Womens Studies Exam Review Story of Shakespeares Sister Virginia Woolf

Why women not produced great literature to the same degree as men Shakespeares women are not independent and creative do not seem wanting in personality and character Brilliant writing is not the product of genius alone it is attached to the material conditions of life Thus for women to write good fiction, they must have a room of their own = time, space, reception; and money to support themselves What would Shakespeares twin sister Judith experienced? Gifted sister, remain at home and not sent to school and had no chance of learning Marriage was forced upon her End up killing herself Any woman born with a great gift in the 16th century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage That woman who was born with a gift in the 16th century, was an unhappy woman We say we know nothing about Shakespeares mind, yet we talk about it.

In Search of Our Mothers Gardens Alice Walker - Limitations imposed on African American women - Response to Virginia Woolfs work because Walker suggests that for some women, the conditions of restriction were/are much greater than others - She is addressing the specific experiences of black women in the US and the history and enduring legacy of slavery - Black women were so spiritually intense, they themselves were unaware of the richness they held - Forced their minds to dessert their bodies - Future was not yet within their grasp - How did all this creativity survive when it was constantly being destroyed and lawed against? - Black women were called the mule of the world because we have handled the burdens that everyone else refused to carry - To be an artist and a black woman, even today lowers out status in many respects, rather than raising it - Many black women work alongside husband, not behind - Quilt follows no known pattern of quilt making. Anonymous but obviously the work of a person with powerful imagination who left her mark in the only materials she could afford. - Mothers and grandmothers handed on the creative spark by absorbing stories - Mom planted gardens with creativity with flowers, even my memories of poverty are seen through a screen of flowers - Guided by my heritage of love and beauty and a respect for strength in search of my mothers garden, I found my own. - Woolf writes that you must have a key and a lock but arguably slaves did not even own themselves. Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions - Government needs to be changed - Injustices women faced in the 19th century - We are told all men are created equal should be women as well - Rewrote the declaration of independence but included women - History of mankind is a history of repeated injuries - Some issues women face No right to vote If married, civilly dead No right to property Divorce laws favour men No employment opportunities in law, medicine Subordinate positions in church and state Moral codes stricter on women - He has endeavored, in every day that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life Resolutions - Recognitions as a mans equal - Women must be enlightened about their situation - Men must encourage women

Equal crimes Equal punishment Move into enlarged atmosphere

Status of Woman in America Anna Julia Cooper - Black feminist thought introduction - Age of accumulation requires the mortality and vision of black women - Sympathetic warmth and sunshine of good women lifting the drunkard from the gutter, the outcast from the pit - Needed to bring a heart power into this money getting, dollar worshipping civilization - Both a woman question and a race question - African American women are essential to the regeneration and progress of a race - Women should be brought into the education process - Segregation damages the nation - Women could use their moral right to make widespread changes - Cooper was using the cult of domesticity/true womenhood ideal about women as more morally upright and ipos than men, thus as queens of home and family in order to argue for more rights and freedoms for women - Cooper committed her life and work to contesting the brutality of American racism; she also worked to reveal the intersections of racism and sexism in the lives of black women in the States - Dominant ideology used to keep women in the home instead to argue for more political and other forms of influence that is, she argued that women could use their moral right to make wide -sweeping changes - Used the cult of domesticity/true womanhood ideal about women (a largely white upper middle-class religious way of thinking about women as more morally upright and puois than men, and this as queens of home and family) in order argue for more rights and freedoms for women - Vision of justice was broad and inclusive - It is at points difficult to recognize the depth and inclusiveness of her anti-racist stance - In context, it is much more clear that she is citing the racism of dominant culture repeating it for the purposes of radically Undoing that racism and sexism Aint I A Woman Sojourner Truth - Christ came from a woman - If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back - Black feminist thought - Delivered divide and conquer politics - Some women worried about mixing abolitionism with womens rights - Truth pointed out that these qualifications never applied to her as an African American woman and as a slave - 2 major religious arguments 1. God sent a son as the image of man ordains the masculinity of power and leadership; truth responds Christ was born through a woman 2. Eve was responsible for the downfall of humanity and the birth of sin, thus political rights for women are dangerous - Truth argues this with the collective power for women to make change - Contests a patriarchal cult of domesticity Address to the First National Conference of Coloured Women Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin - First national black organization that was not tied to as specific religion - Used to be no coloured womens clubs, now theres over 20 - Shows we are truly American women, with all the adaptability, readiness to seize opportunities and do good for other American women - Interest to us as women, especially coloured women - To teach an ignorant and suspicious world that our aims and interests are identical with those of all good aspiring women - Especially fitting for women of race take the lead in the movement - Dictated by women for the good of men and women and all of humanity - Not alienating or withdrawing, moving to the front The Canadian Womens Movement Newman and White - 4 branches 1. Service providers: Primary purpose is to provide services to women such as counseling, referral birh control, education or shelters 2. Equal rights groups: Equal opportunity in employment and politics

