WGSST

What are the goals of Idle No More?

Advocate for indigenous rights Honor indigenous sovereignty Protect land and water

According to Audre Lorde, why should we avoid hierarchizing oppressions?

All oppressions are interconnected

Transgender

An adjective that describes a person who identifies as a gender different from the one that corresponds with their sex assignment. For example, a woman who was assigned male at birth is a transwoman or transgender woman. Many transwomen identify as simply women.

Cisgender

An adjective that describes a person who identifies as the gender that corresponds with their sex assignment. For example, a woman who was assigned female at birth is a cisgender woman.

Oppression

An unjust or cruel exercise of authority and power. Oppression occurs at micro and macro levels.

Which author argues that we are only doing feminism well when it is uncomfortable?

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Cisgender Privilege by Evin Taylor

Cisnormativity describes the normalization of cisgender (identifying with gender that corresponds with sex assignment) identity. Cisnormativity is a social construction. Cisgender privilege and transgender oppression have been naturalized in our society. However, this is socially constructed inequality.

The writers of the Combahee River Collective Statement said that which categories of social inequality crate oppressed and privileged classes?

Class Gender Race Sexuality

Myths about purity and virginity function to maintain which systems of oppression?

Classed Sexualized gendered racialized

According to Sara Ahmed, feminism is... Many answers may be correct.

Collective A way to reside in spaces that are not intended for us Needs to be everywhere World making Transformative

What is mestiza consciousness?

Consciousness of the borderlands Breaking down paradigms Deconstructing and reconstructing Tolerance for ambiguity

Hegemony

Dominance of one powerful group over less powerful groups

Chimamanda Adichie warns us of the dangers of single stories. What do single stories do?

Drain complexity from the world Erase people, places, experiences, and possibilities

What metaphors does Anzaldúa use to describe the border?

Edge of barbwire Herida abierta/Open wound

Judith Lorber argues that the gender binary is a natural way to categorize humans.

False

This term describes the way we feel about our own gender, or how individuals perceive themselves.

Gender identity

This term describes a society based on the dominance of men and the normalization of heterosexuality.

Heteropatriarchy

Which of the following are causes of the current border crisis?

Historical violence in Central America US intervention in Central America

The Urgency of Intersectionality by Kimberlé Crenshaw

Intersectionality is a way of framing social dynamics so that we can see the ways that multiple categories of oppression affect individuals and communities. For example, intersectionality helped Crenshaw explain that injustices against Black women were not only issues of racism or issues of sexism, but a distinct situation where racism and sexism converge to create a specific kind of oppression.

In her video, Dr. Smooth shared that she has incorporated a focus on geography into her intersectional analysis. What is the category of difference that she is bringing into her work?

Rural/urban

Social model of disability

Society causes disability through ableist attitudes, structures, and systems

Centering marginalized voices is essential to doing feminism in the academy. How do academic feminists do this?

Talking about our experiences Working as collectives toward common goals Celebrating difference Educating ourselves about other's experiences

The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Adichie

Telling single stories erases people, places, experiences, and possibilities. Single stories drain the complexity from our understanding of the world. Power grants the ability to tell stories of others, institutionalize your story as the only story, and create conditions so that more stories cannot be heard.

Borderland

The area surrounding the border line. Borderland cultures are placing of mixing, crossing, and exchange.

Heteronormativity

The assumption that heterosexual behaviors and feelings are normal and natural.

People of color

The best way to talk about groups of non-white people is with the term people of color. If you are talking about a specific racial group like Black, Latino, Asian, or Middle Eastern for example, you should use the specific name of the group.

Decolonial Feminism

The deconstruction of the colonial practices of domination and subjugation. Decolonial feminism analyzes colonialism from the experiences of the marginalized to envision less oppressive, more feminist futures.

The Social Construction of Gender by Judith Lorber

The gender binary is not natural. It's existence and the hierarchy of men over women benefits (white) men over women. We all participate in reproducing the hierarchized gender binary. Our clothes, accessories, behaviors, and interactions with gender roles are all part of doing gender

How did the Combahee River Collective get its name?

