"The Feminist Standpoint", Nancy C.M. Hartsock

• In capitalism, women produce both production for wages and production of goods in the home
• Marxist view limited, can't understand how women could sell labor power, produce commodities and surplus and also produce use value in home
• Women work "double hours" compared to men, larger portion of time devoted to use value, greater degree of repetition (?) i.e. housecleaning or subsistence activities
• "women's work" often depends on interpersonal skills similar to mothering (production of humans)
• girls, because of female parenting, learn concrete relation to role. Boys relate to absent ideal.
  

25. One is Not Born a Woman, Monique Wittig

• Matriarchy is no less heterosexual than patriarchy
• capacity to give birth is what defines a woman?
• to naturalize history ("women create civilization, men are hunters and aggressors") assumes "natural" division between men and women, naturalize the subsequent oppression
  

24. Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm, Anne Koedt

• Freud, father of the vaginal orgasm, decided clitoral orgasm was adolescent, women should mature to vaginal orgasm upon puberty. Freud's patronizing/ fearful attitude towards women; psychoanalsis resigns them to the limits of their sexuality
• "frigidity" attributed to women's inability to adjust to her natural role; anti-male phenomenon
• severest damage not done in "corrective" surgery but mentally, self-blame
• clitoris is the equivalent of the penis, erectile tissue, purpose is sexual pleasure
• vagina's functions are reproductive, tissue is similar to digestive tract
• women who claim vaginal orgasm my be confused as to the center of the orgasm, or else "faking it"
• men fear the clitoris as a threat to masculinity, fear becoming sexually expendible if clitoris sub'd for vagina as center of pleasure
• 
  

Section 2, Race and Nation, Molyneux

"Mobilization Without Emancipation? Women's Interests, the State, and Revolution in Nicaragua", Maxine Molyneux

• Women's participation in the fall of the Nicaraguan dictator, Anastasio Somoza, was seen as part of a unified effort against repression and brutality that transcended class, age or gender, however, a universalizing of goals should not mean the loss of specific identities of the revolutionary subjects
  
• Although at a higher level woman may have some interests in common, there is not consensus over what these issues are, and no casual explanation for women's subordination
  

Section 2, Race and Nation, Lim

"Capitalism, Imperialism and Patriarchy: The Dilemma of Third World Women Workers in Multinational Factories", Linda Y.C. Lim

• Western manufacturers have relocated plants to developing countries in response to competition from Japan and Asia, the crucial factor being the cost of production
• Patriarchal and Imperialist exploitation: patriarchal society structures itself so that opportunities are divided, women relegated to a narrower range of inferior positions. Multinational and local employers take advantage of this by employing them at lower wages and poorer working conditions than the men of their country, and women of more developed countries
  

Section 2, Race and Nation, Hartmann

"The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union", Heidi Hartmann

• efforts to marry Marxism and Feminism have seen Marxism subsume Feminism into the larger struggle against Capitalism, thus, do we need a healthier marriage or a divorce?
• the Woman Question (not the "feminist question"; Marxist analysis not of the relationship of women to men but of women to the economic system
• Radical Feminism has taken up the slogan, "the Personal is Political", contributing insights into the present, and yet its shortcomings are in organizing the genders into male and female traits based on contemporary observations, history disagrees with the assertion that aesthetic modes are female (ancient Greece)
  

Section 2, Race and Nation, Dutt

"Some Reflections on US Women of Color and the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women and NGO Forum in Beijing, China", Mallika Dutt

• Women of color discovered a sense of global pride, solidarity and affirmation in Beijing, the sense of siege in the US that pervades immigrants, welfare recipients, lesbians and communities of color was replaced by a connection with global "victim's" powerful voice for change
• a central theme at the forum was the adverse impact on women of the globalization of the economy
• women of color today seem more interested in organizing within their communities than across color lines, so efforts have been made to bring together the different communities
  

Section 2, Race and Nation, Helie-Lucas

"The Preferential Symbol for Islamic Identity: Women in Muslim Personal Laws", Marie-Aimee Helie-Lucas

• "Islam as it should be, Muslims as they are"; using "Muslim" to describe social reality and "Islam" as the theological interpretation of the Quran
• Women are feared as weak points in the construction of Identity as potential allies of the enemy; from fundamentalists at a political level they risk accusations of betrayal, at a cultural level traditions are considered immutable, at a religious level the interpretation of the Quran confines women to a certain model, and at a legal level there is the emphasis on personal laws as means to defend identity (determining what a Muslim woman's behavior should be)
  
