Poli345: Gender and Politics – Flashcards

Readings: - Marilyn Frye. "Oppression" in The politics of reality: essays in feminist theory. - Iris Marion Young. "Five Faces of Oppression" Definition: - Frye: linguistically the root of oppression is "press." "something caught between or among barriers, which restrain, restrict or prevent the thing's motion or mobility." Meaning: - Oppression is about always being caught in a double bind: situations in which options are reduced and all options expose one to penalties. Significance: - Invisible threat; hard to recognize and easy to forget Things that prevent us from seeing oppression clearly: - Myopic vision aka Frye's Birdcage - Dismissive reactions from those who benefit - Fear of speaking out, fear of reprisals - Cultural Imperialism: normalizes oppression and creates marginalization and powerlessness in its victims. It reinforces oppression through exploitation and violence.

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Readings: susan brownmiller Definition: Significance:

Readings: Iris Marion Young. "Five Faces of Oppression," Definition: Iris Marion Young's discusses oppression coming in five faces: Exploitation, marginalization, cultural imperialism, powerlessness, and violence. And how these concepts connect and reinforce each other to create social constructs that shape individuals, social groups and their interaction with each other. Significance: These 5 criteria show that people cannot be divided neatly into the 'oppressed' and the 'oppressor' columns, because as Young points out: "for every oppressed group there is a group that is privileged in relation to that group". We need to build upon people's different and shared experiences of oppression (instead of arguing about whose oppression is more important) to encourage them to get involved in collective action for social change.

Readings: Iris Marion Young. "Five Faces of Oppression," Definition: Using labor to increase profit without fairly compensating labourers. Significance: Existence of exploitation reinforces oppression and creates marginalization and asymmetrical power relationships. As long as society supports structures and institutions that rely on exploitation, justice and fair treatment will not be achieved for the exploited people. Examples: - Gender: wage gap, patriarchal family structure where women's domestic labour goes unappreciated/unnoticed - Exploitation based on race and ethnicity - Capitalism's dependence on division of classes: working, middle, upper => creation of power imbalance

Readings: Iris Marion Young. "Five Faces of Oppression," Definition: Relegating a group to a lower social standing or the edges of society Significance: Marginalization constantly highlights the conflict between society's promise to deliver democratization and equality to its citizens and it's failure to protect the same type of marginalized groups - women, ethnic groups, religious and sexual minorities - from various cases of oppression, exploitation and violence. Young: "Marginalization is perhaps the most dangerous form of oppression. A whole category of people is expelled from useful participation in social life and thus potentially subjected to severe material deprivation and even extermination." Examples: - Racism: Blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics - Sexual Minorities: LGBTQ - Old people, religious minorities

Readings: Iris Marion Young. "Five Faces of Oppression," Robin Morgan. "Monster" Definition: Some have power while others lack power Significance: Powerlessness is a direct result of oppression, reinforced through violence and exploitation. It instills fear and apathy against the existing system and prevents people from leaving it or trying to fight against it. However once people accept themselves as different or refuse to accept powerlessness (deviance), they shift the power balance relationships. Examples: - Class: bureaucratic workplaces (relying on hierarchy) - Racism: powerlessness of minorities - Gender: Robin Morgan's "Monster" - powerlessness in the face of patriarchy, rejection of motherhood, power in accepting Monster title - Reinforced through violence, exploitation; dismissive reactions from those who benefit.

Readings: Iris Marion Young. "Five Faces of Oppression," Definition: Taking the culture of the ruling class and imposing it as the norm. Significance: This concept is important because it argues that our society's norms, experiences and cultural expressions are not universal and are all just a matter of perspective. Discrimination and oppression are created from people's inability and failure to recognize other's group's interpretations and views of social life. Examples: - Patriarchy - culture of the ruling class, imposing as the norm - Frye's "Bird Cage" and myopic view - Accepting misogyny over misandry by both sexes - Heteronormativity - The Myth of Vaginal Orgasm

Readings: Iris Marion Young. "Five Faces of Oppression," Definition: Members of some groups must live with the fear of random unprovoked attacks Significance: Existence of violence reinforces oppression and fear. Like oppression, violence can be invisible and ingrained in our society and culture. - Rape culture; sexual aggression is portrayed as a norm/inevitable; victims blamed by society; living in fear of random attacks. Ex: Modesty rules; "Girls safety" rules; rape chant at UBC's Frosh week

