• Intersexuality
○ Kinds
 Herm (True Hermaphrodite): posses one testis and one
ovary
 Ferm (Female Pseudohermaphrodite): ovaries but no
testes but with some aspect of the male genitalia;
primary sex organs are female
 Merm (Male Pseudohermaphrodite): testes but no
ovaries but with some aspect of the female genetalia;
primary sex organs are male
○ Associated with Fausto-Sterling’s “5 Sexes”
○ Notion of 3 continua within the larger continuum of sexuality:
Male to Merm, True Herm, Ferm to Female
• 5 Sexual Categories (Skene Johnson)
○ Genetic sex: biological, chromosomes
○ Physical sex: sex organs
○ Sexual identity: internal sense of what sex you think you are
○ Sexual orientation: which sex you’re attracted to
○ Gender: how you behave socially so people perceive you as M
or F
 23

• Woman
○ Haslanger
 Definition: a woman is systematically subordinated
along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social,
etc), and is marked as a target for this treatment by
observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be
evidence of a female’s biological role in reproduction.
 We can have a world without “women,” though there
would still be females
 Contrasts with older conceptions of woman:
Wollstonecraft uses woman as synonymous with female,
because she doesn’t share the same conception of
gender as Haslanger does – hers is purely biological (JS
Mill is the same).
 Woman should be an uncomfortable term to use
○ deBeauvoir
 Shares much of Haslanger’s view in that the notion of
woman is a societal construction  2nd Wave view that
the feminist problem runs much deeper than simple
legal parity (Wollstonecraft)
• Social group: used by Young as the object of oppression
○ Definition: a group in which you’re a member that you do not
choose to be a part of – you’re a part of it due to an essential,
unchanging aspect of your person which are perceived as
natural differences.
○ This concept is contrasted with an association which is a
group which you choose to be a part of
• Oppression
○ Young: Systemic (without a specific agent), non-obvious, and
possibly unintentional inhibition of a social group’s autonomy.
 5 categories of oppression
• Exploitation: domination through a steady process
of the transfer of the results of the labor of some
people to benefit other. For women, it’s the
transfer of the fruits of material labor and sexual
energies to men.
• Marginalization: inability to work which makes one
dependent on society thus making one subject to
often arbitrary and invasive authority of social
service providers  loss of rights to privacy,
respect, and choice.
○ Most dangerous form of oppression to
Young, because a whole category of people
is excluded from useful participation in
social life leading to serve material
deprivation and possible extermination
• Powerlessness: describe people with little or no
work autonomy, exercise little creativity or
 24

judgment in their work, express themselves

awkwardly, and do not command respect.
○ Notion that a profession grants privilege:
 1. Acquiring and practicing a
profession has an expansive,
progressive character
 2. Considerable day-to-day work
autonomy
 3. Privileges of the professional extend
beyond the workplace to elevate a
whole way of life  respect
• Cultural Imperialism: experience of existing with a
society whose dominant meanings render the
particular perspectives and point of view of one’s
own group invisible at the same time as they
stereotype one’s group and mark it out as the
Other.
○ Often done without intent / unconsciously
○ Stereotypes mark and define the culturally
dominated and confines them to a nature
which is usually attached in some way to
their bodies and thus which cannot easily be
denied.
○ “Double consciousness:” the sense of
always looking at one’s self through the
eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by
the tape of a world that look on in amused
contempt and pity.
○ Examples:
 Men are usually the heroes  positive
characteristics embodied within the
hero (strength, intelligence,
autonomy, etc) are equated with
masculinity, while female characters
typically embody weaknesses
(powerlessness, dependency, etc)
• Violence: random and systematic – directed at any
member of the group simply because they’re a
member  Ex. Arab-Americans after 9/11,
Japanese-Americans during WWII, African-
Americans by the KKK
○ bellhooks: oppression means not having any choices (differs
from Young’s view). hooks’ definition responds to the 2nd
wave feminism claim that all women are oppressed – hooks
thinks this equates the disadvantages of white, middle class
women with black working class women though there is a
great disparity between the two
 25

• Androcentrism: notion that maleness is the standard against which

all else is compared as deviant or Other
○ bell hooks: critiques 2nd wave feminism as androcentric in that
it encourages women to be more like men to gain equality
(i.e. becomes CEOs, play sports, take a dominant role, etc)
○ MacKinnon: difference approach is androcentric by providing a
view of sexual equality in which women appropriate more
masculine values (like bell hooks) to gain parity.
○ deBeavoir: the notion of woman is androcentric in that it is
defined in opposition to man while man isn’t defined in
opposition to woman
• Difference approach:
• K: Add in argument  Kind of argument that Wollstonecraft and Mill
use; why is Haslanger’s definition of woman the way it is; 3 types of
project; Baker’s argument about gendered language