• fundamentalists see identity within 3 spheres: as threatened, as a process of "going back", and as confined to the private, to be guardians of identity is considered an honor
• Muslim fundamentalism has connections with Nazi Germany in that the ideal of mother and family is linked to producing the best possible offspring for means of expansionism
  

Section 2, Race and Nation, Anzaldua

"La Conciencia De La Mestiza: Towards New Consciousness", Gloria Anzaldua

1. A Struggle of Borders; the counterstance is limited by what it is reacting against, to move beyond one must stand on both shore or proceed to a new land
   
2. A Tolerance for Ambiguity; la mestiza learns to juggle cultures, to operate in pluralistic mode, with the possibility of uniting all the separate parts under a new consciousness
   
3. The Crossroads; as a product of crossbreeding, the mestiza has no homeland and yet all countries are hers, is cultureless and the creator of culture
   

Section 2, Race and Nation, Yamada

"Invisibility Is An Unnatural Disaster: Reflections Of An Asian American Woman", Mitsuye Yamada

• " it made me angry, their anger made me angry because I didn't even know Asian-Americans felt oppressed. I didn't expect their anger" explained Yamada's student
• Asian-Americans are finally beginning to demand they be included in the multicultural history of the US
• why did it take so long for Asian-American women? because they are just beginning to admit to themselves that they have been oppressed
• the passivity of resistance has contributed to further stereotyping
  

Section 2, Race and Nation, Combahee River

"A Black Feminist Statement", The Combahee River Collective

1. The Genesis of Contemporary Black Feminism; though black women have always embodied adversary to white male rule, the black feminist presence evolved in connection with the women's movement of the late 1960's but obscured by rascism, and tied to movements for black liberation
2. What We Believe; black women are inherently valuable, her need for liberation is the need of human persons for autonomy, sexism is linked to politics of race and class under a patriarchal system, we do not advocate fractionalization and reject lesbian separatism because of the necessity of solidarity around race, we are socialists because we realize the liberation of the oppressed will mean the destruction of the existing political-economic systems of capitalism and imperialism, the personal is political
   
3. Problems in Organizing Black Feminists; oppression is being fought on a whole variety of fronts without access to resources, making it difficult to convince women to upset the gender arrangement that provides some source of economic stability
4. Black Feminist Issues and Practice; an issue of concern is rascism in the white women's movement
   

Section 1, Movements, Stetz

"Wartime Sexual Violence Against Women: A Feminist Response", Margeret D. Stetz

• In the history of wartime rape, systematic sexual violence by military forces has often been disguised as "prostitution"
• what differences has the feminist movements work to expose these abuses made? shared Asian and Western perspectives have allowed for its discussion, victims themselves are able to take the stage to share their stories, feminist pressure has resulted in legally charging rape as a war crime with hope for prosecution and punishment
  
• the work of these feminists include both male and female thinkers
  
• although there has always been violence against women during war, feminists distinguish that there is nothing normal or justifiable about it, that the uncontrollable/unavoidable male drive as unrestrained by culture is a myth
• "rape is not an aggressive manifestation of sexuality, but rather a sexual manifestation of aggression"
  

Section 1, Movements, Corcoran-Nantes

"Female Consciousness or Feminist Consciousness?: Women's Conscious raising in Community Based Struggles in Brazil", Yvonne Corcoran-Nantes

Gender: the missing link in analyses of popular social movements:

• Explanation of women's roles in politics in Brazil have followed two camps; female participation under feminism or matrifocal analysis of women's relation to reproduction of the labor force
• within politics women's departments are formed to tackle women's issues, however this removes gender issues from mainstream politics

Political Practice--the development of political consciousness and solidarity

• In three movements around Sao Paolo, the Favela Movement to secure land titles, the Health Movement to improve medical services, and the Unemployed Movement to solve unemployment and demand benefits all had women as their primary participants
  

Section 1, Movements, Sturgeon

"Ecofeminist Appropriations and Transnational Environmentalists", Noel Sturgeon
Ecofeminists who portray women as in their essence closer to nature have been rigorously criticized

Indigenous Women as the Ultimate Ecofeminists:
"Essentialism is the practice of making generalized claims about a group based on notions of an essential inherent similarity" (Sturgeon 114)
Third world women become symbols for the environmental protection by white ecofeminists, w/o regard for their own lives or choices

Ecofeminism and Critiques of Essentialist Discourse
US ecofeminism is based on Western, patriarchal society's denigration of nature and women, and its consequences

Section 1, Movements, Mikell

"African Feminism, Toward a New Politics of Representation", Gwendolyn Mikell

• issue of hegemony, hostility to males by western feminism
• African's women's movement is continuum that doesn't align with western Feminist continuum
• dichotomy, educated seen as more theoretically advanced, rural women more parochial and pre-feminist
• consensus in African feminism of tackling multiple oppressions by dealing with women as human beings rather than sexual
• pragmatics of women's politics shaping African's women's movements:
  

Women participation in independence from colonialism only rewarded with increased male suppression. 1990's crisis/transition points have allowed disjuncture between sociocluture and modern politics to become visible, has encouraged women to pursue feminist politics.

