This is a final paper that is meant to critically analyze your own positionality and intersectional experiences in light of the class materials and discussions. You are welcome to focus on a specific theme (e.g., education, work, current events) or life experience and process it through course concepts with thoughtfulness and precision.
You must reflect explicitly and critically on how your chosen theme is intersectional.
Refrain from going on a random stream of consciousness narrative. While you are encouraged to use first person voice, your narrative, analysis, and arguments should be informed and supported by course concepts and written in academic language and style.
Follow these guidelines in preparing your final paper:
- Provide a title for your paper. The title summarizes the main idea or ideas of your paper. The initial aim of a title is to draw the reader’s attention, therefore, exercise creativity to capture the content of your paper.
2. Demonstrate clear introduction, analysis, and conclusion. Refrain from generalizations and ‘empty’ sentences – these are ‘padding’ that will not earn you points.
3. You must use a minimum of six course materials; four texts, one lecture, and one section discussion. In-class documentaries/clips can inform your analysis but they do not count as source material.
– I have included many text readings for you to choose from, as well as notes from lecture and section discussion for you to reference and relate to your writing
4. Cite according to the following format: (Author’s last name, pg #; e.g., Smith, 128). Refrain from using lengthy quotes. The usage of quotes should support your point, NOT make the point for you. For lectures and section discussions, cite the last name of your Professor and TA along with the dates of the lectures and section discussions.
5. Provide a bibliography page in MLA as described above (counted as a separate page from the word count requirement).
Positionally/theme for the essay:
- Writing from the perspective of a white/caucasian, straight female
- Analyze the privilege this gives but also the oppression this identity faces in relation to intersectionality
- Analyze a specific theme like education/society:
– especially in terms of how female bodies are objectified in marketing advertisements, in social media, pornography, etc and the implications of this
– a central supporting theme should be the rape culture in American society, and especially on college campuses
Course Materials: files attached for these readings
- hooks, “Understanding Patriarchy,” in The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, 2004 1-4
- Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics” in Reading Feminist Theory (RFT), eds, Mann and Patterson, 264-273
- Rich, “Notes Toward a Politics of Location” in Blood, Bread, and Poetry, 1986, 211-231
- Moraga, “Theory in the Flesh,” (23) This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
- Ingraham, “Heterosexuality: It’s Just Not Natural,” in Sex, Gender and Sexuality (SGS), eds, Ferber, Holcomb and Wentling, 2013, 99-106.
- Said. “Introduction,” Orientalism, 1978, 1-28.
- Chowdhury, “Violence Against Women: We Need a Transnational Analytic of Care,” TIKKUN, January 10, 2014.
- Perry. “Doing Gender and Doing Gender Inappropriately: Violence Against Women, Gay Men, and Lesbians” in SGS, 333-350.
- Smith, “Rape and War Against Native Women” in SGS, 323-332.
- Tesene, “Rampant or Rare? The Conundrum of Quantifying Rape and Sexual Assault on College Campuses and Beyond,” in Sex Matters, 2019, 601-611.
- Smith, “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing,” in Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology, 2006, 66-73.
- hooks, “Love as the Practice of Freedom,” in Outlaw Culture, 2006,1-9.
Course Materials: linked below
Google: The Hunting Ground (Kirby Dick, 2015)
– documentary about Sexual assault on college campus
- Vaid-Menon, “Issues Facing Nonbinary & Gender Non-Conforming POC” Feb 6, 2016.
Read it here: https://www.alokvmenon.com/blog/2017/3/12/issues-facing-nonbinary-gender-non-conforming-people-of-color
- Kerr, “For Scholars of Women’s Studies, It’s Been a Dangerous Year,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb 11, 2018.
Read it here: https://emmarkerr.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/for-scholars-of-women_s-studies-it_s-been-a-dangerous-year.pdf
- Serano, “Trans Feminism: There is No Conundrum About It,” Ms. Magazine, Apr 18, 2012
Read it here: https://msmagazine.com/2012/04/18/trans-feminism-theres-no-conundrum-about-it/
