This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

Readings

Required Books

[Feminist Theory] = Buy at Amazon Kolmar, Wendy K., and Frances Bartkowski. Feminist Theory: A Reader. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. ISBN: 9780073512266.

[Exile and Pride] = Buy at Amazon Clare, Eli. Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780896086050.

[Curious Feminist] = Buy at Amazon Enloe, Cynthia. The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780520243811.

[Theorizing Feminisms] = Buy at Amazon Hackett, Elizabeth and Sally Haslanger. Theorizing Feminisms. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 187-88. ISBN: 9780195150094.

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction to the course No readings
2 What is feminist theory?

[Feminist Theory] pp. 2-54.

[Curious Feminist] Chapters 1-5; pp. 1-10, 69-82.

McIntosh, Peggy. "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." In Working Paper 189. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondence through Work in Women's Studies, 1988. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)

Buy at Amazon Parker, Pat. "For the White Person Who Wants to Know How to Be My Friend." In Making Face, Making Soul. Edited by Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books, 1995. ISBN: 9781879960107.

Buy at Amazon Uttal, Lynet. "Nods That Silence." In Making Face, Making Soul. Edited by Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books, 1995. ISBN: 9781879960107.

Buy at Amazon Lorde, Audre. "I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities." In Making Face, Making Soul. Edited by Gloria Anzaldua. San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books, 1995. ISBN: 9781879960107.
3 Suffrage and equality

[Feminist Theory] pp. 60-90, 93-100, 104-9, 201-210.

Addams, Jane. "Women and Public Housekeeping." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 187-88.

Buy at Amazon Young, Iris M. "Five Faces of Oppression." In Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. pp. 3-15. ISBN: 9780691023151. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
4 Materialist feminism

[Feminist Theory] pp. 90-92, 100-4, 109-22, 126-27, 299-307, 211-14, 230-44. (Engels, Gilman, Emma Goldman, Mother Jones, Kollontai, Eastman, Margaret Sanger, Heidi Hartmann, Charlotte Bunch, Gayle Rubin, "Traffic in Women".)

Buy at Amazon Folbre, Nancy. The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values. New York, The New Press, 2002. Chapters 1-2; pp. 3-52. ISBN: 9781565847477.
5 Feminism and difference

[Feminist Theory] pp. 128-58, 215-21, 260-90, 312-19. (Stella Browne, Joan Riviere, Virginia Woolf, Karen Horney, Margaret Mead, Simone de Beauvoir, Helene Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Nancy Chodorow, Mary Daly, Marilyn Frye, Audre Lorde, Monique Wittig, Carol Gilligan.)

Young, Iris. "Humanism, Gynecentrism, and Feminist Politics." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 174-87.
6 Power and identity

[Feminist Theory] pp. 160-201, 245-48, 388-97. (Betty Friedan, Mary Douglas, NOW, Valerie Solanas, Kate Millett, "Redstockings Manifesto" (1969), Mary Ann Weathers, Anne Koedt, Pauli Murray, Radicalesbians, Older Women's League (OWL.)

MacKinnon, Catherine. "Difference and Dominance." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 244-55.
7 Sexuality and gender identity

[Feminist Theory] pp. 209-97, 327-32, 413-23, 434-42, 502-7, 516-22. (Adrienne Rich, Carole Vance, Catherine MacKinnon, Judith Butler, Judith Halberstam, Anne Fausto-Sterling.)

Rubin, Gayle. "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 527-40.
8 Embodied knowledge

[Exile and Pride] pp. 1-40, 67-138.

Kadi, Joanna. "Stupidity 'Deconstructed'." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 40-50.

[Feminist Theory] pp. 529-40. (Rosemarie Garland-Thomson.)
9 Pornography, rape, and the politics of consent

Stoltenberg, John. "Confronting Pornography as a Civil Rights Issue." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 298-310.

Duggan, Lisa, Nan Hunter, and Carole S. Vance. "False Promises: Feminist Antipornography Legislation in the U.S." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 311-24. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF - 1.2MB)

Marcus, Susan. "Fighting Bodies, Fighting Words: A Theory and Politics of Rape Prevention." In [Theorizing Feminisms] pp. 368-81.

Langton, Rae. "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts." Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993): 293-330. (This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader.PDF)
10 Gender and the welfare system

Fraser, Nancy and Linda Gordon. "A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State." Signs 19, no. 2 (1994): 309-36.

Buy at Amazon Lubiano, Wahneema. "Black Ladies, Welfare Queens, and State Minstrels: Ideological War by Narrative Means." In Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power. Edited by Toni Morrison. New York, NY: Pantheon, 1992, pp. 323-63. ISBN: 9780679741459.

Buy at Amazon Crittenden, Ann. "How Mothers' Work Was 'Disappeared'." and "The Welfare State Versus a Caring State." In The Price of Motherhood. New York: Holt, 2002, pp. 45-64, 186-201. ISBN: 9780805066197.
11 Gender and militarism

[Feminist Theory] pp. 508-15. (Cynthia Enloe)

Buy at Amazon Cohn, Carol. "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals." In Feminist Theory in Practice and Process. Edited by Micheline R. Malson, Jean F. O'Barr, and Sarah Westphal-Wihl, and Mary Wyer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. pp. 107-138. ISBN: 9780226502946.

[Curious Feminist] Chapters 7-10, 13, 15-16, pp. 99-144, 152-54, 193-232.
12 Final presentations No readings
13 Identities and global feminism

[Feminist Theory] pp. 221-25, 319-26, 362-68, 397-401, 407-12, 466-69, 491-98, 533-61. (Fatima Mernissi, Chandra Mohanty, Gloria Anzaldua, Vandana Shiva, Ynestra King, Beijing Platform, Uma Narayan, Saba Mahmood.)

[Curious Feminist] Chapters 2-4, 17, 19, pp. 19-68, 233-36, 268-305.
14 Third wave feminism and wrap-up discussion [Feminist Theory] pp. 442-53, 469-72, 474-90, 499-501, 522-23, 541-45. (Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, Winona LaDuke, Third Wave feminists, Kimberle Crenshaw, Griselda Pollock, Baumgardner and Richards, Joanne Barker.)