Section 1, Movements, Correa and Petchesky

"Reproductive and Sexual Rights", Sonia Correa and Rosalind Petchesky
The idea that a woman must be able to decide whether, when and how to have children developed as early as the 1830's, both the defensive (to deny unwanted sex) and affirmative (the need for control to obtain one's own knowledge and satisfaction) organized under principles of equality, personhood and bodily integrity. Women's health movements linked women's right to decide to "the social, economic and political conditions that make such decisions possible".

• Rights discourse, rethinking rights as individual and social
  

The classic model has been transformed to emphasize the social over the individual, shifting duties to public agencies, to acknowledge communal contexts in which individuals exercise rights, to prove human needs and resources substantial rights, to recognize self defined multiple identities
By prying open "citadel of privacy" feminists challenge clams of "traditions" and "local cultures".
The social model does not assume decisions are "choices" or made in a vacuum. How do feminists critique the choices available to women and the denigrating decisions they make? Recognizing free v. compelled and providing for presence of enabling conditions by placing pressure on the state. Rights involve not only personal liberties but social entitlements.

• The ethical content of reproductive and sexual rights

Section 1, Movements, Bunch

"Lesbians in Revolt", Charlotte Bunch
Lesbianism is a political choice

• the lesbian is a woman-identified-woman who commits herself to other women for political/ emotional/ physical/economic support
• lesbianism is a political choice because all relationships between men and women are political; since the lesbian defies this relationship of power and dominance she defies the established political system

Lesbianism by itself is not enough

• the lesbian who escapes male dominance in private receives it doubly in public, as this is a society that hates women who love women
• lesbians must become feminists and fight vs male oppression, just as feminists must become lesbians to end male supremacy

Sexism is the root of all oppression

• original imperialism was male over female
• class, race and nation are man made divisions which serve white male interests, are handed down by them, and have no place in a woman identified revolution

Lesbianism is the basic threat to male supremacy

• the rejection of heterosexual sex challenges male domination in its most individual and common form
• Heterosexual society divides women and forces them to compete
• the lesbian rejects the division of labor in which women work for men at home (unpaid labor) and/or take up dissatisfying passive/ part-time work

Lesbians must form their own movements to fight male supremacy

• those who remain tied to men individually or politically cannot be trusted in their allegiance to other women, because the nature of heterosexuality is men first
  

• 
  

Section 1, Movements, "Miss America"

"No More Miss America!"
We Protest:

1. Degrading Mindless Boob Girlie Symbol
2. Rascism with Roses
3. Miss America as a Military Death mascot
4. The Consumer Can Game
5. Competition Rigged and Un-Rigged
6. Woman as Pop Culture Obsolescent Theme
7. Unbeatable Madonna-Whore combination
8. Irrelevant Crown on the Throne of Mediocrity
9. Miss America as Dream Equivalent to-?
10. Miss America as Big Sister Watching You
    

Section 1, Definitions, Basu

"Globalization of the Local/ Localization of the Global: Mapping Transnational Women's Movements", Amrita Basu
International feminism has been marked by two decades. the first, from 1975-1985 saw a strong division along north-south lines, with the north reaching for transnational alliances and the south looking to correct local issues such as fuel and employment. The second decade, from 1985-1995 , brought the two sides together, under the need to affirm the human rights of women, shifting beyond single-issue politics to reach out globally. In the US the most important critiques of feminism have come from African American and Latina women. In 1995 the Cairo conference was attended by conservative Islamic and Christian groups. The growth of the religious right has actually reduced north-south tensions. The ability of these vastly different groups, Muslim, Protestant and Catholic, to reach agreements on issues of abortion, homosexuality and motherhood have inspired feminists to do the same.
Recently certain discourses have acquired great importance, particularly the violation of women's rights a a human rights abuse. This was recognized in the UN declaration on the elimination of violence against women, which defined "gender violence to include violence against women in the public and private sphere". Transnational women's groups have become extremely diverse in their membership, and have attracted a variety of funding from outside sources, allowing for the address of certain problems more effectively at the transnational level, as opposed to the local (where groups may be facing strong repression). Campaigns against religious fundamentalism have employed global tactics, but also sponsor local events, bringing the issue closer to home. Individual narratives of the victims of sexual violence also encourage personal identification and invite activism.
Transnational linkage is most effective when asserting women's civil and political rights rather than economic, and when the transnational association's primary purpose is not to provide funding, which creates the possibility of dependence and resentment. There is a danger in both crediting and critiquing women's networks too strongly.
That said, women make up 70% of the world's 1.3 billion living in poverty and 2/3 of the illiterate.

