Course
description 
The course examines several key philosophical questions on gender, identity, and embodiment. What roles do biology and culture play in our understanding of gender? How does gender interact with other categories of identity? In response to these types of questions we will be looking at a variety of feminist approaches to oppression, sex, gender, and identity. In the latter part of the course we will then be using these approaches to analyse either the structure of the family or markets in women’s sexual labour. Readings include works by de Beauvoir, Irigaray, Butler and others.
Readings
The essential readings for your course are in the Philosophy 213 coursebook.
The resources listed on this Library Course Resources page will help you further explore topics that interest you. Links are through to the Voyager record. Titles are cited according to the Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. You need to be logged on with your Net ID and Net Password to access Library online resources.
Introduction
Oppression
The Question of biology
Embodiment
Intersections of race and class
Who knows? standpoints and epistemology
The Feminine other
Reclaiming the feminine
Postmodern identity
Performative acts of gender
The Role of Postmodernism
The Structure of the family
Pornography and sexual labour
General
Introduction
Recommended
- Foucault, Michel. “Panopticism.” In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Also in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, translated from the French by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Pt. 3.3.
- MacKinnon, Catherine. "Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination." In Feminism and Politics, edited by Anne Phillips, 295-313. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Also available as an e-book in the Library database NetLibrary.
- Young, Iris Marion. "Five Faces of Oppression." In Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology, edited by Ann E. Cudd and Robin O. Andreasen, chap. 8. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
Oppression
Additional reading
- Bartky, Sandra Lee. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. New York: Routledge, 1990.
- Frye, Marilyn. "Oppression." In Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology, edited by Ann E. Cudd and Robin O. Andreasen, chap. 7. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Also in Privilege: A Reader, edited by Michael S. Kimmel and Abby L. Ferber, chap. 1. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2003.
- MacKinnon, Catharine. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987.
- --- . Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.
- Okin, Susan Moller. Justice, Gender and the Family. New York: Basic Books, 1989.
The Question of biology
Recommended
Additional reading
- Fausto-Sterling, Anne. "Dueling Dualisms." Chap. 1 in Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 2000.
- ---. "The Five Sexes, Revisited." Science 40, no. 4.(July.Aug 2000): 18-23. Available online via the Library database Academic Search Premier.
- Fausto-Sterling, Anne Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 2000.
- Rogers, Lesley J. Sexing the Brain. London: Phoenix, 1999.
Embodiment
Recommended
Additional reading
- Diprose, Rosalyn, and Jack Reynolds, eds. Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2008.
- Matthews, Eric. Merleau-Ponty: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum International, 2006.
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception, translated by Colin Smith. London: Routledge, 2003.
- Young, Iris Marion. On Female Body Experience: 'Throwing Like a Girl' and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Oxford Scholarship Online.
- ---. "Pregnant Embodiment." Chap. 3 in On Female Body Experience: 'Throwing Like a Girl' and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Oxford Scholarship Online. Link to Chap. 3.
Intersections of race and class
Recommended
- Alcoff, Linda Martin. "A Phenomenology of Racial Embodiment." In Race, edited by Robert Bernasconi, 267-283. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001.
- Lugones, Maria. "Playfulness, 'World'-Traveling, and Loving Perception." Chap. 4 in Pilgrimages = Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions.Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Additional reading
- Crenshaw, Kimberle. "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex." In Feminist Legal Theory: Readings in Law and Gender, edited by Katherine T. Bartlett and Rosanne Kennedy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.
- Haslanger, Sally. "Gender and Race: What Are They What Do We Want Them To Be?” In Feminist Theory: A Philosophical Anthology, edited by Ann E. Cudd and Robin O. Andreasen, chap. 13. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
- Hooks, Bell. "Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory." In Feminist
Theory From Margin to Center. Boston: South End Press,
1984.
- Meyers, Diana Tietjens. "Intersectional Identity and the Authentic Self? Opposites Attract!" In Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Automony, Agency, and the Social Self, edited by Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Who knows? standpoints and epistemology
Recommended
Additional reading
- Alcoff, Linda Martí. "On Judging Epistemic Credibility: Is Social Identity Relevant?" In Engendering Rationalities, edited by Nancy Tuana and Sandra Morgen, 53-80. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
- Antony, Louise, and Charlotte Witt, eds. A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity. Boulder: Westview, 2002.
- Baier, Annette. Postures of the Mind: Essays on Mind and Morals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Ebrary.
