women’s studies 100  

women, culture, politics, &  society , spring 2004  

Dr. Lori Askeland  /  HH 123 /  Off.Hrs: 10-11:30 MTThF  + appt  

course description

 “Women, Culture, Politics, and Society” is an introductory Women’s Studies course.  Participants in this course will bring differing levels of experience, interests, and talents, which this course will seek to recognize and value as a strength.  Together, we’ll seek to develop an understanding of the complex experiences of women from a variety of backgrounds.  We will do this, in part, because one premise of Women's Studies is that a focus on women's lives can help us to create new frameworks for exploring gender, frameworks that help us more accurately describe and understand the amazing variety of lived experiences of all people on this planet.  While we will primarily be looking at the lives and experiences of women in the United States, we will also examine the way individual lives are inevitably intertwined with global issues and questions. Thus, as a class we will think critically about the influence of historical events, race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, ability, colonialism and technology on women's lives.  In doing so, we will read texts that utilize the research methods of traditional fields (history, psychology, sociology, literature), and their attendant theories, but also work to invoke the creative challenge that Women’s Studies offers to traditional, academic ways of knowing social and cultural life.  In particular, since the women’s rights movement arose first out of the abolitionist movement of the 19^th century, and Women’s Studies itself emerged out of the civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s, Women’s Studies insists as a discipline on an intense and necessary relationship between theory and practice.  Thus, beyond the normal academic work, a midterm exam and a final project, this course will require all students to participate in some form of gender-related activism which will form part of your second major paper.  This course is writing intensive.   

texts

 Atwood, Margaret.  The Handmaid's Tale.  1986.  New York: Anchor, 1998. (0-385-49081-x).  Abbrev: HT

 Jacobs, Harriet.  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.  1860.  New York: Dover, 1998.  Abbrev: Jacobs

 Minas, Anne.  Gender Basics: Feminist Perspectives on Women and Men.  2nd ed.   Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson, 2000. GB

  . . . & many e-res articles, websites, and handouts.   

course assignments/assessment

 reading responses / quizzes / in-class work      10%       expect a quiz or brief writing (1-2 pp) on each reading §

essay 1                                                                    15%       due  week   4

midterm                                                                 15%       March 2^nd  

essay 2                                                             15%      due  week  12

group research project / presentation                20%       last four weeks of class

final exam                                                             15%       as   scheduled (see master schedule)

attendance / participation  / maturity                10% *             always!

  *Any absence for ANY reason has the potential to interfere with learning, especially if you fail to Practice Mature Communication. See attached “Attendance, Pariticpation, Maturity” handout for more information.   I reserve the right to fail any student for too many absences—whether excused or unexcused.  More than 4 absences=“too many.”   FYI: That number—4—includes  excuses for university-related events, athletics, music, theatre, etc.  

§ For extra credit, which will be applied to your quiz grade, you may attend a total of TWO on-campus events and write a brief response (1 page) that quickly summarizes the event AND --this is important!--connects what you experienced to our course in a SPECIFIC way. (If you could have written the response without being in this class, it will NOT count!)

cardinal rule:     Practice Mature Communication.

     I  sincerely want you to communicate during difficult times.  But, when you do, work to show me that you care more about learning than about grades.       1) take responsibility for any missed information before returning to class by contacting a classmate, not by asking me for a special private lecture.                2)  avoid whining               and              3) make  no attempt to make me (or anyone/thing else, up to and including ‘acts of God,’) more responsible for your choices than you are.  

always read the fine print: rules for papers, etc.

 1)       All papers are due at the beginning of class on the due date, unless specified otherwise.  If you arrive late or do not come to class at all on that date, hoping to turn it in after class, the paper is automatically considered one full day late—even if I find it in my mailbox after class.   The day ends whenever I happen to leave or cease to check my mailbox for the day.  Any excuse must be unforeseeable and fully documentable—including funerals.  Illnesses must be very serious indeed to avoid penalty.  Colds, for example, are just bad luck; plan ahead. 

2)       Quizzes and in-class activities that are worth  points cannot be made up, regardless of excuse.  Each student is allowed one dropped quiz. 

3)       Papers lose 10% the first day they are late and 5% each day thereafter.* (So, if you show up 20  minutes late for class and turn in a paper that should have received an 88%, it will receive a 78%.  If  I find it in my mailbox the next day, it can receive no higher than 73%.)   * including each weekend date, no, you may not hand in papers on Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays. In an emergency, practice mature communication, as soon as possible.

4)       Please do not slide papers under my office door.  They may lie crumpled behind my door for weeks, and will no doubt receive a failing grade.

5)       All papers must be written according to MLA style: typed in a normal font (10-12 pt Times New Roman or equivalent), with normal 1” margins on all sides.  Your last name and the page number should appear on the top right hand corner of each page.   (There’s a link to the homepage explaining how to do that in MSWord).

6)       To receive a passing grade, all papers MUST quote from relevant texts, analyze the quotations, and use parenthetical citations and include a complete works cited list.  Papers that do not have a works list will fail, even if the only works that are cited are texts from this class.

7)       If  I have collected and commented on drafts of the paper, keep the draft and turn it in with the final version of the paper.

8)       You cannot pass this course if any major assignment is not completed, even if it is so late that it will receive a failing grade.

