GENDER STUDIES
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'Gender studies' is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyzes the phenomenon of gender. It examines both cultural representations of gender and people's lived experience. Gender Studies is sometimes related to studies of class, race, ethnicity and location.[1]
The philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: “One is not born a woman, one becomes one.â€[2]
In Gender Studies the term "gender" is used to refer to the social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities. It does not refer to biological difference, but rather cultural difference.[3] The field emerged from a number of different areas: the sociology of the 1950s and later (see Sociology of gender); the theories of the psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan; and the work of feminists such as Judith Butler. Each field came to regard "gender" as a practice, sometimes referred to as something that is performative.[4]
Studies of gender have been undertaken in many academic areas, such as literary theory, drama studies, film theory, performance theory, anthropology, sociology and psychology. These disciplines sometimes differ in their approaches to how and why they study gender. For instance in anthropology, sociology and psychology, gender is often studied as a practice, whereas in cultural studies representations of gender are more often examined. Gender Studies is also a discipline in itself: an interdisciplinary area of study that incorporates methods and approaches from a wide range of disciplines.
Some feminist critics have dismissed the work of Sigmund Freud as sexist, because of his view that women are 'mutilated and must learn to accept their lack of a penis' (in Freud's terms a "deformity").[5]
On the other hand, feminist theorists such as Juliet Mitchell, Nancy Chodorow, Jessica Benjamin, Jane Gallop, Shoshana Felman and Jane Flax have argued that psychoanalytic theory is vital to the feminist project and must, like other theoretical traditions, be adapted by women to free it from vestiges of sexism. Shulamith Firestone, in "Freudianism: The Misguided Feminism", discusses how Freudianism is ''almost'' completely accurate, with the exception of one crucial detail: everywhere that Freud writes "penis", the word should be replaced with "power".
Critics like Elizabeth Grosz accuse Jacques Lacan of maintaining a sexist tradition in psychoanalysis. Grosz, E. (1990). "Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction", London: Routledge Others, such as Judith Butler and Jane Gallop, have used Lacanian work to develop gender theory.[6][7]
His theory of sexuation (sexual situation) — the development of gender-roles and role-play in childhood — breaks down concepts of gender identity as innate or biologically determined.[8]
Main articles: Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva, in her work on abjection, argues that the way in which an individual excludes (or abjects) their mother as means of forming an identity is similar to the way in which societies are constructed. She contends that patriarchal cultures, like individuals, have had to exclude the maternal and the feminine so that they can come into being.[9]
The emergence of post-feminism affected gender studies,[8] causing a movement in theories identity away from the concept of fixed or essentialist gender identity, to post-modern fluid or multiple identities .[11]
See Donna Haraway, ''The Cyborg Manifesto,'' as an example of post-identity feminism.
Main articles: Women's Studies
Women's studies is an interdisciplinary academic field concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. It can include feminist theory, women's history, women's fiction and women's health.
Main articles: Men's studies
Men's Studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that includes discussions of men's rights, feminist theory, queer theory, patriarchy, as well, social, historical, and cultural representations of men and masculinity.
Main articles: Judith Butler
The concept of gender performativity is at the core of Butler's work, notably in ''Gender Trouble''. In Butler’s terms the performance of gender, sex, and sexuality is about power in society. [4] She locates the construction of the "gendered, sexed, desiring subject" in "regulative discourses."
A part of Butler's argument concerns the role of sex in the construction of "natural" or coherent gender and sexuality. In her account, gender and heterosexuality are constructed as natural because the opposition of the male and female sexes is constructed as natural.[13]
Rosi Braidotti has criticized gender studies as: "the take-over of the feminist agenda by studies on masculinity, which results in transferring funding from feminist faculty positions to other kinds of positions. There have been cases...of positions advertised as 'gender studies' being given away to the 'bright boys'. Some of the competitive take-over has to do with gay studies. Of special significance in this discussion is the role of the mainstream publisher Routledge who, in our opinion, is responsible for promoting gender as a way of deradicalizing the feminist agenda, re-marketing masculinity and gay male identity instead."