- ---. "Trust and Antitrust." Ethics 96, no. 2 (1986): 231-260. Available online via the Library database JSTOR.
- Bar-on, Bat Ami. "Marginality and Epistemic Privilege." In Feminist Epistemologies, edited and with an introduction by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter. New York: Routledge, 1993.
- Code, Lorraine. What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and Construction of Knowledge. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.
The Feminine other
Recommended
- Beauvoir, Simone de. "Introduction." and "Childhood." In The Second
Sex, translated and edited by H.M. Parshley. New York: Bantam
Books. Also in The Continental Philosophy Reader, edited by Richard Kearney and Mara Rainwater, xii-xxix, 674-89. London: Routledge, 1996.
- Rubin, Gayle. "The Traffic in Women: Notes on the 'Political Economy' of Sex." In Feminist Theory: A Reader, edited by Wendy K. Kolmar, and Frances Bartkowski, chap. 26. 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2005.
Additional reading
Reclaiming the feminine
Recommended
Additional reading
- Moody-Adams, Michelle. "Gender and the Complexity of Moral Voices." In Feminist Ethics, edited by Claudia Card. Kansas City: University of Kansas Press, 1991.
Postmodern identity
Recommended
- Irigaray, Luce. "Sexual Difference." In The Irigaray Reader, edited by Margaret Whitford. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1991.
- ---. This Sex Which is Not One, translated by Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke. Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1985.
Additional reading
Performative acts of gender
Recommended
Additional reading
The Role of postmodernism
Recommended
- Benhabib, Seyla. "Feminism and the Question of Postmodernism." In The Blackwell Reader in Contemporary Social Theory, edited by Anthony Elliott. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999.
- Fraser, Nancy. "False Antitheses." In Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange, Seyla Benhabib, and others. New York: Routledge, 1995.
- Hooks, Bell. "Postmodern Blackness." In Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader, edited by Elizabeth Hackett and Sally Haslanger. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Additional reading
The Structure of the family
Recommended
- Anderson, Elizabeth. "Is Women’s Labor a Commodity?" In Ethics in Practice: An Anthology, edited by Hugh LaFollette.3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
- Chodorow, Nancy. "Gender Personality and The Reproduction of Mothering." and "Afterword." In The Blackwell Reader in Contemporary Social Theory, edited by Anthony Elliott, chap. 19. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999.
- Firestone, Shulamith. "The Ultimate Revolution: Demands and Speculations." Chap. 10 in The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. London: Women’s Press, 1979.
Pornography and sexual labour
Recommended
- Bright, Susie. "The Prime of Miss Kitty MacKinnon." In Susie Bright’s Sexwise: America’s favorite X-rated Intellectual does Dan Quayle, Catherine MacKinnon, Stephen King, Camille Paglia, Nicholson Baker ..." Pittsburg, Pa.: Cleis Press, 1995.
- Dworkin, Andrea. "Pornography." In The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader, edited by Amelia Jones, chap. 44. London: Routledge, 2002.
- Langton, Rae. "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts." Chap. 1 in Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
- Satz, Debra. "Markets in Women’s Sexual Labor." In Prostitution and Pornography: Philosophical Debate About the Sex Industry, edited by Jessica Spector. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006.
General
Additional reading
Reference books
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Reference books are a good place to start researching a topic because the information is brief and written by experts.
Dictionaries and encyclopedias help you define your topic
and identify keywords to use when you are searching
databases.
Articles in encyclopedias provide an overview of a topic.
Many reference books are available online. See the databases segment for reference databases.
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Philosophy
- Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Oxford Reference Online.
- Borchert, Donald M. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2nd ed. Detroit, Mich.: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006. Also available as an e-book via the Library database Gale Virtual Reference Library.
- Flew, Antony, and Stephen Priest, eds. A Dictionary of Philosophy. Aylesbury: Market House Books, 2002. Available as an e-book via the Library database Credo Reference.
Databases
Writing Essays in Philosophy
- Feinberg, Joel. Doing Philosophy: A Guide to the Writing of Philosophy Papers. 3rd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2005.
- Vaughn, Lewis. Writing Philosophy: A Student’s Guide to Writing Philosophy Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
- Graybosch, Anthony J., Gregory M. Scott, and Stephen M. Garrison. The Philosophy Student Writer’s Manual. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003.
Check the Student Learning Centre website Referencite for help with referencing.
Consult the 15th edition of the Chicago
Manual of Style if you are using either of the Chicago styles. Also available online. |