Instructor: Beth Berila

 This course provides an introduction to Western feminism in the Twentieth Century. It is not a historical survey; rather, it focuses on conceptual frameworks and issues that are integral to contemporary Western feminism. In the readings for this course, we will study debates within Western women’s movements and analyze the concrete effects of patriarchal ideologies, as well as women’s resistances to those ideologies. We will explore the ways that ideas, belief systems, and thus actions are produced and affect others. These conversations will touch on beliefs and values that many of us hold dear, so together we will have to learn how to talk about them in intellectual, political, and compassionate ways in order to take the kinds of risks that are essential to provocative learning. In doing so, we will emphasize feminist ways of thinking, seeing, and being in the world, with some of the divergences that that entails. While you are not required to "become" feminist, successful completion of this course requires that you show an understanding of what is meant by feminist perspectives and an ability to construct arguments and write papers from these perspectives.

Of course, that means that we will have to define feminism and locate our perspectives in relation to diverse feminist movements. Feminism is NOT about male bashing; in fact, I would argue that men are an essential part of social change. It is, however, about combating capitalist patriarchy as a system of institutional oppression that produces unequal social relationships and shapes other political and economic exploitation. The systematic nature of patriarchy also depends upon institutional racism, classism, and heterosexism; feminism is about understanding the relationships between these oppressions and the ways that they manifest in practices, then producing strategies to critique and resist them at multiple levels. It is also about placing different feminist voices in dialogue with each other, adding our own voices to the conversations, and deciding for ourselves what we can do about the issues that are raised. In the words of poet Audre Lorde: When I dare to be powerful--to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

 Upon successful completion of this course, we will have developed the following objectives:

 * Knowledge of the basic conceptual tools with which feminism analyzes the world and works toward social change.

* The Ability to put those tools to work to understand social issues and construct arguments from a feminist perspective in order to determine ways to act for social change.

 * The ability to advocate for yourself as a student at Syracuse University and a citizen in the world.

 * The Motivation to locate oneself in this world and understand what that means, to see the problems US society poses and participate in change to bring about a more compassionate society.

These are the goals that we are starting with, but together we can develop additional goals that reflect our understanding of feminist knowledge and the urgencies that we see in the world.

Course Texts:

 · Jonothan Kozol, Amazing Grace.

 · Bernard Lefkowitz, Our Guys.

 · Gloria Anzaldua, ed. Making Face, Making Soul/ Haciendo Caras: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Women of Color.

 --Available at Marshall Square Mall.

 · Course Reader, 4583  --Available at Campus Copies (also in the Marshall Square Mall).

 **Optional: Feminist Frontiers IV. Eds. Laurel Richardson, Verta Taylor, and Nancy Whittier.

 --Available at Orange Bookstore (in the Marshall Square Mall).

 Course Activities/Grade Distributions:

 Part of successful learning is determining what your strengths are and learning to work from them. Anyone who feels that he or she may have a learning disability should see me immediately. There is no shame in this, and letting your professors know who you are and how you learn is the first step in advocating for yourself as a student.

3 Response Papers (15% each) 45%

Exam 14%

Class discussion and current event analysis 13%

Current Event Analysis 13%

Participation and Attendance 15%

***Attendance and active participation is required, so students who accumulate more than 2 unexcused absences will lower their participation/attendance portion of the grade by a third of a letter grade for every additional absence. That portion of the grade also consists of the quality of contributions to class. Frequent absences preclude active learning and the contribution of your voice to our discussions.

 Papers:

 The response papers are designed to give you space to reflect upon and analyze the material and issues from the previous week. They should be 3-5 pages in length, typed and double spaced, and are due in class on the days noted in the course calendar. Because we may talk about several ideas in one week, I recommend that you focus on one or two interrelated conceptual issues (in other words, not a marginal side note). The papers should explain that concept or issue and analyze its implication for feminism and for women’s lived experiences. You can certainly add your own perspectives to this paper, since contributing your voice is one of our goals. But as you do so, you should focus on the motivations behind your perceptions, and analyze how your own ideologies and location in the world (including class, gender, race, and sexual preference) shape those perceptions.

The purpose of combining an analysis of the issues we study with your own perceptions is to begin to understand how you relate to these issues, and what you have to say about them, and as such, it is a productive and essential step in an active learning process. But we have to distinguish between personal opinions and critical positions. The former is generally an unsubstantiated or unexamined reaction that is caused by hidden ideologies, and therefore is of little use here; indeed, they can be quite counter-productive. The latter, though, moves beyond personal opinion to more closely examine why you hold that opinion, and what implications it holds for you and others. The goal of these papers is for you to be able to articulate a feminist analysis and support it with evidence. Your critical positions will develop as the class progresses--being able to formulate and explain them is part of the learning process. The response papers can provide a space for you to work through these issues because writing can be a space for exploration and growth, a place for you to develop your own voice.

 This assigment has three parts, each of which are explained below:

 (1) Pose three questions about that week’s reading for class discussion.

(2) Bring in copies of an article about a relevant current event. Pose two questions about it for class discussion.

(3) Write-up the analysis of the current event in a paper that is due the following Tuesday.

(1) In order to build a community of participants in the class, we will all share the responsibility for motivating class discussions. That means that each class, we will all come with ideas, issues, and questions to discuss regarding that week’s reading. But there will also be more specific opportunities. Each student will sign up for a day on which to start class discussion, and on that day, that student will bring three specific questions for the class to discuss. That means reading the assignments carefully and generating three questions about clarification, connections with issues we’ve already covered, or implications of statements raised in the readings. This is NOT a presentation, but rather a chance to use the readings as a starting place for provocative discussions that we are interested in. That means, of course, that we all need to read carefully everyday so that we can thoughtfully engage the questions of our colleagues.

