Book Club

Session 4
HAS THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION ENSLAVED OR FREED US?
Is the belief that we should be free to engage in sex whenever and wherever we want fulfilling a male fantasy more than our own? Why are our daughters suffering from body image problems and eating disorders at an alarming rate? What is at the heart of the deep resistance to choice? In 1991, Naomi Wolf posited in The Beauty Myth that, “we are in the midst of a violent backlash against feminism that uses female beauty.” Has the focus on women’s looks and sexuality increased since then?

Videos:

The commercials for Axe, the deodorant and body spray line beloved by tween boys, must be see to be believed.

“How Axe Cleans Your Balls” http://www.youtube.com/user/AxeInsider?feature=pyv&ad=5005222991&kw=women#p/u/0/F0AlcVU-de4

http://www.axevice.com/naughtytonice/

Readings:
What happened to feminism? Can young women and older feminists ever agree? “Are women who dance around poles liberated or enslaved”?
Deborah Siegel “Sisterhood, Interrupted” review http://www.feministing.com/archives/007289.html

Is a “hook up” culture bad or good for young women? Is “raunch feminism”– bragging about watching porn, sleeping around and dressing provocatively- true liberation?
Is there a Sex Crisis on College Campuses?

http://www.slate.com/id/2159995/

Review the site for “Unhooked,” Laura Sessions Stepp: http://www.laurastepp.com/

“Girls Gone Wild” at http://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/10/05/levy/index.html

What does the number of men you’ve slept with say about you?
What’s Your Number

http://prettyinthecity.blogspot.com/2006/10/i-made-todays-ny-post.html

If you can, read Courtney E. Martin’s book “Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters.” 25 year-old Martin points out the irony of today’s many high-achieving girls, who hate and starve their bodies. She talks about the legacy of feminism and impact of pop culture.
You can also watch Courtney Martin discuss her book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cjsYAZAJJI

Naomi Wolf writes, “The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training—and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.”

The Porn Myth

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/

Penelope Trunk miscarried during a company board meeting and blogged about it – and many people thought it disgusting and shocking, especially for a successful businesswoman.
You Can’t Manage Your Work Life If You Can’t Talk About it http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/09/24/miscarriage-is-a-workplace-event/

How did a pro-life group get an ad during the Superbowl? How did Bristol and Sarah Palin end up on the cover of a mainstream celebrity magazine with the headline, “We’re Glad We Chose Life”? How did the anti-choice movement win the culture war?
Pro-life Takes on Culture

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201002u/pro-life-pop-culture

Conservatives, sexism, and Twitter
Superbowl Aftermath

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201002080011

What if teenage pregnancy isn’t a bad thing? This is a great look at cultural attitudes about teenage sex in the red and blue states.
Red Sex, Blue Sex http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_talbot

Intensive Option:

Courtney E. Martin. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters. (Simon and Schuster, 2008).

Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

Session III: Gender and Difference
ARE THERE REAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN? Are they socialized or biological? This has been a debate amongst women and between women and men that often reinforces stereotypes and discrimination. We will examine some of the evidence and discuss if the debate really matters and if so how.

To Read:

Excerpt from Carol Gilligan, “A Different Voice.”

Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Barnett, Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs, pp. ix -45.

Deborah Tannen, excerpt from “You Just Don’t Understand.”

Fels, Anna. 2004.” Do Women Lack Ambition?” Harvard Business Review 82 (4): 50-60.

Rhode, “The Difference Difference Makes,” pp. 3-34 (notes optional) in Rhode, Ed. The Difference Difference Makes (2003).

Eagly and Carli, “Are Men Natural Leaders”? in Eagly and Carli, op.cit., pp. 29-48

Session II: The Second Wave

Teeing off of the themes we raised during Session One, here are some questions to guide your reading:

1) What were the key problems/issues the women’s movement wished to change in the 1960′s and 1970′s? Are most resolved or do they still persist?

2) To what extent did the second wave make the same mistakes or learn from the first wave?

- Issues of race, class and exclusion
- Allies and other social change movements
- Organizing: running the “inside” and the “outside” game- and roles of radical vs. Establishment players

3) How was it different? Was the fact that it didn’t zero in on a specific political or legislative goal an advantage or disadvantage?