Readings: Joanna Russ, "The New Misandry" Definition: Significance:

Readings: Definition: Manifestos were a popular early form for expressing Radical Feminist positions - influenced and engaged with Marx's Communist Manifesto - method of consciousness-raising designed to explore and map "the personal is the political" to give voice to the diversity of women's experiences. Significance:

Readings: Manifestos Definition: Form of activism, popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group of people on some cause or condition. Significance: CR is used to: - Gather and analyze data from the original sources (ie. women's life experiences) - Understand sexism by examining individual lives and beliefs - Understand that the struggles in our own lives are not our individual personal problems and we cannot solve them on our own. • (ie. recognize that our struggles have roots in societal issues beyond individuals and that women need solidarity) - Take action and develop strategies and tactics

Readings: Radicalesbians "The Woman-Identified-Woman" Definition: Significance: Lesbians' identification with other women defied traditional definitions of women's identity in terms of male sexual partners The concept that in order to elevate women from second class position, women should be willing to consider other women as sexual partners. "Until women see in each other the possibility of a primal commitment which includes sexual love, they will be denying themselves the love and value they readily accord to men, thus affirming their second-class status."

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Readings: Joreen Freeman "The Bitch Manifesto" Definition: Joreen recounts the characteristics that define what a bitch is in our culture. She clarifies that a bitch is certainly not a man, but is also unable to be classified as a woman because of her radically different views. A bitch is defined by three primary characteristics: her personality, her physicality, and her orientation. "A bitch takes shit from no one," Bitches are headstrong and fiercely independent. Bitches are also incapable of being pretty and must rely on their mouths to be noticed in society. Finally, bitches occupy their space as "subjects" rather than "objects." Significance: These characteristics which define the bitch are not negative; in fact, the bitch is an ideal standard for which women should aspire. Progress is made through the tireless work of bitches who refuse to conform to society's requirements for women. The undoing of the bitch, however, is her inability to socialize with women who aren't as self-reliant. Bitches must operate in isolation from the women who fail to realize their potential and the men who ensure that potential is never reached. Joreen ends her manifesto with a call for bitches and women to unite together to end the discrimination and sexism which debases both of their existences. For the success of both groups, it is imperative to realize that "Bitch is Beautiful."

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Readings: Valerie Solanas "SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto" Definition: "Society for Cutting Up Men" It argues that men have ruined the world, and that it is up to women to fix it. To achieve this goal, it suggests the formation of SCUM, an organization dedicated to overthrowing society and eliminating the male sex. Significance: specific motive: to shock both men and women out of complacency with society's sexism.

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Readings: bell hooks. "Feminism is for Everybody" Definition: Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. Significance:

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Readings: Definition: Significance: She also argues that feminism cannot succeed without men's participation in the movement, that men can exist as "worthy comrade[s] in struggle" because feminism is anti-sexism, not anti-male. The enemy, then, is sexist thought and behavior by men or women. She concludes that "enlightened" feminists see that men are not the problem, that the problems are patriarchy, sexism, and male domination

Readings: bell hooks. "Feminism is for Everybody" Definition: Significance: The current feminist movement lacks a strong sense of sisterhood due to this focus on competition (sexually, economically, physically) "that freedom of privileged-class women of all races has required the sustained subordination of working-class and poor women" Some readers may feel shocked when she critiques the increased entry of bourgeois women into the workforce; she points out that this is not, in fact, a sign that women as a group are gaining economic power. Rather, this phenomenon is related to a process whereby women's interests are divided along class and racial lines, and feminism itself -- when measured by corporate accomplishment -- is co-opted by capitalism.

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Readings: Radicalesbians "The Woman-Identified-Woman" Definition: Significance:

Readings: Radicalesbians "The Woman-Identified-Woman" Definition: Significance: Were among the first to challenge the heterosexism of heterosexual feminists and to describe lesbian experience in positive terms "A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion." Being a Lesbian is re-conceptualized as a political identity in the Radicalesbians The Woman-Identified Woman

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