Reading due May 8:

1) Judith Lorber, ‘A World Without Gender’, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality, ed. by Abby Ferber et al., 537-43.

2) Riki Anne Wilchins, ‘Why Identity Politics Really, Really Sucks’, from Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender, 79-88.

3) Riki Anne Wilchins, ‘Imaginary Bodies, Imagining Minds’,, from Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender, 141-57.

4) ‘About a Boy’, The New Yorker, http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.middlebury.edu/docview/1319248708/fulltext/13DE16513CE416A7B64/10?accountid=12447

Please be prepared to share a news item/op-ed piece that suggests that the our society is becoming more or less gendered! What is the future of the gender binary?

 

Reading due May 6:

1) Francesca M. Cancian, ‘The Feminization of Love’

2) Susan Sprecher and Maura Toro-Morn, ‘S Study of Men and Women from Different Sides of Earth to Determine If Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus in Their Beliefs About Love and Romantic Relationships’

How have you learned that love is gendered? Think about media, advertising, school, and be prepared to share.

 

Reading due May 1:

1) Hanne Blank, ‘The Erotic Virgin’, from Virgin. The Untouched History, pages 192-216.

2) Hanne Blank, ‘The Day Virginity Died’/’The Once and Future Virgin’, from Virgin. The Untouched History, pages 217-257.

*****Please include an answer to the following question in you response for Wedensday:

How do these videos work to draw attention to the intersections of race and gender? How do our readings on gender/sexuality/the body inform our understanding of the structural elements at play which underpin the ‘humor’ of the Curb Your Enthusiasm video?

Here are links to the videos:

 

Reading due April 29:

1) Evelynn M. Hammonds, ‘Toward a Genealogy of Black Female Sexuality: The Problematic Silence’, Feminist Theory and the Body, ed. by Shildrick and Price, 93-104.

2) Patricia Hill Collins, ‘Prisoners for our bodies, closets for our minds: racism, herterosexism, and black sexuality’, Sex, Gender, and Sexuality, ed. by Abby Ferber et al., 115-30.

 3) Adia Harvey Wingfield, ‘Racializing the Glass Elevator: Reconsidering Men’s Experiences with Women’s Work’, The Gendered Society  Reader, ed. by Michael Kimmel and Any Aronson. 

 

Reading due April 24: 

1) Susan Bordo, ‘Whose Body Is This?’: Feminism, Medicine, and the Conceptualization of Eating Disorders’, Unbearable Weight, 45-69.

2) Susan Bordo, ‘Anorexia Nervosa’: Psychopathology as the Crystallization of Culture’, Unbearable Weight, 139-64.

3) Woman Photographs Herself Receiving Strange Looks in Public: http://petapixel.com/2013/02/11/woman-photographs-herself-receiving-strange-looks-in-public/

Here is the link to the song we listened to in class: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGgKu-PYc8g

Here are the lyrics, and be sure to listen to the last bit, which we didn’t listen to in class: http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-stay-at-home-dad-lyrics

Does his song illustrate the point he claims to be making at the end of the song? Is he destabilizing the gender binary with the song or empowering it? Just some things to think about as you write up your daily comment.

 

Reading due April 22:

1) Diane Reay, ‘”Spice Girls,” “Nice Girls,” “Girlies,” and “Tomboys”: Gender Discourses, Girls’ Cultures, and Femininities in the Primary Classroom’

2) Pascoe, ‘Chapter 5: Look at My Masculinity! Girls Who Act Like Boys’, 115-55, Dude, You’re a Fag.

3) Pascoe, ‘What if a Guy Hits on You?’, 175-93, Dude, You’re a Fag.

4) Scott Coltrane, ‘Household Labor and the Routine Production of Gender’

Now have a look at these two news articles:

feministing.com/2012/06/26/sixty-percent-of-women-are-primary-breadwinner-but-still-doing-most-of-the-housework/

 

Reading due April 17:

1) Joan Jacobs Brumberg, The Body Project, ‘Introduction’

2) Joan Jacobs Brumberg, The Body Project, 97-137

 

Reading due April 10: see email.

 

Reading due April 8:

1) Kimmel, ‘The Birth of the Self-Made Man’ , from Manhood in America: A Cultural History, pages 11-29.

The following are all chapters from Kimmel’s Guyland. There’s more reading than usual, but the reading is not heavy.

2) Chapter 2, ‘What’s the Rush?’: Guyland as a New Stage of Development

3) Chapter 3, ‘Bros Before Hos’: The Guy Code

4) Chapter 5, ‘The Rites of Almost-Men: Binge Drinking, Fraternity Hazing, and the Elephant Walk

5) Chapter 9, ‘Hooking Up: Sex in Guyland

6) Chapter 11, Girls in Guyland: Eyes on the Guys, part 1, guyland_11_part_2

 

Reading Due April 3:

1) Pascoe, Dude, You’re a Fag, 1-83

 

Reading due April 1:

1) Richard Giulianotti, ‘Gender Identities and Sexuality in Sport’

2) Sue Curry Jansen, ‘The Sport/War Metaphor: Hegemonic Masculinity, the Persian Gulf War, and the New World Order’

3) Henry Jenkins III, ‘”Never Trust a Snake”: WWF Wrestling as Masculine Melodrama’

 

Reading due March 18:

1) Rebecca Jordan-Young, ‘Sexual Orienteering’, from Brainstorm, pages 144-97.