The members named themselves after a raid led by Harriet Tubman to free slaves.

Trans person

The most respectful way to talk about people who identify with a gender that is different from the one they were assigned at birth is with the terms trans person/people transgender person/people.

Cisnormativity

The normalization and privileging of cisgender identities

The Combahee River Collective Statement

The origin of Black Feminism is black women's historic struggle for survival and liberation from oppression. -Black women are uniquely oppressed. Gender, race, class, and sexuality work together to create oppressed classes and privileged classes. We must think about many categories of oppression at the same time. Our fights against oppression must seek to liberate us from the system that produces oppressions; they should not seek to earn us privileges that others have within the oppressing system.

Heterosexism

discrimination or prejudice against homosexuals on the assumption that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation

Sara Ahmed says that being a feminist is not about espousing a specific set of beliefs, but about asking questions about how to improve how we live in our unjust world.

True

What are the top reasons why people migrate?

War/violence Environment Better life or job

Feminist Politics: Where We Stand (Bell Hooks)

hooks is pushing back against a strand of pop culture feminism (often called "white feminism" because it usually ignores race issues) in which many people claim feminism without understanding what it is. The struggle to end sexism is central to feminist politics. Feminism isn't feminism if it further oppresses the marginalized.

According to Lydia X. Z. Brown, disability justice says we must reject the myth of independence in favor of ?

interdependence

According to Kimberlé Crenshaw

intersectionality is a way to frame social life to see how systematic oppression affects individuals and communities.

Chicano

originated as a term to refer to politically active Mexican Americans. Now it is often used more widely to refer to any Mexican Americans and other Latin Americans who live in the US. Chicana is the feminine version.

Sex

biological differences (genitalia)

Collins and Bilge say that intersectionality helps us see interconnections by using what kind of a lens?

both/and

Non-binary

reject male and female gender categories

Gender

the ways we present ourselves to the world.

Ideology

A system of ideas and ways of thinking of a group/class or theory/policy

Which author urges us to build new academic knowledge from the experiences of marginalized women?

Adrienne Rich

Genderfluid

A gender identity that describes someone who does not identity with one fixed gender. Genderfluid people may identify differently over time, outside of the binary, or resist identifying as any gender at all.

Agender

A gender identity that describes someone who does not identify as any gender.

Genderqueer

A non-specific gender identity for people who fall outside of the cisgender binary.

Heteropatriarchy

A society (like ours) based on the dominance of men and the normalization of heterosexuality. This requires a hierarchized gender binary and the marginalization of those who do not adhere to prescribed gender and sexual norms.

Mestiza consciousness

Anzaldúa's theoretical concept born out of her experience as a mestiza woman in a borderland culture. Mestiza consciousness resists rigidity and boundaries. It is painful, flexible, inclusive, creative, new, and multicultural. It embraces contradiction, breaks paradigms, joins together, deconstructs, and reconstructs. Mestiza consciousness will lay the foundation for her Anzaldúa's vision of a better world.

How many ways are there to experience transgender identity?

As many ways as there are trans people

Which author argues that we should mobilize difference to empower us and develop new feminist tools to fight oppression?

Audre Lorde

What is Intersectionality by Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge

Intersectionality is a way to understand and analyze our complex world. It lets us see the diverse ways that multiple factors influence our lives. -Inequality is shaped by many axes of social division. -It shows us many operations and domains of power from micro to macro levels. Intersectionality helps us understand inequality and move toward social justice in a feminist way. As a "both/and" lens, intersectionality draws our attention to interconnections. By focusing on power relations, intersectionality helps us to strategize ways out of oppressive circumstance.

The Cult of Virginity by Jessica Valenti

Judging the value of a woman (or any person) by their sexuality or decision to engage or not in certain sexual practices is oppressive. Myths about purity and/or virginity function to maintain systems of gendered, racialized, classed, and sexualized oppressions. What actually defines sex is ambiguous and complicated by non-heterosexual identities, cultural narratives, and diversity in general. Sexuality is racialized. Cultural narratives are constructed through ideas about economics (production and consumption) and social life (class, race, gender, etc).