Calvin Thomas counters that, "as Joseph Allen Boone points out, 'many of the men in the academy who are feminism's most supportive 'allies' ''are'' gay,'" and that it is "disingenuous" to ignore the ways in which mainstream publishers such as Routledge have promoted feminist theorists.
Gender studies is criticized by Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young for being a discipline that "philosophizes, theorizes and politicizes on the nature of the ''female'' gender" as a social construct, to the point of excluding the male gender from analysis. They also assert that the 'gender' in gender studies is "routinely used as a synomym for 'women', that men are studied as the sex that created the problem of 'gender' in the first place and that men are studied only as female victimizers.[14].
★ Julia Kristeva
★ Charlotte Perkins Gilman
★ Otto Weininger
★ Judith Butler
★ Hélène Cixous
★ Donna Haraway
★ Luce Irigaray
★ Evelyn Fox Keller
★ Gayle Rubin
★ Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
★ Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
★ Simone de Beauvoir
★ Judith Halberstam
★ Aaron Devor
★ Shari Thurer
★ Michel Foucault
★ bell hooks
★ Audre Lorde
★ Kate Bornstein
★ Christine Delphy
★ Colette Guillaumin
★ Haraway Gave
★ Marie-Helene Bourcier
★ Gayle Rubin
★ Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
★ Jeff Hearn
★ Anthony Giddens
★ Chantal Nadeau
★ Kaja Silverman
★ Joan W. Scott
★ Sylvia Walby
★ Androcentrism
★ Feminist theory
★ Gender
★ Gender Differences
★ Gender and sexuality studies
★ Gender Identity
★ Genderqueer
★ Homophobia
★ Masculinism
★ List of transgender-related topics
★ Masculinity
★ Misandry
★ Misogyny
★ Post-feminism
★ postgenderism
★ Queer Theory
★ Sex/gender distinction
★ Teaching for social justice
★ transgender
★ Women's studies
1. Healey, J. F. (2003). "Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Class : the Sociology of Group Conflict and Change".
2. de Beauvoir, S. (1949, 1989). "The Second Sex".
3. Garrett, S. (1992). "Gender", p. vii.
4. Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity", 9.
5. Karen Horney was one of the first to question the theory of penis envy. She argues that it is "the actual social subordination of women" that shapes their development: not the lack of the organ, but of the privilege that goes with it. Karen Horney (1922). "On the Genesis of the Castration Complex in Women." ''Psychoanalysis and Women''. Ed. J.B. Miller. New York: Bruner/Mazel, 1973.
6. Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity".
7. Gallop, J. (1993). "The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysi", Cornell University Press
8. Wright, E. (2003). "Lacan and Postfeminism (Postmodern Encounters)".
9. Kristeva, J. (1982). "Powers of Horror."
10. Wright, E. (2003). "Lacan and Postfeminism (Postmodern Encounters)".
11. Benhabib, S. (1995). "Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange." and Butler, J. (1995) "Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange.".
12. Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity", 9.
13. Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity", 163-71, 177-8.
14. Nathanson, P. and K. K. Young (2006). "Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture." Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press
★ Boone, Jospeh Allen and Michael Cadden, eds., 1990. ''Engendering Men'', New York: Routledge. ISBN 04159-0255-X
★ Butler, Judith, 1993. "Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex", New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415-90366-1
★ Butler, Judith, "Feminism by Any Other Name", in ''differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies'' June, 1994. ISSN: 1040-7391
★ Butler, Judith, 1999. ''Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity''. New York: Routledge. ISBN 04159-2499-5
★ Cranny-Francis, Anne, Joan Kirkby, Pam Stavropoulos, Wendy Waring, eds., 2003. "Gender studies : terms and debates", Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0333-77612-7
★ De Beauvoir, Simone, 1989. ''The Second Sex''. New York: random House Inc. ISBN 06797-2451-6
★ Foucault, Michel, 1988. "Care of the Self the History of Sexuality", Random House Inc. ISBN 0394-74155-2
★ Foucault, Michel, 1990. "History of Sexuality: An Introduction", London: Random House Inc. ISBN 06797-2469-9
★ Foucault, Michel, 1990. "Use of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality", London: Random House Inc. ISBN 0394-75122-1
