DESCRIPTION OF COURSE:
Using recent scholarship and pedagogy in gender studies, this course discusses new issues in feminism with an emphasis on diversity, including race, class, culture, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, degree of physical ability. It reexamines ways of knowing, and discusses the impact of gender studies on traditional disciplines.

COURSE PREREQUISITES: WS 110 or WS 150 or AACS 150 or AACS 155 and ENG 110

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
This course will

• examine multiple definitions of "feminism.
• teach about the three "waves" of feminism, with a focus on "third wave" feminism.
• explore several feminist issues in depth.
• encourage students to interact in a teacher/learner community.
• encourage students to grow in understanding of oneself and different others through a feminist process.
• require numerous short papers (2-page reader-response logs, for example).
• require a paper with research, including feminist journals and feminist Internet sites as sources, which integrates knowledge and ideas.
• encourage students to work cooperatively with others in small groups and possibly on collaborative group projects.
• encourage students to express oneself orally.
• encourage students to think more critically by asking "new" questions.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES:
Students will:

• show familiarity with multiple definitions of feminism in classroom discussions.
• exhibit knowledge about the three "waves" of feminism, with more in-depth knowledge of "third wave" feminism in reader-response logs.
• cover several feminist issues in depth and write reader-response logs.
• demonstrate knowledge about feminist pedagogy as a result of interaction in a teacher/learner community.
• uncover more about themselves by engaging in a feminist learning process which encourages introspection and connection of the personal with the political.
• explain their ideas by writing numerous short papers
• demonstrate the ability to write a research paper, which includes feminist journals and feminist Internet sites as sources, showing the ability to integrate knowledge and ideas in a coherent manner.
• rehearse group interaction skills by working with others in groups.
• demonstrate the ability to present orally by making in-class presentations.
• demonstrate the ability to think critically by writing a major essay, using multiple sources.

TOPICAL OUTLINE OF POSSIBLE COURSE CONTENT: (INDIVIDUAL PROFESSORS MAY VARY) - (CONT.)

Week One: Course overview, introductions, "Ground Rules," definitions, exploring feminism
Week Two: Several feminist framework issues; for example, education, language, connection between athletics and strength
Week Three: Third wave feminism
Week Four: Sex, gender, and sexuality
Week Five: Intersexuals and the transgendered
Week Six: Women of African, Asian, and European descent and indigenous women
Week Seven: Latinas, racial, and ethnic diversity
Week Eight: Glancing back at women's history
Week Nine: Female sexuality: pleasure and violence
Week Ten: Body image and eating disorders
Week Eleven: Lesbianism
Week Twelve: Racism and classism
Week Thirteen: Mother/Daughter relationships
Week Fourteen: Incest and the rights of children
Week Fifteen: Nuclear and other families
Week Sixteen: Presentation of projects

GUIDELINES/SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING METHODS AND STUDENT LEARNING ACTIVITIES:

• Lectures
• Small group discussions
• Plenary discussions
• Films
• Guest speakers and special events
• Reader-response logs: Students will submit two-page, typewritten reader-response log/journal pages about once a week. Student may choose to use one or more quotations or a summary of a reading to start a log entry. A log should include a very brief summary of each article or the reading assignment in a full-length book. Students may write an informal reader response log/journal in which one can move from the text to one's ideas, feelings, life experiences, and observations.
• Research essay: Students will write one major paper (10 typewritten pages) developed by thinking and research in conjunction with readings in our texts. Students must use tow feminist journals and two feminist Internet sources, as well as books and other print sources.
• Collaborative project: For a collaborative project, a student can do primary or secondary research on a topic relating to the course and present findings to the class. Creativity will be encouraged. Recently, students have done projects on breast cancer, womyn's music, womyn and homelessness, lesbian family members, transgender images, womyn's centers and shelters for battered womyn. This is an orally presented project.
• Service learning project: For the service learning project, a student may work at a community service location such as a shelter for battered women, at a grass-roots project, a food kitchen, or elsewhere and report to the class on the service learning project during the last week(s) of the semester.

GUIDELINES/SUGGESTIONS FOR METHODS OF STUDENT ASSESSMENT (STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES)

Grades will be determined by the course requirements. The graded components include reader-response logs (50%), research essay (25%), and project (25%). Students should attend all class sessions and arrive on time. If a student misses more than four 75-minute classes, they will receive a grade penalty.

SUGGESTED READINGS AND FILMS:

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation. Edited by Barbara Findlen
Gender on Campus: Issues for College Women by Sharon Bohn Gmelch
Zami by Audre Lorde
Gender: The Enduring Paradox (film)
Juggling Gender (film)
Hermaphrodites Speak (film)
Litany for Survival (film)
Bastard Out of Carolina (film)
Slim Hopes or Mirror, Mirror (film)
The Way Home (film)
Women of Summer (film)

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SUPPORTIVE TEXTS AND OTHER MATERIALS:

Barbach, L. G. (1976). For yourself: The fulfillment of female sexuality. New York:
Doubleday & Company.
Bem, S.L. (1995). Dismantling gender polarization and compulsory heterosexuality: Should we turn the volume down or up? The Journal of Sex Research, 32 (4), 329-334
Bornstein, K. (1998). My gender workbook. New York: Routledge. A fascinating guide to exploring gender.
____ (1994). Gender outlaw: On men, women and the rest of us. Routledge, New York. Both a memoir and an investigation into notions of what is female and what is male.
Butler, J. (1998). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
Caputi, J. (1993). Gossips, gorgons and crones: The fates of the earch. Santa Fe: Bear and Company. An analysis of nuclear-age culture. Provides a critique of patriarchal practices, myths, and values, including family values.
Colapinto, J. (2000). As nature made him: The boy who was raised as a girl. New York: HarperCollins.
Eisler, R. (1987). The chalice and the blade: Our history, our future. New York: Harper and Row, a Synthesis of prehistory, history, present, and future showing the movement from partnership societies to patriarchal societies with a vision of a new partnership world.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (1985). Myths of gender: Biological theories about women and men, revised edition. New York: Harper Collins.
Feinberg, L. (1996). Transgender warriors: Making history from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. Beacon Press: Boston. Both a history and personal exploration of the transgender experience.
Fielder, L. (1978). Freaks: Myths and images of the secret life. New York: Doubleday. An in-depth examination of society's view of "freaks." Includes a chapter on hermaphroditism.
Garber, M. (1992). Vested interests: Cross-dressing and cultural anxiety. New York: Routledge.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SUPPORTIVE TEXTS AND OTHER MATERIALS (CONT.):

Heywood, L. and J. Drake (eds.) (1997). Third wave agenda: Being feminist, doing feminism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. The essays embrace the second wave of feminism and also emphasize how desires and pleasures such as beauty and power can be used to enliven activist work.
hooks, b. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston: South End Press. Enters the postmodernism debate, valuing it but also cautioning against detachment from the struggle against systems of oppression.
Kessler, S.J. (1998). Lessons from the intersexed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Very useful for discussions of the social construction of gender.
Nestle, J. (Ed.) (1992). The persistent desire: A femme-butch reader. Boston: Alyson Publications, Inc.
Walker, R. (Ed.). (1995). To be real: Telling the truth and changing the face of feminism. New York: Doubleday.

PREPARER'S NAME AND DATE: Arlene Holpp Scala and Susan Radner, 1989

ORIGINAL DEPARTMENT APPROVAL DATE: 1989

REVISER'S NAMES AND DATE: Dr. Arlene Holpp Scala, September, 2000

DEPARTMENTAL REVISION APPROVAL DATE: September 2000