Section 1, Definitions, Delphy

"Rethinking Sex and Gender", Christine Delphy
Margeret Mead's critique about the masculine and feminine "temperaments" led to analysis of the different roles men and women play in regard to their status. As status came to mean occupation, temperament was "denaturalised" and became arbitrary, under the assumption that social "role" is not simply psychological characteristics, but also the work associated with status, subject to the division of labor. "Sex Roles" were further defined by the introduction of "gender" in the 1970's, in which sex came to mean biological differences and gender referred to social classification of masculine and feminine.

The introduction of "gender" meant:

1. All differences social and arbitrary between genders were gathered under one concept
2. "Gender" as opposed to "genders" drew attention to the partition rather than the parts
3. The idea of hierarchy was inherent

If gender is the content and sex is the container, then it's logical that the content may vary but the container will remain the same, due to it being a part of nature. Can gender be independent of sex? Why does sex come first chronologically? It's asserted that humans have a universal need to classify, based on physical traits, apart from social organizations. However, why is sex more prominent than other physical traits?
Derrida's thesis is that things can only be distinguished from other things by their opposing traits. Often these differences are multiple and not hierarchal. So when we connect gender and sex, are we connecting something social with something natural, the author asks, or something social with something that is also social (the way a society represents biology to itself)?

Section 1, Definitions, hooks

"Feminism: A Movement To End Sexist Oppression", bell hooks
"There are as many definitions of feminism as there are feminists"

Which men do women want to be equal to?

• non-whites know that men in their groups don't have social, political or economic power, why would they want to share their status?
• male chauvinism among their peers stems from the male's sense of himself as powerless in relation to the ruling male
• feminism defined as social equality primarily affects white women in mid and upper classes

Feminism "is a commitment to reorganizing society so that self-development can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion and material desires"

• as a struggle to end sexist oppression it is also a struggle to end the idea of domination
• women should be encourage d to develop a sense of political reality, personal as well as society and global
• race and class issues should be recognized within feminism with as much importance as sexism as means of oppression
• "man as the enemy" pits individual vs individual and obscures the social basis of exploitation
• the aim of feminism is not to privilege women over men or benefit a particular race or class

The "Feminist Community" is inherently flawed

• Alternative feminist lifestyles appeal to a certain race and class that can afford the luxury of such
• "Safe" supportive" communities fo women have been organized w/o questioning the masses whether it would be beneficial. Many non-whites find themselves already within strong communities

Either/ Or thinking

• to say "I am a Feminist" is to emphasize a lifestyle or identity, to say "I advocate feminism" is to imply a commitment w/o the assumption that other political or social commitments have been negated
• Non-whites need to contribute to the develop of feminist theory as a means of setting long range goals, developing perspective on the world and eradicating the prevailing set of assumptions emphasizing "equality" issues: discrimination, male attitudes and legalistic reforms. Colorful life stories and "experiential" work is not enough
  

Section 1, Definitions, Kreps

"Radical Feminism 1", Bonnie Kreps
How, and by whom, is Otherness defined?

• One is born male or female, but becomes a man or woman based on hereditary or environmental characteristics or certain potentials that are developed
• Women's social environment puts enormous pressure on her to submit to male dominance, to be without a man is a disgrace, from an early age she is taught that to please she must try to please, marriage and motherhood fulfill her nature
• the philosophy that each of us has an essential core, which is our potential and personality, and persists as our body's drive for health does. Thus when stunted sickness results.
• the traditional view of the feminine Mystique is to men's advantage, the more the woman resigns herself to her position, the more she stunts her growth. Thus the success of the slave system, which convinced slaves they were fit for nothing but bondage.