★ Foucault, Michel, 1995. "Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison", translated by Allen Sheridan, London: Random House Inc. ISBN 0679-75255-2
★ Fraser, Nancy, Judith Butler, Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell, 1995. "Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange." New Yotk: Routledge. ISBN 0415-91086-2
★ Frug, Mary Joe. "A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto (An Unfinished Draft)," in "''Harvard Law Review''", Vol. 105, No. 5, March, 1992, pp. 1045 - 1075. ISSN: 0017-811X
★ Healey, Joseph F., 2003. ''Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Class : the Sociology of Group Conflict and Change''. London: Pine Forge. ISBN 07619-8763-0
★ Kristeva, Julia, 1982. "Powers of Horror. Trans. Leon Roudiez." New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 02310-5347-9
★ Wright, Elizabeth, 2000. ''Lacan and Postfeminism''. London: Icon Books Ltd. ISBN 18404-6182-9
★ McElroy, Wendy, 2001. ''Sexual Correctness: The Gender-Feminist Attack on Women'', Jefferson: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786-41144-9
★ Oyewumi, Oyeronke, ed., 2005. ''African Gender Studies: A Reader'', London: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 1403-96283-9
★ Scott, Joan W. "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," in ''Gender and the Politics of History'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
★ Spector, Judith A, ed., 1986. ''Gender Studies: New Directions in Feminist Criticism'', Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0879-72351-3
★ Thomas, Calvin, ed., 2000. "Introduction: Identification, Appropriation, Proliferation", in ''Straight with a Twist: Queer Theory and the Subject of Heterosexuality''. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252-06813-0
★ Department of Gender Studies from Indiana University Bloomington
★ xy: men, masculinities and gender politics
★ Regional Masculinities Bibliography Project
★ Project "Women's History and Gender History in Westphalia" (in German)
★ uniGENDER - online journal (in Polish)
★ WikEd - Gender Inequities in the Classroom
★ Children’s Gender Beliefs
★ Gendercide Watch: a project of the Gender Issues Education Foundation (GIEF), a registered charitable foundation based in Edmonton, Alberta
The philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: “One is not born a woman, one becomes one.â€[2]
In Gender Studies the term "gender" is used to refer to the social and cultural constructions of masculinities and femininities. It does not refer to biological difference, but rather cultural difference.[3] The field emerged from a number of different areas: the sociology of the 1950s and later (see Sociology of gender); the theories of the psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan; and the work of feminists such as Judith Butler. Each field came to regard "gender" as a practice, sometimes referred to as something that is performative.[4]
Studying gender
Studies of gender have been undertaken in many academic areas, such as literary theory, drama studies, film theory, performance theory, anthropology, sociology and psychology. These disciplines sometimes differ in their approaches to how and why they study gender. For instance in anthropology, sociology and psychology, gender is often studied as a practice, whereas in cultural studies representations of gender are more often examined. Gender Studies is also a discipline in itself: an interdisciplinary area of study that incorporates methods and approaches from a wide range of disciplines.
Influences of gender studies
Gender studies and psychoanalytic theory
Sigmund Freud
Some feminist critics have dismissed the work of Sigmund Freud as sexist, because of his view that women are 'mutilated and must learn to accept their lack of a penis' (in Freud's terms a "deformity").[5]
On the other hand, feminist theorists such as Juliet Mitchell, Nancy Chodorow, Jessica Benjamin, Jane Gallop, Shoshana Felman and Jane Flax have argued that psychoanalytic theory is vital to the feminist project and must, like other theoretical traditions, be adapted by women to free it from vestiges of sexism. Shulamith Firestone, in "Freudianism: The Misguided Feminism", discusses how Freudianism is ''almost'' completely accurate, with the exception of one crucial detail: everywhere that Freud writes "penis", the word should be replaced with "power".
