Threshold Concepts in Women's and Gender Studies
Ways of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing
Christie Launius, Holly Hassel
- 274 pages
- English
- ePUB (adapté aux mobiles)
- Disponible sur iOS et Android
Threshold Concepts in Women's and Gender Studies
Ways of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing
Christie Launius, Holly Hassel
Ă propos de ce livre
Threshold Concepts in Women's and Gender Studies: Ways of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing is a textbook designed primarily for introduction to Women's and Gender Studies courses, with the intent of providing both a skill- and concept-based foundation in the field.
The third edition includes fully revised and expanded case studies and updated statistics; in addition, the content has been updated throughout to reflect significant news stories and cultural developments. The text is driven by a single key question: "What are the ways of thinking, seeing, and knowing that characterize Women's and Gender Studies and are valued by its practitioners?" This book illustrates four of the most critical concepts in Women's and Gender Studiesâthe social construction of gender, privilege and oppression, intersectionality, and feminist praxisâand grounds these concepts in multiple illustrations.
Threshold Concepts in Women's and Gender Studies develops the key concepts and ways of thinking that students need to develop a deep understanding and to approach material like feminist scholars do, across disciplines.
Foire aux questions
Informations
1 INTRODUCTION
Why âWays of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing?â
Using This Book
- The opening illustration in each chapter invites you to consider how the concept is relevant to day-to-day life, either current events, popular culture, historical moments, or other spaces.
- We have indicated in each chapter how the concept suggests a âfeminist stance,â or ways of looking at the world.
- Threshold concepts are defined, as are related or supporting concepts from research, theory, or scholarship that are critical to understanding the ideas in the chapter.
- Each chapter includes examples of âlearning roadblocks,â or the kinds of barriers to fully understanding the threshold concept that students typically encounter. Weâve drawn from our many years of teaching introductory WGS courses as well as conversations with colleagues to identify these roadblocks and explain why they are common misconceptions, and how students can move past them.
- In order to illustrate in a fuller way how the threshold concept operates in interdisciplinary forms, each of the concepts is discussed through the lens of âanchoring topics,â or key ideas that will root the concept within three overlapping and related areas of inquiry within WGS: work and family; language, images, and symbols; and gendered bodies. As you engage with each of the chapters, youâll develop not only a new understanding of the threshold concept in that chapter but an increasingly deepening sense of how each of the anchoring topics is âinflectedâ by the concepts.
- Each chapter contains a case study that, like the opening illustration, is intended to bring the threshold concept to life for readers and to help you see how it can be understood through specific cultural, historical, or other phenomena.
- Finally, at the end of the chapter, youâll find exercises and other ways to test your understanding of the chapter material, to engage in conversation with classmates, to write about the topic, and to apply what youâve learned to other contexts.
Feminism, Stereotypes, and Misconceptions
Feminism is a belief that women and men are inherently of equal worth. Because most societies privilege men as a group, social movements are necessary to achieve equality between women and men, with the understanding that gender always intersects with other social hierarchies.(7)
Although feminism is, in substance, always attentive to power differences that create inequalities, particularly those that create differential opportunities for women and men (but also those that create racial and ethnic, class-based, or sexuality-based inequalities), feminism is also an epistemological shift away from a history of androcentric bias in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. As such, it is not just an âarea studyâ (again, not just about âwomenâ) but something much deeper: a way of orienting to academic work that is attuned to power relations, both within the academy and within knowledge construction itself.(2)
- Feminism is dead. This misconception is invoked as a way to try to derail or shut down a discussion of gender inequality, a way to dismiss someoneâs critique by saying that we no longer need feminism because equality has already been achieved. The most charitable read on this stereotype is that people look at the real gains made by feminism and mistakenly assume that the need for feminism has passed. In this scenario, the person claiming that equality has already been achieved is likely experiencing the world from a position of relative privilege. The misconception doesnât just get perpetuated on an individual level, however; it is a frequent headline in the news media. In response to Timeâs cover story in 1998 declaring feminism dead, feminist writer Erica Jong (1998) noted that âthere have been no less than 119 articles in the magazine sticking pins in feminism during the last 25 years.â All of this raises the question, as Jessica Valenti (2007) puts it, âif feminism is dead, then why do people have to keep on trying to kill it?â (11).
- Feminists are ugly, hairy, braless, donât wear makeup, etc. Emphasis on the ugly. A feature called âCure a Feminist,â which appeared in the November 2003 issue of Maxim, does a good job of illustrating this stereotype.1 It features four images of the same woman wearing different clothing and displaying different body language that purport to show the transformation from feminist to âactual girl.â The âfeministâ is wearing baggy jeans and a so-called wifebeater tank top with no bra. Her hair is messy, and her arm is raised to reveal a hairy armpit. She also has a cigarette dangling from her mouth, and she is standing with legs apart, with one hand hooked into the pocket of her jeans. By the end of her transformation, she is wearing nothing but a lacy bra and panties with high heels, standing with one hip jutted out and her hand tugging her underwear down. Her hair is styled, and she is wearing makeup. The intent of this stereotype is fairly simplistic and transparent but, nonetheless, hard to shake. As Jessica Valenti (2007) puts it, â[t]he easiest way to keep womenâespecially young womenâaway from feminism is to threaten them with the ugly stick. Itâs also the easiest way to dismiss someone and her opinionsâ (8â9).
- Feminists hate men. The Maxim piece hits this stereotype, too. The implication here is that feminism is a hate-filled vendetta against individual men. The thought bubble coming out of the so-called feministâs mouth says, âThereâd be no more wars if all penises were cut off! Argh!â This misconception is a strategy to dismiss and mischaracterize feminism and feminists, by individualizing feminist concerns and seeing feminism as a battle of the sexes, rather than a structural analysis of systems of privilege and inequality. A more accurate characterization recognizes that feminism is interested in critiquing and combating sexism and patriarchy, not hating or bashing individual men.
- Only women can be feminists. It is clear, in the Maxim feature and elsewhere, that the default assumption is that only women would want to be feminists, given that feminists hate men, and that only women stand to gain from feminism. This view is increasingly being challenged, not only because a growing number of men are committed to being strong feminist allies to the women in their lives but also because men increasingly see the ways in which they are harmed by adhering to traditional masculine...