Wgss 1110 final exam

How is (-isms) and internalized -ism reinforced ?

reinforced by: ◦social institutions ◦hegemony ◦binary ideology ◦social construction ◦language ◦stereotypes ◦public policy ◦silence

Intersectionality definition In the micro level

Differences [race, sex/gender, economic status, etc.] cannot be separated in the individual; Differences interact in relation - Differences intersect.

Stereotypes

generalizations about groups of people based on actual or perceived characteristic(s) of groups [can be a subset of an individual's privileged beliefs if about a differences-based group]

internalized -ism

the degree to which one accepts depictions/judgments of a group as true and valid (i.e. accepts Difference-related social constructs - and their "truths" - as empirically verifiable facts)

mythical norm

the socially constructed ideal that categorically influences access to power, privilege, and opportunity based on actual or perceived Differences (group memberships)

to demonstrate the personal is political

"political" = related to power relations (not electoral politics!)

Distorting differences.

•We distort Difference by: ◦ignoring/not acknowledging them ◦regarding them as "insurmountable barriers" (79) ◦focusing on only one Difference of our own or other people's identities ◦universalizing (homogenizing/silencing) them (e.g. using the category "woman" as if all females share identical Differences and experiences) ◦using them as a basis for social judgment and control ("us" v. "them," "those people")

Definition of Gender Binary

•a trait, object, behavior, activities, and roles (perhaps even ideas) are either masculine or feminine and cannot be both •male-bodied and female-bodied persons are opposites •biology determines gender, while environment merely refines it in biologically consistent ways ("boys will be boys")

Organizational

•disadvantages and discrimination are woven into the practices, rules, and policies of a specific organization

Micro level

•the individual •site for identity formation ("Who am I? Where do I 'fit'?"

General claims embedded in every stereotype

1. X's are Y 2. All X's are Y

1890s - 1920

Issue: suffrage

meso level

•the community (e.g. neighborhood, school, church, etc.); •provides places to "fit" and "rules" for "fitting

Risks of not recognizing intersectionality

1.developing partial and/or skewed problem-definitions 2.creating social policies and programs based on those incomplete and/or distorted problem-definitions 3.regarding access to power, privilege, and opportunity as purely matters of individual effort [i.e. maintaining the invisibility of privilege] 4.recording/understanding history and contemporary events in ways that reflect binary ideology and binary thinking 5.acquiring fractured, incomplete media literacy skills

Sources of tyrannies of silence

1. cultural [macro level] - these are the silences originating in and emanating from: ➢institutional systems (e.g. education, government, media, healthcare) ➢national and regional organizations (e.g. the American Medical Association, the United Methodist Church, the American Motion Picture Association) ➢structures (e.g. language, laws/public policies, cultural customs and conventions) ➢ideologies (e.g. binary, individualism, meritocracy) 2. individual [micro level] - these are the silences originating in and manifested by a person (e.g. what one does not say or do)

Effects on tyrannies of silence

1. silence can regulate the social visibility of: ➢difference/identity-based groups ➢social circumstances reliant upon inequities and injustices ➢social circumstances and mechanisms maintaining inequities and injustices 2. silence can regulate the individual visibility of: ➢those who claim or are assumed to claim affiliation with difference/identity-based groups ➢those who experience inequities and injustices ➢those who benefit from maintaining inequities and injustices 3. silence can undermine the likelihood of social change

What are the 4 levels of discrimination ?

