Women's Lives : Multicultural Perspectives

by Kirk, Gwyn; Okazawa-Rey, Margo

• ISBN13: 9780073529417
• ISBN10: 0073529419
• Edition: 4th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-18
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages

Summary

This interdisciplinary, multicultural text-reader provides an introduction to women's studies within a global context by examining the diversity of women's lives across categories of race-ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability, and age. Substantial chapter introductions provide statistical information and explanations of key concepts and ideas as a context for the reading selections. Each chapter includes reading questions and suggestions for taking action, to help students link what they learn to their own lives and to the world around them.

Table of Contents

* Indicates New Reading

Preface

Introduction: The Framework of This Book

The Focus of Womens Studies

The Framework for This Book: Collective Action for a Sustainable Future

An Activist Approach

A Sustainable and Secure Future

The United States in a Global Context

Linking the Personal and the Global

A Matrix of Oppression and Resistance

Feminisms: Tangling with the F Word

Myth 1: Womens Studies is Ideological

Myth 2: Womens Studies is a White, Middle-Class Thing

Myth 3: Womens Studies is Narrowly Concerned with Womens Issues

Scope of the Book

Part 1 KNOWING AND UNDERSTANDING

Chapter One. Theories and Theorizing: Integrative

Frameworks for Understanding

Definition of a Theory

Theories, Theorizing, and Ways of Knowing

The Dominant Perspective

Alternative Perspectives

The Role of Values

Theoretical Frameworks for Understanding Womens Lives

Socially Lived Theorizing

Media Representations and the Creation of Knowledge

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

1. Judith Lorber, The Social Construction of Gender

2. Allan G. Johnson, Patriarchy, the System: An It, Not a He, a Them, or an Us

3. Combahee River Collective, A Black Feminist Statement

*4. Minnie Bruce Pratt, Who Am I If Im Not My Fathers Daughter?

5. JeeYeun Lee, Beyond Bean Counting

*6. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Genealogies of Community, Home, and Nation

*7. Onnesha Roychoudhuri, Worldviews-- news media

Chapter Two. Identities and Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People?

Being Myself: The Micro Level

Community Recognition, Expectations, and Interactions: The Meso Level

Social Categories, Classifications, and Structural

Inequality: Macro and Global Levels

Maintaining Systems of Structural Inequality

Colonization, Immigration, and the U.S. Landscape of Race and Class

Multiple Identities, Social Location, and Contradictions

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

8. Frederica Y. Daly, Perspectives of Native American Women on Race and Gender

9. Dorothy Allison, A Question of Class

*10. Gwendolyn D. Pough, Love Feminism but Wheres My Hip Hop? Shaping a Black Feminist Identity

*11. Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, "Jews in the U.S.: The Rising Costs of Whiteness"

*12. Amani Elkassabani, Hanaans House

13. Elizabeth Martnez, A Word about the Great Terminology Question

14. Mary C. Waters, Optional Ethnicities: For Whites Only?

Part 2. OUR BODIES, OURSELVES

Chapter Three. Womens Bodies and Beauty Ideals

Body Image and the Beauty Ideal

The Beauty Ideal

The Beauty Business

Commodification and Co-option

Whites Only? Forever Young? Always Able?

Resisting Beauty Stereotypes

Feminist Theorizing about Body Image and Beauty Ideals

Body Politics

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

*15. Jean Kilbourne, The More You Subtract, the More You Add: Cutting Girls Down to Size

16. Abra Fortune Chernik, The Body Politic

*17. Toni Morrison, "The Coming of Maureen Peal"

18. Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Story of My Body

19. Lani Kaahumanu, My Body is a Map of My Life

20. Cheryl Marie Wade, I Am Not One of the

*21. Rosemarie Garland Thomson, Feminist Theory, the Body, and the Disabled Figure

Chapter Four. Womens Sexuality

Stereotypes, Contradictions, and Double Standards

What Is Womens Autonomous Sexuality?

Challenging Binaries

Theorizing Sexuality

The Erotic as Power

Activism and Sexuality

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

22. Sandra Cisneros, Guadalupe the Sex Goddess

23. Naomi Wolf, Radical Heterosexuality

24. June Jordan, A New Politics of Sexuality

*25. Diane Raymond, "Popular Culture and Queer Representation"

26. Surina Khan, The All-American Queer Pakistani Girl

27. Leslie Feinberg, We Are All Works in Progress

28. Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Chapter Five. Womens Health

Reproductive Health

Controlling Fertility

Medicalization of Reproductive Life

Women and Illness

Effects of Gender, Race, and Class

Mental and Emotional Health

Health and Aging

The Medical Industry

Paying for Medical Care

Other Barriers and Biases in Medical Services and Research

Health as Wellness

Requirements for Good Health

Feminist Approaches to Wellness

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

29. Joy Harjo, Three Generations of Native American Womens Birth Experience

30. Marsha Saxton, "Reproductive Rights: A Disability Rights Issue"

*31.Judith Arcana,"Abortion is a Motherhood Issue"

*32. Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, "Reproductive Justice: Vision, Analysis, and Action for a Stronger Movement" (2005)

33. *33. bell hooks, Living to Love

34. Mary Jane Knopf-Newman, "Public Eyes: Investigating the Causes of Breast Cancer"

Chapter Six. Violence against Women

What Counts as Violence against Women?