(2) The second part of this assignment involves applying the feminist concepts we study to the world around us. So, in addition to the three questions on that week’s reading, each student will be asked to bring a current event (within the last six months) that involves the issues we are discussing that week. For example, if we are discussing issues of racism, you might bring in an article about the controversy over land between the Oneida nation and area homeowners. When we are discussing violence against women, you might find an article about domestic abuse. It will generally be more helpful if you choose feature stories that give us some background, rather than just news blurbs that are often short.

Some of these stories will appear in mainstream sources, though rarely from a feminist perspective. Thus, I encourgae you to explore sources that are more likely to present alternative positions. Here are some progressive sources you might turn to for these articles:

Ms. Magazine

Pacifica Network at www.fair.org/counterspin

Democracy Now at www.webactive.com

World Newspaper site at http://www.dds.nl.kidon/media-link/index.html or put kidon media link into your web searcher

National Public Radio (91.3 or 88.4-- "Morning Edition" airs from 7-9 in the morning, and "All Things Considered" airs from 5-6:30.)

The first four sources are magazines that Bird library carries, and the other sources can be accessed via the web or the radio.

The idea is to learn about the current event, share it with classmates, and discuss its implications from a feminist perspective. So, after we discuss the questions raised about the reading, you would share the article with classmates, present any necessary background, and raise two questions for discussion. As a class, then, we wil analyze the current event/issue.

(3)The final step of this assignment is to write-up your analysis of the current event for the following week’s class. This paper will look much like the response papers, except the primary texts is the current event article, and the course material and concepts are applied in order to analyze the meaning of that event.

For this paper, you should choose a current event that relates to any of the issues we are discussing in class. Use the guidelines listed above for sources and the kinds of articles you might look for. Read the article carefully, then analyze it in a three-four page paper that follows the guidelines listed above for response papers. These papers should apply the feminist concepts we discuss in class to current issues in the world around us. Ideally, you can also bring these issues into class discussions.

Because this is a discussion course, we will develop many of these groundrules as a community. But here’s what I’m starting with. I expect each student to attend every class session, to do every assigned reading, to keep copies of every paper that you write for this class, to turn in all assignments on time, to exchange phone numbers with at least two people in the class in case you need clarification about something, and to let me know IMMEDIATELY if you are having problems with the course material or the issues that this material may raise for you. Furthermore, we will insist that in disagreements about feminist perspectives (and other ones) each speaker will take responsibility for her or his critical position and personal opinion (and to distinguish between the two). Be prepared to support your positions with evidence from scholarship and lived experience--and to recognize the limits of personal experience.

Calendar: (I reserve the right to make changes in this schedule, and to assign any additional reading material that becomes relevant to our class.)

CR= Reader; MF/MS= Making Face, Making Soul/ Haciendo Caras; RP= Poem in Reader

Tues., August 31: Introduction to course.

Tues. September 7: First half of Amazing Grace.

Tuesday, September 14: Finish Amazing Grace.

Tuesday, September 21: Pharr, "Domination Politics" (CR); Christina, "Loaded Words" (CR).

Tuesday, September 28: McIntosh, "White Privilege" (CR); Yamato, "Something About the Subject Makes It Hard To Name" (MF/MS); Parker, "For the White Person Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend" (MF/MS); Creef, "Notes From a Fragmented Daughter" (MF/MS).

Tues., October 5: . hooks, "Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory;" Allen, "Where I Come From Is Like This" (CR). Film: "The Color of Fear."

Tues., October 12: Anzaldua, "Haciendo Caras, Una Entrada: An Introduction" (MF/MS);; Yamada, "Invisibility Is An Unnatural Disaster" (CR); Yamada, "Asian Pacific American Women and Feminism" (CR).

***Paper 2 Due***

Tues., October 19: Pharr, "Homophobia" (CR); Bornstein, "My Gender Workbook" (CR).

Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience" (FF/CR).

Tues., October 26: Video: "It’s Elementary" (in-class); Chase, "Hermaphrodites With Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism" (CR); Raymond, "Confessions of a Second Generation...Dyke?: Reflections of Sexual Non-Identity"(CR).

Tues. November 2: Brownmiller, "Femininity" (CR); Omosupe "In Magazines (I Found Specimens of the Beautiful"(MF/MS); Coward, "The Body Beautiful" (CR); hooks, "Straightening Our Hair" (CR). "Dreamworlds" (in-class video).

Tues. November 9: Wilchins, "What Does It Cost to Tell the Truth?" (CR);Our Guys (first half).

Tues., November 16: Finish Our Guys; Martin and Hummer, "Fraternities and Rape on Campus" (CR).

Tues., November 23: Roberts, "The Welfare Debate" and "Bearers of Incurable Immorality" (CR). Film: Michael Moore’s "Roger and Me."

Tues., November 30: Lorde, "The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House" (CR); Uttal, "Inclusion Influence" (MF/MS); Lorde, "Between Ourselves" (MF/MS). hooks, "Talking Back" (MF/MS).

Tues., December 7: Wilchins, "Why Identity Politics Sucks" (CR); Reagan, "Coalition Politics" (CR); Lorde, "I Am Your Sister" (MF/MS).

In Germany they first came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.

--Pastor Martin Niemoller

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference--those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older--know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how...to define and seek a world in which we all can flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.

--Audre Lorde

Sister Outsider

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