3. Groups espousing the social feminist goal of bringing womens private virtues into the public world 4. Self determination of a variety of identities against racism - Canadas large geographic area makes it difficult for unification First Wave - Women are not seen as public persons in their own right in either the legal or political sphere - Difference between women and men more than those between classes - Male head of the household came to be viewed as the primary breadwinner - Charity was significant feature of the first wave - Significant upper-middle class flavour to social feminism - Middle and lower class women continued to work on farms, in domestic service - Support for suffrage among working women emerged out of the belief that women should be on a more equal footing with men - EQUAL RIGHTS GENERALLY POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL EQUALITY Maternal feminism Womens franchise act 1918 The persons case (decided 1929) Lecture notes - Vote, access to higher education; public office; legal personhood - Cult of domesticity/ true womanhood - Women as angels in the house and cheap labour - Argues women and men are different by nature, but uses this to argue for expanded sphere of influence (to public realm) - Socialist feminism goals: Better working conditions for women and kids unionization, strike support - Liberal Feminism equal ights arguments of social justice Idea: Women should have the same rightd as men because more alike than different - Right to vote = success - Eugenics examined again Second Wave - new social movement - More secular and radical than the Christian morality of social feminism - Appearance of many small womens groups that voiced the concerns of specific womens identities Black women, Inuit women, lesbians, immigrants - Change from first to second wave was a response to the changing nature of Canadian society - Double standard o women - FEMININE MYSTIQUE - Female activism on rights pro life, violence, porn, and rape - Section 15 often referred to as One of the most wide sweeping human rights protections around the globe Third Wave - Post feminism - Post colonialism, post structuralism, queer approach, intersectionality - Anti essentialism - Feminism is you; lipstick feminism - Global feminism The Canadian Womens Movement: CCM - First Wave o Maternal feminism Women are natural caregivers but should be allowed to participate in the public realm Mothers of the nation Ability to take good care of the society o Liberal and Equity Feminism (equal rights) Access to higher education, personhood, ability to vote Women should have all equal rights to men whether its in the private or public realm Women should not be limited to certain jobs in the public realm and should be whoever they want and get paid the same amount as men Different anatomies should does not mean different mental abilities o Womens Franchise Act 1918 The ability to vote to only women who were British Aboriginals living on the reserve or Asian and Japanese Canadians were not allowed to vote yet o Socialist Feminism: goals and better working conditions for women and kids (unionization)

In 1929 women were recognized as qualified persons under the law Second Wave More legal rights, reproductive freedoms, racism and sexism, aboriginal womens legal and other rights, language and media actions o 1960- V.O.W. (voice of women) o Consciousness-raising and women organizing for change o Royal Commission on Status of Women Conditions for women in Canadian society Slow and critical gains o Aboriginal women, black women, refugee, farm women began organizing things separately to address both their specific problems of a women and to establish coalitions Third Wave Global Feminism: o Post-colonial theory o Primarily FORWARD movements on a global scale o Uses predominant patriarchy factors to stop it (going back into history)