The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House (Audre Lorde)

Lorde wants feminist spaces to avoid replicating the tools of the patriarchy. Lorde urges feminists to create new tools to combat racism, sexism, homophobia, and the other forms of oppression. She says we must include Third World women, poor women, and lesbians (all marginalized people), in our feminist spaces. Difference can make us powerful. We should not ignore them. It is not the responsibility of the marginalized to educate the privileged. The privileged are responsible for educating themselves.

Diversity model of disability

People have different physical and neurological capabilities

Gender non-conforming

People whose gender identity does not fit neatly into common categories

Medical model of disability

Physical and mental disabilities should be treated and/or cured

List of sexual identities

Presentation 5

Coalition Politics: Turning the Century (Bernice Reagon)

Reagon tells us that doing feminism is supposed to be hard. Feminism requires working collectively, in coalition, and struggling together. Working in coalition means confronting our ignorances, growing together, and confronting ourselves again.

Claiming and Education (Adrienne Rich)

Rich wants us to be ACTIVE learners, not passive receivers of others' knowledge. We are responsible for thinking for ourselves, doing the work, and creating our own critical analyses. Women's experiences must be central to the academy. This will change laws, policy, and the world. Feminist education requires mutual respect and shared commitment to building new knowledge from the experiences of marginalized (Rich would say women, but we can be more inclusive) people.

Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries: Survival, Revolt, and Queer Antagonist Struggle

The radical, queer people of color (QPOC) who led much of the early resistance to gender and sexuality norms are often forgotten by contemporary movements for rights. We must consider gender and sexual oppressions as they intersect with race and class. (The police do not always protect everyone.) The STAR members and other early QPOC organizers defied cultural norms of assimilation into the ways of speaking, dressing, and living that were normal in mainstream society. This resistance is integral to their politics and the beginning of the contemporary LGBTQ+ movements.

Gender expression

The way we express our gender; through behaviors, dress, hair, make-up, the way we talk, and more.

Gender identity

The way we feel about our own gender; how individuals perceive themselves

Not Born this Way: On transitioning as a transwoman who has never felt trapped in the wrong body by Kai Cheng Thom

There is no "single story" of trans experience. Medicalizing trans experiences can be oppressive, even while the medical system also offers some ways toward liberation. Marginalized people's experiences are not transparent. For example, we cannot know how a trans person feels about themselves if they do not decide to tell us.

Compulsory heterosexuality

This means that being heterosexual is the default sexual orientation in our society. We expect people to be straight and may consider non-heterosexual orientations as unnatural, weird, or even deviant.

Marginalization

To relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society

What is an example of a lesson we learn from studying trans histories?

We have to consider gender and sexual oppression as they intersect with race and class. Queer, people of color leaders are often forgotten by contemporary movements.

Sara Ahmed says that "all feminists are students." (quoted in Mehra). This means that... Select one correct answer.

We have to study the world in order to transform it.

There is No Hierarchy of Oppression by Audre Lorde

We should not rank oppressions because the different operations and multiple factors of oppression are interconnected. -Lorde says, "I simply do not believe that one aspect of myself can possibly profit from the oppression of any other part of my identity." We can also say this about our communities! How can one aspect of our community profit from the oppression from any other part of it?

Which characteristics make up Audre Lorde's mythical norm?

White, man, heterosexual, Christian, wealthy

Beauty standards in the US are racialized. What examples illustrate this?

Women of color are encouraged to straighten or relax curly hair. Beauty companies market skin lighteners.

Which author is critical of pop culture or white feminism and argues that feminists must always avoid further oppressing the marginalized in their work to end sexism?

bell hooks

social construction

the dominant way of thinking often becomes so powerful that the majority of people believe that it is the only natural way to be.

mythical norm

white, middle-class, heterosexual, etc.