The liberation of women must be collective

• no token integration of relieving symptoms without getting at causes
• only economic liberty can guarantee civil liberty
• women must have the right to decide over their own bodies

Radical Feminism

• no characteristics, roles described to any human being on the basis of sex
• fight corrupt notion of "love" based on control of another (institution of marriage)
• "separate but equal" leads nowhere (maleness v. femaleness notion)
  

Section 1, Definitions, Martinez

"La Chicana", Elizabeth Martinez
La Chicana is under the thumb of three forms of oppression, racism, imperialism and sexism. Her life pattern follows that of many of her third world sisters in the US, stunted education, work in the fields, multiple pregnancies and economic pressures forcing the man to leave the family. Tensions between the man and the woman increase when she is able to find work and he is not, or else the family does not qualify for assistance with a man in the home. Despite her difficult life she is expected to maintain prejudices imposed by sexism. She is viewed as a sexual object, and, depending on her class, her femininity is turned into consumerism.
There is a variety of positions held by Chicanas concerning their roles:

• they should not challenge the status quo
• they can make important contributions without raising a fuss
• they must fight sexism but in isolated positions
• they should struggle against sexism but in the context of the people's struggle as a whole

Women will not win their liberation struggle unless they work with men. The sexist attitude of "machismo" is keeping men down just as effectively, allowing for manipulation by the oppressor. The Chicana doesn't identify with women's lib in the US, because of its domination by the middle class and its rejection of the family structure. Traditionally, the Chicana is a worker and a fighter, with the family being a source of unity. A return to these traditional vales in La Raza women would inspire a revolutionary nationalism. Sexism is just one head to a three headed beast.

Section 1, Definitions

"The Second Sex, an Introduction", Simone de Beauvoir
What is a woman?

• Every female is not necessarily a woman
• If man represents both positive and neutral, woman is negative. Woman is the peculiar, she defines herself in relation to him and is never autonomous, she is essentially a sexual being, she is the Other.
• Woman has never formed a separate collective unit, as races and classes have., Women have not thought of themselves as "We" and thus have gained only what men have been willing to grant
• Women lack concrete means for organizing themselves, with no past, no history, no religion of their own, and are attached to men more firmly than to other women. She is united to him by a reciprocal need that is biological.
• Woman has always been man's dependent, the relationship is similar to master-slave. The need is equally urgent for both, but works in favor of the oppressor.
• To decline to be the Other for women would be to renounce the benefits of that position, material support and the moral justification of her existence provided by the man, in exchange for complicity, becoming the creature of another's will.

How did this idea of Woman begin?

• "equality in difference" like "separate but equal" results in extreme discrimination, the dominant class establishing the standards of the "truly feminine" as submissive. The vicious circle involves keeping the individual in an inferior position and thus basing the argument of inferiority on that position she holds
• A man may prove his virility by being arrogant, aggressive or scornful towards women, women are also considered competition
  
• A husband in cooperation with his wife maintains a theme of abstract equality, but when in conflict with her will use the perceived inequality (observed points of inferiority) as a means of denying the tenuous idea of equality. This leads to the man's argument that women are equals and have nothing to fight for, while at the same time believing women could never be equals to men

Whom should we survey on the equality of the sexes?

• The UN persistently maintains that the equality of sexes is becoming a reality, some women no longer find their femininity a hindrance, and many problems appear to be more pressing to women than those that concern her particularly
• "Happy" is not synonymous with "complacent" 'the drama of women lies between the fundamental aspirations of every subject-who always regards the self as essential-and the compulsions of a situation in which she is inessential' (Beauvoir 39)
  

Section 1, Definitions

1. Inji Aflatum, 'We Egyptian Women"
The enemy of women is the enemy of democracy, in his quest to keep political rights from her. What are the arguments for keeping women out of politics in Egypt?

• They are an isolated part of society, thus their participation in politics is unnecessary. Yet, women are confronted everyday with the internal and external needs of the people; clothing, food, children, housing, health, etc
• Participation in political life would lead to her degeneration and the neglect of her home and family. Women, however, participate in politics in most countries of the world w/o neglect to the home. If suffrage kept a woman from her home, wouldn't it also disrupt men's careers? The combination of job and home life has already been proved successful by women. In much the same way that men who take public office delegate their responsibilities in their field to others, so the woman would entrust her tasks at home to other members of the family.

• Egyptian women are ignorant. People should not have to wait for suffrage until they are educated. When the 1923 constitution was signed, the illiteracy rate was higher among the people than its current rate among women is now. some feminists argue for suffrage to only the educated, men and women. However, to limit political rights to a minority would bring about the destruction of democratic government. The people who would deny these rights should instead work to spread education among the illiterate.

Denying women suffrage is in clear violation of the UN Charter, Declaration of Human Rights, it is a mark on the reputation of Egypt.