Jacques Lacan
Critics like Elizabeth Grosz accuse Jacques Lacan of maintaining a sexist tradition in psychoanalysis. Grosz, E. (1990). "Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction", London: Routledge Others, such as Judith Butler and Jane Gallop, have used Lacanian work to develop gender theory.[6][7]
His theory of sexuation (sexual situation) — the development of gender-roles and role-play in childhood — breaks down concepts of gender identity as innate or biologically determined.[8]
Julia Kristeva
Main articles: Julia Kristeva
Julia Kristeva, in her work on abjection, argues that the way in which an individual excludes (or abjects) their mother as means of forming an identity is similar to the way in which societies are constructed. She contends that patriarchal cultures, like individuals, have had to exclude the maternal and the feminine so that they can come into being.[9]
Literary Theory
Post-modern influence
The emergence of post-feminism affected gender studies,[8] causing a movement in theories identity away from the concept of fixed or essentialist gender identity, to post-modern fluid or multiple identities .[11]
See Donna Haraway, ''The Cyborg Manifesto,'' as an example of post-identity feminism.
The development of gender theory
History of gender studies
Women's studies
Main articles: Women's Studies
Women's studies is an interdisciplinary academic field concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. It can include feminist theory, women's history, women's fiction and women's health.
Men's studies
Main articles: Men's studies
Men's Studies is an interdisciplinary academic field that includes discussions of men's rights, feminist theory, queer theory, patriarchy, as well, social, historical, and cultural representations of men and masculinity.
Judith Butler
Main articles: Judith Butler
The concept of gender performativity is at the core of Butler's work, notably in ''Gender Trouble''. In Butler’s terms the performance of gender, sex, and sexuality is about power in society. [4] She locates the construction of the "gendered, sexed, desiring subject" in "regulative discourses."
A part of Butler's argument concerns the role of sex in the construction of "natural" or coherent gender and sexuality. In her account, gender and heterosexuality are constructed as natural because the opposition of the male and female sexes is constructed as natural.[13]
Criticism
Rosi Braidotti has criticized gender studies as: "the take-over of the feminist agenda by studies on masculinity, which results in transferring funding from feminist faculty positions to other kinds of positions. There have been cases...of positions advertised as 'gender studies' being given away to the 'bright boys'. Some of the competitive take-over has to do with gay studies. Of special significance in this discussion is the role of the mainstream publisher Routledge who, in our opinion, is responsible for promoting gender as a way of deradicalizing the feminist agenda, re-marketing masculinity and gay male identity instead."
Calvin Thomas counters that, "as Joseph Allen Boone points out, 'many of the men in the academy who are feminism's most supportive 'allies' ''are'' gay,'" and that it is "disingenuous" to ignore the ways in which mainstream publishers such as Routledge have promoted feminist theorists.
Gender studies is criticized by Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young for being a discipline that "philosophizes, theorizes and politicizes on the nature of the ''female'' gender" as a social construct, to the point of excluding the male gender from analysis. They also assert that the 'gender' in gender studies is "routinely used as a synomym for 'women', that men are studied as the sex that created the problem of 'gender' in the first place and that men are studied only as female victimizers.[14].
Theorists associated with gender studies
★ Julia Kristeva
★ Charlotte Perkins Gilman
★ Otto Weininger
★ Judith Butler
★ Hélène Cixous
★ Donna Haraway
★ Luce Irigaray
★ Evelyn Fox Keller
★ Gayle Rubin
★ Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
★ Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
★ Simone de Beauvoir
★ Judith Halberstam
★ Aaron Devor
★ Shari Thurer
★ Michel Foucault
★ bell hooks
★ Audre Lorde
★ Kate Bornstein
★ Christine Delphy
★ Colette Guillaumin
★ Haraway Gave
★ Marie-Helene Bourcier
★ Gayle Rubin
★ Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
★ Jeff Hearn
★ Anthony Giddens
★ Chantal Nadeau
★ Kaja Silverman
★ Joan W. Scott
★ Sylvia Walby
See also
★ Androcentrism
★ Feminist theory
★ Gender
★ Gender Differences
★ Gender and sexuality studies
★ Gender Identity
★ Genderqueer
★ Homophobia
★ Masculinism
★ List of transgender-related topics
★ Masculinity
★ Misandry
★ Misogyny
★ Post-feminism
★ postgenderism
★ Queer Theory
★ Sex/gender distinction
★ Teaching for social justice
★ transgender
★ Women's studies
References
1. Healey, J. F. (2003). "Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Class : the Sociology of Group Conflict and Change".
2. de Beauvoir, S. (1949, 1989). "The Second Sex".
3. Garrett, S. (1992). "Gender", p. vii.
4. Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity", 9.