1.Individual 2.Organizational 3.Institutional 4.Cultural

Characteristics of privileged beliefs

1.resistant to change/questioning 2.rigid and inflexible 3.establish the foundation for other beliefs 4.protect self-esteem 5.can be independent of verifiable truth 6.can be independent of consciousness

Charateristics of woman's studies

1.shaped by feminism 2.relies on interdisciplinary inquiry and analysis 3.emphasizes intersectionality 4.regards analyses of power and agency as central in efforts to understand social development 5.emphasizes subjective [individual] experience as a potential source of Knowledge 6.explores institutional and ideological treatment of Differences (i.e. sex/gender, race, religion, sexuality, age, ethnicity, et al) 7.focuses on developing collective modes of production and reproduction (i.e. collaboration and community well-being in lieu of "individual" competition and corporate profit) 8.re-examines and re-conceptualizes Knowledge by searching for "missing information," silences, gaps and distortions

What are the PRINCIPLES OF U.S. FEMINISM

1.to challenge and disrupt binary thinking 2.to re-conceptualize power 3.to value process and product 4.to validate re-naming 5.to demonstrate the personal is political 6.to recognize intersectionality 7.to advocate transformational politics

When and where did the first WS course originate

1970 •San Diego State •State University of New York (SUNY) - Buffalo

What makes binary ideology function ?

Binary thinking

Relationship between dominate and subordinate categories ?

Dominate categories: the dominant category defines Reality, is normative [the principle], we would not say, "the dominant category" = "not the subordinate category" Subordinate category: the subordinate category is defined in relation to the dominant category,is derivative [the corollary], we can say, "the subordinate category" = "not the dominant category,"

Effects on binary ideology

Effects of Binary Ideology: can distort: ○ reality ○ similarities between categories ○ differences within categories ○ human interactions Can also ○ encourage us to value one category over the other ○ reinforce individual and social perceptions of differences as "so" different, they are other, alien, impossible to understand ○ reinforce existing distribution of power, wealth, and opportunities ○ drive public policy (both the definitions of social problems and the possible "solutions")

1960s - late 1980s

Issues: "women's issues" pay equity access to education/ credit healthcare daycare reproductive rights identity politics

1990s and beyond

Issues: economic, political and educational development violence against women intersectionality coalition-building

1830s - 1860s

Issues: abolition temperance married women's rights access to education

Intersectionality definition in the macro level

The systems of advantage and disadvantage (-isms: e.g. racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism) worked together - they intersect.

Definition of public policy

a cultural practice of governance ➢anything that government chooses to do AND not to do ➢a tool in creating cultural meanings of "

Definition of oppression

a network of systematically-related barriers influencing access to power, privilege, and opportunity based on actual or perceived Differences

Definition of binary ideology

a set of widely shared ideas and beliefs about the fundamentally contrasting and "opposite" nature of human differences

Social Constuction

a values-based process of creating meaning

Relationship of intersectionality with other lectures

all of the -isms [i.e. systems of advantage and disadvantage] together form oppression, a network of systematically-related barriers influencing access to opportunity, power, and privilege based on actual and/or perceived Differences. •So, what appears from a binary perspective to be only about racism, for example, can be inseparable from and complicated by sexism, classism, heterosexism, ageism - all or some of the other -isms.

to challenge and disrupt binary thinking

binary thinking (also called "categorical" or "oppositional" thinking): viewing, interpreting and judging Reality in terms of mutually exclusive categories (X is either "this" or "that" and cannot be both or some combination of "this" and "that")

Definition of tyrannies of silence

cultural and individual silences that regulate social and individual visibility and undermine the likelihood of social change Note: "silence" incorporates "inaction"

Effects on double bind

experienced by Others as a consequence of oppression

to re-conceptualize power

historically and typically, "power" = "power over," the power to control

to value process and product

how we do something is as important as what we choose to do

Definition of privileged beliefs

individually held beliefs that are fundamental to the way one understands, interprets, and interacts in one's environment and its surroundings

System (-isms)

isms definition examples: ➢sexism = a system of advantage and disadvantage based on sex status/gender ➢racism = a system of advantage and disadvantage based on racial categories

Other

one whose Differences and experiences are judged to be "too alien" to be understood (i.e. "too different" from dominant cultural norms)

Effects on other

one whose actual or perceived Differences subject her/him/them to the disadvantages of oppression

Importance of intersectionality

no human/individual Difference stands alone. •For example, one's gender performances are influenced by one's race, sexuality, socio-economic status, age, ethnicity, and physical/mental ability (as well as by other variables like religion, geographical region, environmental setting [e.g. rural, urban, suburban], and even political affiliations). •In other words, a female is always more than only female; a male is never only male.