1. Gender Essay
• General characterization: Gender refers to the social role which one
identifies oneself with as opposed to sex which is based on genetic
and biological factors.
○ The notion of gender is defined in 2nd wave feminism
○ K: refers to shared social conceptions (make explicit)
○ K: make it more social than individual
○ K: normative aspect – you ought not wear a dress because it’s
the social norm even though you might reject it
○ K: “social expression of sex” but there needs to be a
normative aspect even if you disagree with it
• Initially, feminists didn’t have a conception of gender that was any
different than sex  Wollstonecraft and Mill don’t make a distinction
• K: Fausto-Steling’s 5 sexes show that there’s a problem with the
conception of gender as binary
• More recently, people have come to see the social influence that
culturally-engrained gender roles have
○ Gould’s X story shows the normative role of gender as well as
a possible view of what the world would look like if gender
wasn’t normative
○ Renzetti & Curran: Gender socialization  aspects of gender
surround us from the moment we’re born
 “Boy or girl”
 Portrayal of men and women in advertisements,
literature, movies, etc
 Reward boys for being adventurous, reward girls for
being submissive, social
 K: gender norms bad because it’s oppressive
○ SkeneJohnson differs from many of the theorists in that she
makes a strong case for how the sexes are distinct with
specific strengths and weaknesses but equal overall. Women
may be better at doing something, on average, than men, but
 26

there will always be some men that are better at it than

women.
 Gender doesn’t necessarily follow sex  cases of people
with male bodies and female genetics as well as vice
versa
○ K: Haslanger: the issue isn’t about what jobs people want or
what clothes they have – it’s about dominance  people are
subordinated because of their perceived biology
 Rethink what gender terms are for
 Think of men and women in the gender sense – about
subordination / oppression
 Ideal world – no men or women
• R and S wouldn’t put it that way  there are men
and women but we should treat them equally.
 H says they’re focusing on the details
 H ideal world
 Definition of gender at the end of article  pregenant
woman should be treated a certain way – must depend
on your biologically role but aren’t oppressive and are
the opposite of oppression
 R & S: conception of gender is more neautral – not
about power like Haslanger  H would say the detail
don’t matter – it’s the subordination
• Gendered Language
○ K: use as an example of oppression, or
○ Hofstadter’s article shows how gendered language doesn’t
make sense through satire using racialized language
○ In “Pricks and Chicks,” Baker shows the sexual inequality
present in everyday language
 Metaphorical terms for women are dehumanizing 
animal, play thing, sexual

Sexual verbs usually include the notion of something being done to the
female which usually has a harmful connotation, while the same
phenomenon doesn’t happen to males

2. Feminism Essay
• General / neutral description? Feminism is the struggle for gender
equality while respecting the differences between the sexes.
• Feminism has evolved from over time to become increasingly broad.
In its initial form, 1stwave feminism was mostly concerned with
getting women equal rights (Wollstonecraft and Mill). From the 1st
to 2nd wave, feminism took on a broader scope in identifying that
sexism ran much deeper than legal equality and into the everyday
notions whichdisadvantaged women. Feminists like deBeauvoir and
Haslangerquestion the notion of woman, establishing it as a term for
one who is subordinated. 3rd wave feminism again broadens the
scope from 2nd wave feminism by placing sexism in context as one
form of oppression among many and claiming that women can be
 27

more or less oppressed depending on their place within society e.g.

black working class women are more oppressed than middle class
white women, because they have less choices.
• Evolution
○ Wollstonecraft and Mill both argue for equal rights for women,
but do so based solely from a viewpoint that equates gender
and sex. The concept of gender as its own category has not
evolved. They view feminism as primarily a fight for equal
rights and fail to see how sexism will continue when these
rights are achieved, though Mill hints at this in his point about
custom and feeling.
○ deBeauvoir and Haslangerdefine the notion of woman as one
who is subordinated, reflecting the fact that even though
women has legal parity with men, sexism is so deeply
engrained in society at a structural level that women still
suffer.
 Renzetti & Curran: Gender socialization  women are
brought up surrounded by stereotypes which favor the
masculine
 Haslanger:
 Young  oppressed through exploitation, cultural
imperialism, violence 2nd wave though?
○ Bell hooks is an example of 3rdwave feminism which places
sexism within the larger context of oppression / subjugation in
general. Argues against the narrow view of white, middle
class 2nd wave feminists, and points out that black
womenhave a lot to offer the movement. All women are not
oppressed or disadvantaged equally  white women have
many more choices than black working class women