5. Karen Horney was one of the first to question the theory of penis envy. She argues that it is "the actual social subordination of women" that shapes their development: not the lack of the organ, but of the privilege that goes with it. Karen Horney (1922). "On the Genesis of the Castration Complex in Women." ''Psychoanalysis and Women''. Ed. J.B. Miller. New York: Bruner/Mazel, 1973.
6. Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity".
7. Gallop, J. (1993). "The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysi", Cornell University Press
8. Wright, E. (2003). "Lacan and Postfeminism (Postmodern Encounters)".
9. Kristeva, J. (1982). "Powers of Horror."
10. Wright, E. (2003). "Lacan and Postfeminism (Postmodern Encounters)".
11. Benhabib, S. (1995). "Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange." and Butler, J. (1995) "Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange.".
12. Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity", 9.
13. Butler, J. (1999). "Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity", 163-71, 177-8.
14. Nathanson, P. and K. K. Young (2006). "Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture." Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press
Bibliography
★ Boone, Jospeh Allen and Michael Cadden, eds., 1990. ''Engendering Men'', New York: Routledge. ISBN 04159-0255-X
★ Butler, Judith, 1993. "Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex", New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415-90366-1
★ Butler, Judith, "Feminism by Any Other Name", in ''differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies'' June, 1994. ISSN: 1040-7391
★ Butler, Judith, 1999. ''Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity''. New York: Routledge. ISBN 04159-2499-5
★ Cranny-Francis, Anne, Joan Kirkby, Pam Stavropoulos, Wendy Waring, eds., 2003. "Gender studies : terms and debates", Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0333-77612-7
★ De Beauvoir, Simone, 1989. ''The Second Sex''. New York: random House Inc. ISBN 06797-2451-6
★ Foucault, Michel, 1988. "Care of the Self the History of Sexuality", Random House Inc. ISBN 0394-74155-2
★ Foucault, Michel, 1990. "History of Sexuality: An Introduction", London: Random House Inc. ISBN 06797-2469-9
★ Foucault, Michel, 1990. "Use of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality", London: Random House Inc. ISBN 0394-75122-1
★ Foucault, Michel, 1995. "Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison", translated by Allen Sheridan, London: Random House Inc. ISBN 0679-75255-2
★ Fraser, Nancy, Judith Butler, Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell, 1995. "Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange." New Yotk: Routledge. ISBN 0415-91086-2
★ Frug, Mary Joe. "A Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto (An Unfinished Draft)," in "''Harvard Law Review''", Vol. 105, No. 5, March, 1992, pp. 1045 - 1075. ISSN: 0017-811X
★ Healey, Joseph F., 2003. ''Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Class : the Sociology of Group Conflict and Change''. London: Pine Forge. ISBN 07619-8763-0
★ Kristeva, Julia, 1982. "Powers of Horror. Trans. Leon Roudiez." New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 02310-5347-9
★ Wright, Elizabeth, 2000. ''Lacan and Postfeminism''. London: Icon Books Ltd. ISBN 18404-6182-9
★ McElroy, Wendy, 2001. ''Sexual Correctness: The Gender-Feminist Attack on Women'', Jefferson: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786-41144-9
★ Oyewumi, Oyeronke, ed., 2005. ''African Gender Studies: A Reader'', London: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 1403-96283-9
★ Scott, Joan W. "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis," in ''Gender and the Politics of History'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).
★ Spector, Judith A, ed., 1986. ''Gender Studies: New Directions in Feminist Criticism'', Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0879-72351-3
★ Thomas, Calvin, ed., 2000. "Introduction: Identification, Appropriation, Proliferation", in ''Straight with a Twist: Queer Theory and the Subject of Heterosexuality''. Champaign: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252-06813-0
External links
★ Department of Gender Studies from Indiana University Bloomington
★ xy: men, masculinities and gender politics
★ Regional Masculinities Bibliography Project
★ Project "Women's History and Gender History in Westphalia" (in German)
★ uniGENDER - online journal (in Polish)
★ WikEd - Gender Inequities in the Classroom
★ Children’s Gender Beliefs
★ Gendercide Watch: a project of the Gender Issues Education Foundation (GIEF), a registered charitable foundation based in Edmonton, Alberta
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