9)       FINAL ADVICE: In the long run it will be better for you to lose a few points with grace than to bother me with a continuous stream of excuses.  If given the choice between accepting the penalty for lateness or absence, even if it strikes you as unfair, or whining for a break or an exception, please choose the former tactic.   I bore of guilt trips, and remember them when I’m calculating end-of-term grades.  Practice mature communication.

academic integrity @ wittenberg.edu

All work completed in this course, including all drafts, must comply to the code of academic integrity, to the best of a student’s ability.  All major work must be signed, indicating support for the Wittenberg honor statement:

“I affirm that my work upholds the highest standards of honesty and academic integrity at Wittenberg,

and that I have neither given nor received unauthorized assistance.”

All students in this course are expected to read and understand the Code of Academic Integrity at

http://www4.wittenberg.edu/academicintegrity/CodeOfAcademicIntegrity01152003.pdf

as well as the document “Plagiarism: What It Is & How to Recognize & Avoid It” http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml

which identifies and explains the various forms of plagiarism.

If at any time you have questions about your use of a particular source

or how to cite it appropriately, please ask me.

on learning disabilities and differing learning styles:

I am happy to discuss learning strategies and styles with any student in this class. Wittenberg University is, additionally,

committed to providing reasonable accommodations for eligible students with disabilities. 

If you are eligible for course accommodation due to a disability, please provide me with your self-identification letter from the academic services office, 208 Recitation Hall, so that we may discuss your learning needs.

The will to change begins in the body not in the mind

My politics is in my body, accruing and expanding with every

act of resistance and each of my failures

Locked in the closet at 4 years old I beat the wall with my body

that act is in me still

—Adrienne  Rich, “Afterword.”

 tentative* syllabus

 *I believe in trying to make each course that I teach, even if I have taught it before, “new” and also responsive to the needs of the particular class of students I’m teaching that term, AND even to events and opportunities that may arise as the semester progresses.  Hence, although I have attempted to accurately gauge the time needed for each of the readings we will being doing, some of them I have not taught before, and we may need to spend more or less time on any particular one.  Often, I seek student input on how to proceed.  Other, unforeseen opportunities and events may also disrupt this schedule.  I will generally communicate any changes both in class and via email (and/or posted on the online syllabus).  Your attendance is vital to help make decisions about the directions we may choose to go as a class, and to keep track of changes in the syllabus

 week                                       tentative* assignment

 1         Jan 12-17         Introduction to the course, each other, the syllabus and the burning question:

 Is Women’s Studies Just A Continuing, One-Sided “Battle of the Sexes” Game?” 

 Read for Weds class: The syllabus and all ancillary materials, including:

¤        “Plagiarism: What It Is & How to Recognize & Avoid It” http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml

¤                  Also read for Weds: Minas’s “Introduction” (GB 1-8).  Note, especially, her definition of “feminism.”  What does “feminism” mean to you?  What does “women’s studies” mean?

¤                  Expect a quiz over the syllabus and the first reading.

For Friday:

¤                Frye, “Oppression” (GB 10-16)

¤                Kaufman, “Men, Feminism, and Men’s Contradictory Experiences of Power (GB 23-30)

2         Jan 19-23                     Oppression & Gender: Definitions, Anger, and Privilege

For Monday:  MLK, Jr. Day.  Note: Convocation Schedule Change!  NO CLASS.

 Required: Attend Pastor Graetz’s talk at 11:00

¤         Required: Attend Pastor Graetz's talk at 11:00 and, in class, plan to write a brief comparative response to his talk and one of today’s readings  (McIntosh, Lorde)

¤                Lorde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism” (GB 39-45)

¤                McIntosh, “White Privilege and Male Privilege” (GB 30-39)

¤         US Census Bureau report on poverty rates, 2001 (http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032002/pov/new01_001.htm )

 Wednesday:   In-class writing, discussion of Graetz, Lorde, McIntosh.  START READING JACOBS!

 Friday: Continued discussion.  (Keep reading Jacobs!)

Week

3          Jan 25-28    Women and American History:  Harriet Jacobs and the Intersection of Race, Class and Gender in the 19^th Century, laws and culture

Monday:  

¤     Read all of Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by class time!

As you read:

1)       Look for connections to our readings thus far.  Think especially about how race, gender, and social class play out in this book, particularly in Harriet Jacobs’/“Linda Brent’s” life.  (By the way: it is NOT a novel; it is a “slave narrative.”  Novels are fictional; by contrast, this book is, essentially, Jacobs’s incredible life story, as scholars have exhaustively demonstrated.) 

·         How does gender, in particular, affect Jacobs’ experience of, and understanding of, slavery?  Find—and mark in your text!—passages  that seem important to explaining the gender-related  concerns that Jacobs brings up relating to slavery.

·         Beyond being a black woman, how does Jacobs’ specific racial status—as a light-skinned African American woman—seem to affect her experience  both in slavery and in her life after slavery? 

·         Notice that Jacobs’ family is not as poor as some white families (and is better off than most black families of the time), although their legal status is uncertain.  Pay attention to the family’s place in the community. How does the community view them, and where does that status seem to come from?  How does this class distinction play out in Jacobs’ life—what (small) privileges does it give her and her family, and why?  What does her family have to do to maintain those privileges? 

2)       Think about the 19^th-century (“Victorian”) period of the book: what stereotypes, if any, do you have about women’s lives and the general  society as a whole during that time period?  Does this book confirm them in some ways?  If so, how?  Does it defy them?   Again, how?

3)       Take notes on things you notice about the roles of both black women and white women during this period:

·         What are the expectations they experience  in their role as daughters?  As mothers? As wives?  Do these seem to be affected by race and/or socioeconomic class?   

·         What kind of “work” is considered “appropriate”  for women of varying social groups? 

·         What kind of conditions do they seem to experience in their living and/or working environments?  

·         Are there differences in these women’s living and working environments in the South vs. the North?