2) David Halperin, ‘Is there a history of sexuality?’

3) ‘Scientists uncover possible Source of homosexuality’ (Dec. 11, 2012): http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/scientists-uncover-source-homosexuality-article-1.1218017

4) ‘Study finds epigenetics, not genetics, underlies homosexuality’ (original press release): http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/nifm-sfe120612.php

5) ‘Genetic or Not, Gay Won’t Go Away’ (Jan. 28, 2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/bruni-gay-wont-go-away-genetic-or-not.html?_r=0

 

Reading due March 13:

1) Anne Fausto-Sterling, Chapter 5, ‘Sexing the Brain’

2) Anne Fausto-Sterling, chapter 7, ‘Do Sex Hormones Really Exist?’

***Search the media/news for an example of how gender differences are promoted/defended through scientific claims about the body. It can be as simple as an image or an article from a news source/magazine. Consider how you might use this pop culture/media/news evidence in a paper. What questions might you ask? How might you interpret this evidence in light of what we’ve read thus far about the relationship between culture and science? In addition to discussing sex hormones, on WEDNESDAY we’ll also be discussing paper topics and possible prompts. So please come prepared with something to share. You do not need to bring anything in. You just need to be prepared to explain what your evidence is.

Reading due March 11:

1) Anne Fausto-Sterling, ‘The Sexe Which Prevaileth’, Chapter 2, Making Sex

2) Anne Fausto-Sterling, ‘Of Gender and Genitals, Chapter 3, Making Sex

3) Anne Fausto-Sterling, ‘Should There Be Only Two Sexes’, Chapter 4, Making Sex

 

Reading due March 6:

1) The reading comes in two parts (for some reason the file wouldn’t scan as one document).

Thomas Laqueur, ‘The Discovery of the Sexes’, part 1

Thomas Laqueur, ‘The Discovery of the Sexes’, part 2

 

Reading due March 4:

1) The reading comes in two parts (for some reason the file wouldn’t scan as one document).

Thoams Laqueur, ‘New Science, One Flesh’ part 1

Thomas Laqueur, ‘New Science, One Flesh’, part 2

 

Reading due Feb. 25 (***do not wait until the night before class to begin the reading):

1) Thomas Laqueur, ‘Destiny is Anatomy’, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, 25-62.

2) Anne Carson, ‘Putting Her in Her Place: Women, Dirt, and Desire’, Before Sexuality. The Construction of the Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, 135-64.

Here are some questions to consider in your reading response (in addition to your response to next Tuesday’s reading) concerning the video that we watched at the end of class.

1) What is the nature of the masculinity being constructed in this video?

2) How might this particular brand of masculinity be a response to feminism and/or ‘guyland’?

Here is a link to the video: http://vimeo.com/55420992
Here is a link to the website: http://wildernesscollective.com

 

Reading due Feb. 20:

The reading comes in two parts. Reading one is historical. Reading two is about becoming a man today.

1) Barbara Welters, ‘The Cult of True Womanhood’, American Quarterly, 1966: 151-74.

For more, also have a look at this website: http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/truewoman.html

2) Michael Kimmel, ‘Welcome to Guyland’, Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men‘, 1-23.

 

Readings due Feb. 18:

1) Siobhan Somerville, Introduction/Scientific Racism, from Queering the Color Line, 1-38.

2) Evelynn Hammonds, ‘Black Wholes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality’, from Skin Deep, Spirit Strong, 301-20.

3) This reading is not necessary, but you might want to have a look at it. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, ‘The Body Politic’, from Skin Deep, Spirit Strong, 13.25.

 

Readings due Feb. 13:

1) Anne Fausto-Sterling, ‘Dueling Dualisms’, Sexing the Body, 1-29.

2) Now read this website about theorist Judith Butler: http://www.autostraddle.com/judith-butler-101-58115/

3) Sue Blundell, ‘Creation Myth’, Women in Ancient Greece, 20-24.

4) Sue Blundell, ‘Women’s Bodies’, Women in Ancient Greece, 98-112.

* If the readings are sideways, right click and choose rotate (if you have a PC), or use control and click to rotate (if you are using a mac).

Something to think about as you read: Butler argues that sex does not exist outside of gender (the sexed body is gendered). How do the medical writings of the ancient Greeks demonstrate that the sexed body was constructed/understood/pathologized in accordance with gender expectations?