Study Guide

Sociology of Gender, Fall 2006
Study Guide, Readings Nov 13-Dec 6:

Renzetti & Curran: Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 1, Part II

These are questions/suggestions to help guide your reading. Read all of the pages assigned, but these are some core concepts to focus on -- if you can answer the questions you've probably got the main ideas down. In general, try to go beyond label recognition – be sure you understand the concepts enough to explain them in your own words. No need to memorize things word-for-word.

Study hint: when preparing for exams, you might try going through the study guide and treating it like a worksheet -- answering the questions in writing. Working with the material this way might help it sink in.

Renzetti & Curran (Women, Men & Society)
In general, look at terms and definitions at end of chapters -- emphasize conceptual understanding rather than memorization.

Chapter 11
According to the authors, what are the three main purposes/appealing aspects of religion? (329)
What's religiosity?
What percentage of US residents claim members of churches or synagogues (329)?
How do men's and women's level of religiosity, religious identification and beliefs re: religion compare? Differences across race? (329-333)
What have the world's three largest religions said about appropriate roles, behavior and participation in religious rituals for men and women? How has each attempted to regulate sexuality? How have they positioned women and men as leaders in their religious organizations?
What are purdah and the chador?
What is fundamentalism? What are some of the ways it impacts people's views on religious and public life?
What proportion of the U.S. population claims identification with Christian fundamentalism/evangelism? (351)
What are the main values and goals of the following religious/spiritual social movements: Christian fundamentalism, liberation theology, feminist spirituality (including ecofeminism), and women's renewed interest in orthodoxy within different religions?

Chapter 12
Gender & Physical Health
What are the impacts of sex, race, and marriage on health for women and men? 364-365, 368
Where does the U.S. rank compared to "selected countries" (other industrialized countries) in terms of life expectancy?
What's the association between masculinity, personality type and health risks? 367

Workplace Health
Why is little known about women's health in the workplace? What was the impact of the 1991 court decision on women's reproductive health in the workplace? 370-71
What have been the major effects of "protective legislation" re: gender and workplace health? 372
Black vs white steel workers at coke ovens: what does this have to do with health? 371
What are the leading causes of work-related death for women? 372

Causes of Death
How does gender socialization contribute to sex differences in fatal car accidents? (What do the facts indicate about the "woman driver" stereotype?) 372-3
What's the relationship between gender socialization and violent deaths? How do sex, race and class affect homicide rates?
What does it mean that "race is a more important variable than sex" when it comes to homicide? 373
HIV - How is it transmitted (& how is it not?) What are RISK-FREE behaviors? 373-77
What proportion of 18-25 year old men lie to have sex with women? 375
What's the difference between mortality and morbidity? 365, 377 How do women and men's rates of each compare?

Health Care
What is meant by the "medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth?" 380
Physician vs midwives' success rates with pregnancies 379
Who's J. Marion Sims? 380
What are some examples of physicians' attitudes toward poor women, women of color, and elderly women?
What are the main features of women's clinics? 386-87

Sport
What is Title IX and what has been its impact (especially at schools like UNM)? 388-90
Women's vs men's basketball salaries 390 (anyone know if this is still true w/ the WNBA?)
Differences in media portrayals of women and men athletes

Mental Health
How do gender roles relate to clinical diagnoses in experiments with therapists? 393-4
What is the DSM IV? What is the history of gender- and sexuality-related conditions with respect to the DSM?
How do gender, race and class affect rates of depression? 395-97
How do social constructions of gender contribute to problems with depression, alcohol, drugs and food/eating?
What are the foundational principles of feminist mental health care? 411-12

Chapter 1, pp. 12-30
How long have women been fighting patriarchal oppression? Why don't we know much about the history of women's resistance?
What brought many white, middle-class women to feminism? 15
What happened at Seneca Falls in 1848? (SEE ALSO the Seneca Falls Declaration on E-Reserves)
What role(s) did race play in struggles for women's suffrage? (And what's suffrage?)
When did women win the constitutional right to vote in the United States?
What are the first and second "waves" of feminism?
What did Friedan and other scholars hope to accomplish in analyzing "sexual politics?"
What are the main differences among "gender-reform," "gender-resistance," and "gender-rebellion" (or "third wave") feminisms?
What is happening today among college-age women with regard to feminism? How is stigma involved?
How do women of color and white women compare when it comes to identifying themselves as "feminists?" (27)

Disch Anthology & other articles

Online Learning Center for Reconstructing Gender

Espada (Disch)
What is Espada's relationship to violence in his own life, his wife's and his son's?
What does Espada say about the Anglo use of the word "macho?"
He says, "I would not deny [my son] the option of physical self-defense." What does he mean by this? Do you agree/disagree with his position? Why?
Who/what are the "puppeteers?"

Kaye/Kantrowitz
Different definitions/conceptions of violence, institutionalized violence.
What is the author's main argument re: women and violence? What do you think of her argument?

Zia
What is the discourse now taking place in the Asian American antiviolence/feminist community re: movements and legislation against hate crimes? What is Zia's argument? What role does race play?

Sabo
How is "masculine ideology" associated with problem behaviors and health risks for both males and females in adolescence?
How is masculine socialization associated with violent deaths (including suicide)?

Steingraber
What links has the author drawn between breasts, environmental factors and health?
What is the Precautionary Principle?

Cisneros
Why did seeing La Virgen de Guadalupe make Cisneros angry for so many years?
How does she see La Virgen now?

Pratt
What does the author mean by "the complexities of woman?" Why did some lesbian-feminists in the 1980's want to "get rid of" femininity and masculinity? How and why does Pratt disagree with them?

Zinn & Dill (THIS READING IS IMPORTANT)
What's multiracial feminism?
What do the authors identify as major limitations of recent "diversity" and "pluralist" trends in feminist studies?
What's important about inclusive thinking as related to feminism, and how does whiteness figure in?

Jaimes and Halsey
Why have Native American women activists (and other women of color) resisted aligning themselves with the Euroamerican feminist movement?

hooks
What is hooks' critique of the "women's movement?"
What does she mean by colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism in the context of feminism?

Disch 595-97
According to Hardiman and Jackson, what are the stages that different individuals need to go through in order to work toward social change?

Allen (Stopping Sexual Harassment)
What are the two points Allen raises for consideration re: sexual harassment?
How does masculine gender socialization contribute to sexual harassment? How is the "reinforcement of power differentials" involved?
What's the difference between power over and power with?