| The Sociology of Gender
Sociology 305, Fall 2006
Thurs 1pm
Instructor: Eleanor Townsley (etownsle)
201 Merrill House
office phone: 538-2803
Office Hours: Tuesday 1-3pm or by appointment
Course Description:
This seminar focuses on the social production and reproduction of gender
relationships across a range of institutional, interactional, intellectual,
and cultural contexts. The syllabus includes selections from major social
theories of gender as well as several exemplary empirical studies. This
is a heavy reading course and class participation weighs heavily in final
assessment.
Course requirements and grading:
Read the assigned material, participate in class discussions/debates.……………25%
Reading responses.……………………………………………………………...25%
2/3 essays (W5, W9, end)………………………………………………… each 25%
Regular attendance and timely completion of all assignments is required.
Readings:
Course readings are available on electronic reserve at the library.
Films will be screened in class.
Recommended books are available at the Odyssey Bookstore and on library
reserve: R.W. Connell. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press; Michael S. Kimmel and Michael A. Messner.
2001. Men’s Lives. 5th ed. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon; Michael
Kimmel. ed. The Gendered Society Reader. New York: Oxford University
Press; 2004. Carole Pateman. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford
University Press; Steven Seidman 2002. Beyond the Closet. New York:
Routledge.
COURSE SCHEDULE
W1 (September 7) – Introduction
Olivia Judson. “Different but (Probably) Equal”
W2 (September 14) – Gender as social relation and moral category: some
early thinking
Connell “Introduction: Some Facts in the Case” 1-20;
Connell “Gender as a Structure of Social Practice” 67-86
W3 (September 21) – Moral categories, social identities & cultural
geographies I
Rubin “The Traffic in Women” 157-210;
Rich “Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence” 631-60;
hooks “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory” 1-15
W4 (September 28) – Moral categories, social identities & cultural
geographies II
Jackson. “Sexuality, Heterosexuality and Gender Hierarchy: Getting Our
Priorities Straight” 15-36
W5 (October 5) – Doing gender I: passing and the social construction
of reality
Garfinkel “Agnes” 116-140, 164-167, 180-185.
“You don’t know dick”.
Morgan and Towle “Romancing the Transgender Native”, 469-497.
Moreno and Goodwin. “Am I A Woman or A Man?”
MIDSEMESTER BREAK OCT 7-10
W6 (October 12) -- Doing gender II: performance and the social construction
of reality
“Juggling Gender”;
Butler. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution”
Bordo “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity” 309-326.
Recommended
Scott “The Evidence of Experience”, 773-797;
Henley, Hamilton and Thorne. “Womanspeak and Manspeak” 145-152.
W7 (October 19) -- -- Intersecting categories, full immersion hierarchies:
race, class, gender
Kimberlé Crenshaw
“Mapping the Margins”
Marable “The Black Male: Searching Beyond Stereotypes” 18-24
Bourgois “In Search of Masculinity”, 42-55
Espiritu “All Men Are Not Created Equal; Asian Men in U.S. History” 35-44;
Zinn, “Chicano Men and Masculinity”, 17-23.
W8 (October 26) – Labor, gender, work, family, state I
Kimmel “The Gendered Family” 117-158
Kimmel “Segregation” 188-193
Flanagan “How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement” 109-128
Chang. "Undocumented Latinas" 311-319
Dill "Our Mother's Grief: Racial-Ethnic Women and the Maintenance
of Families" 270-292;
Recommended:
Adams and Padamsee. "Signs and Regimes: Rereading: Feminist Work
on Welfare States"1-23.
Murdock. “Comparative Data on the Division of Labor by Sex”, 551- 553.
W9 (November 2) – Labor, gender, work, family, stateII
“Rosie the Riveter”;
Douglas and Michaels. “The Mommy Myth”
Recommended:
Amott. "Shortchanged: Restructuring Women's Work" 238-247
Albeda and Tilly "It's a Family Affair: Women, Poverty, and Welfare" 368-371
May. “The Historical Problem of the Family Wage" 275-291
Connell The State, Gender and Sexual Politics 507-544.
W10 (November 9) -- The Polity and Power: gender, law and the nation-state
Pateman, C. “Contracting In” 1-8;
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government 269- 71
Roe v. Wade 314 Federal Supplement 1217 (1970)
Wilson, “Transnational Geography of Sexual Rights”
Recommended:
Fraser “Beyond the Master-Subject Model” 173-181;
W11 (November 16) – The Polity and Power: gender, law and the nation-state
Seidman Beyond the Closet 123-196
Recommended:
Meeks, “Marriage, the Family, and Sexual Politics: Contested Images of
Normal Intimacy” (manuscript)
W12 (November 21) – Gender and Power: war, peace and institutionalized
rape
Seifert. “War and Rape: A Preliminary Analysis” 54-72
Copelon, “Surfacing Gender” 197-218.
Recommended:
Herman “The Rape Culture” 38-46
Sanday “Rape-prone versus rape-free campus cultures” 58-70
THANKSGIVING BREAK NOV 22-26
W13 (November 30) -- The Authority of Experts: Categories and Classifications
Cohn. “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals”
107-138;
Cohn. “Wars Wimps and Women: Talking Gender and Thinking War” 397-409
Conk. “Accuracy, efficiency, and bias”
Martin “Science and Women’s Bodies”, 69-82.
WEEK 14 (December 7) -- Conclusions?
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