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Baby woman

Baby woman. Wittig, Mark of Gender Kessler, Intersexed infants Eugenides, Obsure Object. Today’s agenda. Feminist challenges to gender Why do feminists care about intersexuality? What other ways are there to challenge gender (besides asking if there are 2 sexes)?

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Baby woman

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  1. Baby woman Wittig, Mark of Gender Kessler, Intersexed infants Eugenides, Obsure Object

  2. Today’s agenda • Feminist challenges to gender • Why do feminists care about intersexuality? • What other ways are there to challenge gender (besides asking if there are 2 sexes)? • How does it matter for politics?

  3. Wittig challenged gender through language

  4. Eugenides writes as Cal

  5. Kessler wonders what doctors think they’re doing

  6. John Money* made John/Joan * Peter Luce in Middlesex

  7. What’s wrong with gender? • “Woman” is a patriarchal term • To be a woman is to be someone who gets screwed by men • Man-hating v. misogynist • So – gender antagonism at least • This is “radical” feminism

  8. Feminists say patriarchy • Forces women to be available to men sexually • Forces women to bear and rear kids • Uses political institutions to do this (marriage,disenfranchisement) • Uses nature to justify dominance

  9. To fight patriarchy • Resist compulsory heterosexuality • refuse marriage, breeding, men • Resist the mark of woman (Wittig) • Question the biological basis of sex (Kessler)

  10. Nature on the left: gay rights Nature on the right: men and women are different by nature Politics of debating gender

  11. Usually nature is clear, but: • hermaphrodism is the presence of both ovaries and testes • it is rare and not a disease • feminists say, hermaphrodites reveal problems with language

  12. 1843: girlyboy asks to vote • Levi Suydam asks to vote in closely contested election • Doctor: Suydam has penis so voting ok • Suydam’s candidate wins by one vote • A few days after election, Suydam gets his period

  13. Was Levi Suydam a woman? • S/he had sort of a penis, sort of a vagina and menstruated • S/he had broad hips and narrow shoulders • S/he was attracted to women • S/he liked “pieces of calico” • We don’t know if s/he got to vote again

  14. Kessler documents changes over time • 19c question was about gonads • if ovaries present  woman • today’s question is, is it big enough to be a penis? • if it is  man

  15. The Obscure Object • why is the story set during Cal’s adolescence? • what happens to Cal during adolescence? • does Callie become Cal because she • falls in love with the Obscure Object? • is the OO a redhead or a crocus? • because her “body had finally lived up to the narrative requirements”?

  16. Gender as construction • The social manifestation of sex • The sex-gender system (Gayle Rubin, 1974) • The family is an important site of the reproduction of gender (Chodorow)

  17. But sex depends on gender, as exhibited by • Intersexuality • Transvestism, transexuality • Homosexuality

  18. Wittig’s radical feminism • There is no natural enduring truth about woman • Woman is relative social/political position • Gender identifies physical markers that are linked to social hierarchy • The lesbian stands in contradiction to, disrupts the idea of woman

  19. Witting in context: 2nd wave (academic) feminism • The Second Sex, de Beauvoir 1949 (1952) • Sexual Politics, Millett 1970 • “The Traffic in Women” Rubin 1974 • “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” Rich 1980 • “One is not Born a Woman” Wittig 1981

  20. Some questions for Wednesday • What is liberalism, liberal feminism • Why is Domestic Violence a liberal problem? • Pros and Cons of liberal feminism • What do these laws do for women: • 19th Amendment (1920) • Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act • Title IX (1972)

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