Our Story - - Aboriginal women were abused by the rules set from the Europeans o Stripped of identity when married outside of their culture o Kids were forced into non-indigenous culture - Cultural genocide eradicating indigenous culture was ultimate goal of Europeans - Once proud and independent, now struggling for survival - Aboriginal womens rights were denied by aboriginal men Violence against aboriginal women is different than regular women because of how dependent you are on families - 2 struggles 1. Restore equality with Aboriginal men 2. Attain equality with non- Aboriginal women - Sixties Scoop forcible removal of Aboriginal kids into non-indigenous families o Forcible sterilization of aboriginal women - Indian Act: o Abolition of aboriginal rights, status, and identity o 1876 o A path of social destruction - Bill C-31: o Restored status of Aboriginal people o Fought against Indian Act o Eliminate sex discrimination against Aboriginal women Stonewall Riots LGBTQ: Online - June 28th, 1969 o Police department raided Stonewall o The bar named Stonewall didnt let homosexuals in The homosexuals threw bottles at the heterosexuals in retaliation - New York - Discriminating against homosexuals - Limiting opportunities that heterosexuals are available to - Power and religion is determined the leaders and therefore the laws - To prove you were a woman you had to show 3 items of womens clothing o Otherwise arrested - Raids of bars from police - Demanded freedom - June 28th, 1970 o First gay pride march - Section 106 refuse service to queer patrons - Section 722 solicit men for the purpose of committing a crime against nature - After Stonewall: o Development of the Metropatolian Church Lets all kinds of people in o Start of other movements

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Gay rights movement Womens movement Gay Liberation Front began: Thinking in terms of we not I Firehouse dances APA American Psychiatric Association: Revision of the manual that states sexual orientation as an illness 1974 Lavender menace Betty Fernand Said lesbians would ruin the womens movement AIDS crisis brought lesbians and gays together AIDS quilt Lesbian newspapers and magazines

A Vindication of the Rights of Women Wollstonecraft Women are to be the property of men and inferior to them State of ignorance and servility women were forced to inhabit due to norms o They should not talk about their feelings o Their purpose in life is to pleasure the man and be there for them whenever they want Utopian dreams: womens independence is more of a dream than reality Women were treated like slaves o Their body comes before their mind o They are treated like a bird in a cage with out any opinions Women do not respect themselves Liberal feminism: equality throughout the private and public sphere o Public realm: women dont have to be with a man to be happy, they can find education that will help them succeed in like as a single woman/mother

The Problem That Has No Name: - The existence of women is her place as a wife and mother - Taught that unhappy women sought roles as president, poets, doctors o Learned that true feminine women do not want higher education, responsibility, or jobs - Women used to want jobs, now they are told they are supposed to only want babies and a husband - Started going to college only to get husbands o They wouldnt use their degree for anything afterwards - Unmarried women were happier than married women - Feminine mystique: o The idea of the American suburban woman started becoming the core of contemporary culture - Feminine fulfillment: o Only as a housewife and a mother, then she is thought of as equal to a mans world Free to help make life decisions - Consciousness raising: o When other women knew without saying it, that the problem that they were all referring to, was not about her husband, children, or her home It was about their lack of fulfillment - Housewives plight: o Because they were depressed, they turned to drugs - Housewives fatigue: o Women were bored, slept more because she lacked the energy to fulfill her daily rules Doctors prescribed these women get out of the house and go see a movie, but that did not solve the problem Doctors gave tranquilizers, but the problem occurred even during it And therefore didnt solve it Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm: RWL

Frigidity not having an orgasm through sex o Said to be a psychological problem and told to go talk about why they do not get orgasms o Looked down upon o Said to be needed to be cured o A failure to mentally adjust her role as a woman Women can have psychological orgasm The understanding of clitoral orgasm goes against the laws of heterosexual coupling Vagina is the best place for male power and pleasure to be sustained Freud: o The vaginal orgasm develops with maturity Rooted in patriarchy Renunciation of womanhood women were envious of men o Anti-male phenomenon The invisible woman men have chosen to only define women in terms of how they benefit mens lives Sexually expendable male men fear they will become expendable if the clitoris is substituted for the vagina as the center of womans pleasure Confusion women do not actually know that the orgasm occurs through the clitoris and not the vagina itself o Leads to the continuance of male domination Deception majority of women who fake an orgasm to their male partner o Referred to as sex comedy Used to make the man feel good about themselves, or to end the sex that is currently occurring