4) Was the movement simply the struggle of the white middle class?

5) How has participation in the women’s movement influenced today’s middle-aged women and their daughters?  How does this generation view their supposed role models?

Before we meet, please purchase from Amazon,etc:
Estelle B. Freedman, ed., The Essential Feminist Reader (Modern Library, 2007).
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. (Vintage, 2008).

Watch either of the videos (we have copies, or you may buy your own):
“The Pill”
“The Sixties”

To Read:

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, in Freedman, pp. 269-282. (Originally published 1963).

Read “The Pill: The Pill and the Sexual Revolution” at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_revolution.html

Videos of Gloria Steinem (the first three are from an interview fom 1987 and run 9 mins each):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3zw5GQAMmA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYLlfsikLAM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL_WfbP-RTA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSh8qlmyZZI (1968)

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Waves,” pp. 191-222.

bell hooks, “Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory” in The Black Feminist Reader, eds. Joy James and Tracey Denean Sharpley-Whiting, pp. 131-144. (GOOGLE BOOKS VERSION: CLICK HERE. WE HAVE A PHOTOCOPY OF THE FULL TEXT OF THIS SHORT CHAPTER AND WILL MAIL TO YOU)

Robin Morgan (Goodbye To All That, 1970). Available at: http://blog.fair-use.org/category/chicago/

Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in Freedman, pp. 331-335. (Originally published 1979).

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Session I: Voting Rights and the Fight for Suffrage

Before we meet, please purchase from Amazon,etc:
Estelle B. Freedman, ed., The Essential Feminist Reader (Modern Library, 2007).
Optional book (Fran is not a fan of it, Morra loves it) Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. (Vintage, 2008).

Session One: Fighting for the Right to Vote
In the first session we will look at Suffrage -who the leaders were, why it took so long and how race interacted with suffrage for women.  We also will reflect on what women have done with the vote and where that influence is today.

To watch:
One Woman, One Vote (PBS Home Video). Fran has a copy and will distribute, or you can order DVD online. You can also watch Iron Jawed Angels from HBO films, available on Netflix or Amazon.

To read:

Toni Bentley. A Hyena in Petticoats. From the NYT Book Review, May 29. 2005. Available online at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07EFDA1739F93AA15756C0A9639C8B63

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman pp. 24-36 in Estelle B. Freedman, ed., The Essential Feminist Reader (Modern Library, 2007), (Originally published in 1792).

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments” in Freedman, pp. 57-62. (Originally published in 1848).

Sojourner Truth, two speeches in Freedman, pp. 63-66.

Jill Lepore, “Vast Designs, How America Came of Age” in The New Yorker, Oct. 29 2007 at http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/10/29/071029crbo_books_lepore?printable=true

Modern History Sourcebook: selections from the New York Times when the 19th Amendment was passed at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1920womensvote.html

“Women and Politics,” The Atlantic Monthly, June 10, 1999. see: http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/womenpols.htm

Optional reading: “Slaves in the Attic,” in Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History, pp. 105-142.

Looking at the vote today:

The Gender Gap in American Voting
% of women and men voting

2000: George W. Bush 43% women / 53% men
2000: Al Gore 54% women / 42% men
1996: Bill Clinton 54% women / 43% men
1996: Bob Dole 38% women / 44% men
1992: Bill Clinton 45% women / 41% men
1992: George H.W. Bush 37% women / 38% men
1988: George H.W. Bush 50% women / 41% men
1988: Michael Dukakis 49% women / 41% men
1984: Ronald Reagan 56% women / 62% men
1984: Walter Mondale 44% women / 37% men
1980: Ronald Reagan 46% women / 54% men
1980: Jimmy Carter 45% women / 37% men
2000, % voting age pop. voting: 56,2% women / 53.1% men
1964, % voting age pop. voting: 67.0% women / 71.9% men
Source: Center for American Women in Politics, 2004

Have a look at this site: World Economic Forum: Global Gender Gap 2008 http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Gender%20Gap/index.htm

Gender Differences in Voter Turnout (1 page PDF, Rutgers University Center for Women and Politics)
Gender Gap: Voting Differences in Presidential Elections (1 page PDF, Rutgers University Center for Women and Politics)