Othering

treating/regarding an individual or group as Other (i.e. as deviating from dominant cultural norms)

Governing mentalities

values-based assumptions about what's "true" and "real" •assumptions about "how thing are" and "how things should be" that ground and justify public policy •characterized as objective and value-free ("culture of no culture") •governing mentalities are influenced by: 1.power 2.historical time period 3.geographic location 4.cultural ideologies 5.other social constructs

Double bind

when options are few and all options expose one to the risk of penalty, censure or deprivation

What does the process of social construct create ?

•are used to judge people, actions, circumstances, "normal" •help to maintain hierarchies based on class, gender, race, religion, and sexuality •these hierarchies influence access to power and privilege

Institutional

•pervasive and widespread organizational discrimination •when discriminatory practices, rules, and/or policies are embedded in the way society is organized

Redefining difference

•recognize Difference •acknowledge the ways Difference is distorted •"relate within equality" (85) [reject categorical/ oppositional thinking] •"develop new definitions of power" (ibid) •"develop...new patterns of relating across" Difference (ibid) •recognize and work to abolish our internalized -isms

The three "truths" embedded in every social construct

•social "truth" ("that's just how it is") •universal "truth" ("it's always been that way") •normative "truth" ("that's how it should be")

Characteristics of stereotypes

•stereotypes ignore: •differences within a group and •similarities among groups •stereotypes overemphasize: •similarities within a group and •differences between/among groups •stereotypes can reinforce cultural silences about differences-based groups •and so, can work to regulate both social and individual visibility

global level

•the international community and the natural environment •an encompassing web of economics, communication, conflicts, population shifts, and c

macro level

•the nation •the institutions and ideologies that regulate "normal" and its values

Tools and methods of social construct

•tools include language, images, media, public policy •methods include repetition, socialization, "naturalization," and "reward and punishment"

Individual (prejudice)

•unequal treatment and stereotyping •targeted at a specific individual/group by an individual

Social response to difference: Lords assumptions

•we are "conditioned" "to see differences in simplistic opposition to each other" (i.e. we are taught to think categorically - to rely on binary thinking) •ours is a "profit economy," which requires: ◦"surplus people" ("outsiders") ◦"institutionalized rejection of difference"

Cultural

•when discriminatory practices, rules, and/or policies are reflected in cultural norms

to recognize intersectionality

●Differences [race, sex/gender, economic status, etc.] cannot be separated in the individual; Differences interact in relation - Differences intersect); ●the systems of advantage and disadvantage (-isms: e.g. racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism) worked together - they intersect ●efforts to achieve social change are strengthened when there is collaborative effort

to validate re-naming:

●recognize individual authority/agency ●accept the subjective as a source of knowledge

to advocate transformational politics

●social change is a goal of feminism ●existing power relations must be transformed

Function of mythical norm

➢Most of us simultaneously both "fit" and do not "fit" the mythical norm's representation of the "ideal or normal American" (which is why it is a mythical norm) ➢The ways we are judged to "fit" are the ways we can more easily (often unconsciously and invisibly) access power, privilege, and opportunity. ➢The ways we are judged to "not fit" the mythical norm are the ways we are perceived as Other and are more likely to experience oppression's disadvantag

Homophobia

➢a regulatory tool in the sex/gender system ➢reinforces normative constructions of gender ➢assumes a false causal relationship between gender and sexuality

Lesbian-baiting

➢an attempt to control females by labeling them "lesbian" ➢can occur when a female or group of females: ➢"resists male dominance" ➢violates the "rules" of femininity ➢adopts the behaviors/roles associated with masculinity