Tired of Monopoly - US is reluctant to recognize class differences - Meritocracy, people who don't rise = seen as lazy, unlucky, didnt work hard enough - Poverty is fair and inevitable - America is supposed to have equal opportunity and if you work hard enough you will succeed - If hard work was the sole factor, we would have a different type of society - Blaming the victim - False hopes of the lower class keep them in place and the upper class where they need to be - Class determines your lifestyle - Class is also culture - its composed of ideas, behaviors, attitudes, values, and language; class is how you think, feel, act, look, dress, talk, move, walk; class is what stores you shop at, restaurants you eat in; class is the schools you attend, the education you attain; class is the very jobs you will work at throughout your adult life. Dual welfare Welfare for the rich in the form of tax free capital gain Rich use it for tax reduction, poor use it for food - Education: tracking, dumb put in homemaking and smart people in math - Jobs: middle class choose career, - Mothering: holds different importances - Ways to avoid facing classicism: Deny your class position and the privleges it comes with How to Challenge Classicism 1. Confront classist behaviour in yourself, others and society 2. Make demands on working class issues 3. Learn from the skills and strengths of working people Working Class 1. Freee your racism (educate yourself and others) 2. Claim your identity raise others not to be racist 3. Work on issues that will benefit the community - Be aware of differences Freud Femininity: CCM - Penis Envy: o Women blame mothers for not giving them a penis o A turning point, realization of castration - Passivity envy for penis from father - The wish for a penis is replaced by one for a baby o Must have wished for one earlier in her phallic stage - Masculinity complex the girl exaggerates her previous masculinity, clings to her clitoral activity and takes refuge in an identification with her phallic mother or father

o Favours a constitutional factor of a male characteristic o At this point, passivity is avoided and makes way for femininity Experience teaches us that female homosexuality is seldom The girl is seen to take her father as an object for some time, then, after she is disappointed, she is driven to regress into her early masculinity complex Libido the motive force of sexual life o Each sexuality has its own libido associated to it Female libido has limitations If girl is: o Feminine penis envy -> wish for male baby Hates mom even more because she has fathers love o Homosexual combination of masculinity and Oedipus complex Play parts of mother and baby to each other and are mirrored Superego males: o Better Oedipus complex because its repressed through castration anxiety Women do not have superego o Still have Oedipus complex o Thus, inferior to men Narcissism and shame is a female trait Women are thought to believe being in love is more important than loving A womans identification with her mother: o Pre-Oedipus affectionate attachment with her o Oedipus complex seeks to get rid of mother and taker her place to get with father Nature of woman is determined by sexual function Woman is less able to control emotions due to Oedipus complex First: she resists mother Second: she struggles with marriage o Second marriage is more successful than the first

From the Sex Which Is Not One: CCM - The pleasure/sexuality of a woman is different than of a man, as it is characterized by self-sufficient, immediate and continual touching of each other which means, of itself o Within herself she is already 2 (2 lips), but cannot be divided into 1, that caress each other o The penis intrudes her pleasure Yet the penis gives her another type of pleasure, and her own original pleasure will still resume once the penis is gone - The pleasure that women derives from the phallic economy (new pleasure of penis) is merely a side effect of the process by which man gains pleasure - Womens sexuality is plural o The sex (orgasm) which is not one o Not just the vaginal activity for orgasm The fondling of breasts, vaginal wall, vulva, clitoris - Masculine clitoral activity - the clitoris is conceived as a little penis - Feminine vaginal passivity - the vagina is valued for the lodging it offers the male organ

Imitation and Gender Insubordination: CCM:

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Closet inside the closet o You can never fully come out of the closet You will always meet new people or be in a new atmosphere where you have to tell people your sexuality over and over again I identity you think you are o It exists through repetition o Its never as solid as you think it is o Identities are always changing through repetition, you seem to never be able to keep up with them throughout society o Repetition reinforces and proves instability Homosexuality should not be categorized, there is no original gender

Under Western Eyes: CCM - Criticizes the dominance of Western feminist discourse o Women are thought of as backwards and underdeveloped Already constituted Doesnt matter which class/race/ethnicity they are they have the same desires as Western women o This also didnt identify the problems colored women have with politics and social structures which is marginalized from one group to another - Focused on decolonizing feminist methods is cross-cultural work - Third world women who have educations and are successful in life are under western eyes o Cannot develop an identity for themselves because they are minority o Still work within western dominance - Homogenous: same kind or alike - Neo-colonialism: interactions between the developed and undeveloped countries o Dominating countries use economic and political power to influence their power over other countries Western feminists used their economic and political advantages again third world women Common Themes, Different Contexts: CCM - Third world links race relations and imperialism as first world links gender and class relation - Womanists vs. Feminists o Thinks that womanist to feminist as purple is to lavender Womanists: committed to survival and wholeness of entire people (not western feminists) ex. Black womanists, or colored womanists Feminists: relates to gender or class (specific groups of women) - Third world women often try to separate themselves from Western women o Third world women were considered non-women - Third world women do not have the same resources and abilities as first world women o Not only do they have to worry about separate organizations to focus on what needs to be done within their communities, but they need to find out how they will become equal with all women Factory Girl: RWL - Dora becomes a vision of a Latina girl that is not threatening to white parents - She is not politicized, acts as a global commodity (product/service) - Maquiladoras are foreign owned Mexican factories in which imported raw-materials and components are assembled into products that exported for sale - Women make up 80% of them because they are seen as docile low-wage laborers - Recall of Dora toy makes her like illegal immigrants working in US factories - Toy scare: o Dora toys contained lead o The recall of Dora toys represent the relationship between childrens entertainment and toxic factories that churn up cheap goods o The Lead made Dora parallels the women and men who have been targeted by Immigration Enforcement *Sharing something with Latina Factory workers after all Dora represents the workers when she is put out to the world but has lead poisoning, she is brought back to her country - Guolaosi the ongoing/growing phenomenon of women in factories being worked to death A Muslim Perspective Towards Global Feminism - Not anti-man, rather sees the world in humane terms - Seeks a redefinition of social, economic, and political principles of societal organization - Looks at life as evolving, and believes that certain humane and morally defensive principles can and should be applied in the west and east equally - Awareness of female human rights - Western feminists have 2 handicaps 1. they carry they onus of historical western hegemony and they themselves are the victims of a taxing patriarchal order 2. Their problems as women are often different than those in third world countries

Sex Discrimination in the Maquiladoras - Sex discrimination in maquiladoras is contrary to Mexican law - When she applied for a job, she had to take a pregnancy test, carried out by a doctor employed by the company - Absence of pregnancy had to be a condition of employment - Pregnant women were too costly to the company - Belief that already pregnant women took advantage of the benefits so applied already pregnant - Not true - One man did not let a pregnant women go to the hospital while she bled and then she had a miscarriage Gendered Politics and Violence of Structural Adjustment

Snow Brown and the 7 Detergents - Was told how to specifically succeed no other way, only the main way - Was told to stop whining - Do not give away your identity and culture they are a part of you she didn't listen - Leave your third world mentalities behind - We don't like excuses - After they changed everything, they still viewed her differently and would not accept her - Something was always wrong with her appearance - Ended up killing herself

Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties - Surrogacy and in-vitro fertilization can be used to perpetratre sexist and racist notions of motherhood - Slavery demanded the birth of many children Slaveocracy - Purpose of expanding human property held by slaveowners - No legal rights of a mother status similar to that of a contemporary surrogate mother - Wet nurses served as surrogate mothers for the white children of the slave owners - Surrogacy for profit Scarlett 1: RWL - A silence of infertility o When older celebrities have kids (through ART, but do not admit to using it) - Infertility Tourism o Media portrays women as stop-at-nothing spectacles of baby lust o Baby desperate moms o Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) o Donated eggs, rented wombs, gene selection But usual failure - Culture has become a fertility cult o Prada diaper bags o Magazines advertising celebrity births - Infertility is seen as less female - Women who are fertile but dont have kids are seen as selfish - IVF is expensive and not covered by health insurance

Assembling the Global Baby - A world baby Egg donor from one country, sperm from another, and a surrogate who will deliver in a third world country - Surrogates in poorer countries have little or no legal rights to the baby - Clinics often end up creating more fetuses than a couple needs, forcing abortion - Much cheaper to do it in a third world country than in the US