The Incidence of Violence against Women

Effects of Race, Class, Nation, Sexuality, and Disability

Explanations of Violence against Women

Micro-level explanations

Macro-level explanations

Ending Violence against Women

The Importance of a Political Movement

Providing Support for Victims/Survivors

Public and Professional Education

Policy and Legislative Initiatives

Contradiction of Seeking State Support to End Violence against Women

Womens Rights as Human Rights

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

35. Grace Caroline Bridges, Lisas Ritual, Age 10

36. Aurora Levins Morales, Radical Pleasure: Sex and the End of Victimhood

*37. John Stoltenberg, I am Not a Rapist! Why College Guys are Confronting Sexual Violence

*38. Lora Jo Foo Domestic Violence and Asian American Women

39. Andy Smith, Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide

40. Eve Ensler, My Vagina Was My Village

Part 3. MAKING A HOME, MAKING A LIVING

Chapter Seven. Relationships, Families, and Households

Defining Ourselves through Connections with Others

Marriage and Domestic Partnership

Motherhood and Parenting

The Ideal Nuclear Family

U.S. Families: Cultural and Historical Variations

Immigration and the Family

Feminist Perspectives

Challenging the Private/Public Dichotomy

Mothering and Maternal Thinking

The Family and the Economic System

Policy Implications and Implementation

Toward a Redefinition of Family Values

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

*41. Paula Ettelbrick, "Since When Is Marriage a Path to Liberation?"

42. Sharon Olds, 35/10

43. Carol Gill and Larry A. Voss, Shattering Two Molds: Feminist Parents with Disabilities

*44. Ann Filmemyr, "Loving across the Boundary"

*45. Rachel Aber Schlesinger, Personal Reflections on Being a Grandmother: LChol Dor Va Dor

*46. Margaret Lamberts Bendroth, Fundamentalism and the Family: Gender, Culture, and the American Pro-family Movement

47. Shailja Patel, "Shilling Love"

Chapter Eight. Work, Wages, and Welfare

Defining Womens Work

Women in the U.S. Workforce

Womens Wages: The Effects of Gender, Race, Class, Disability, and Education

Discrimination against Working Women: Sexual Harassment, Age, and Disability

Balancing Home and Work

Organized Labor and Collective Action

Pensions, Disability Payments, and Welfare

Pensions and Disability Payments

Welfare

Feminist Approaches to Womens Work and Income

Comparable Worth

Feminization of Poverty

Impact of Class

Policy Implications and Activist Projects

Promoting Greater Economic Security for Women

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

48. Hattie Gossett, the cleaning woman/labor relations #4

*49. He Works, She Works, but What Different Impressions They Make

*50. Shireen Lee, The New Girls Network: Women, Technology, and Feminism

*51. Ann Crittenden, The Mommy Tax

*52. Veronica Chambers, To Whom Much is Given, Much is Expected: Successful Women, Family, and Responsibility

*53. Nolita Clark and Shannon Stanfield with Vivyan Adair, "Remarkable Journeys: Poor, Single Mothers Accessing Higher Education

Chapter Nine. Living in a Global Economy

The Global Factory

The Profit Motive

Consumerism, Expansionism, and Waste

The Myth of Progress

Emphasis on Immediate Costs

The Global Economy

Complex Inequalities

Legacies of Colonialism

External Debt

Implications of Global Economic Inequalities

Connections to U.S. Policy Issues

International Alliances among Women

The Seeds of a New Global Economy

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

54. Mara Patricia Fernndez-Kelly, Maquiladoras: The View from Inside

*55. Rhacel Salazar Parreas, The Care Crisis in the Philippines: Children and Transnational Families in the New Global Economy

*56. Ursula Biemann, Remotely Sensed: A Topography of the Global Sex Trade

*57. Vandana Shiva, Corporate Control of Water

*58. International Committee for the Peace Council, "The Chiang Mai Declaration--Religion and Women: An Agenda for Change" (2004)

Part 4. SECURITY AND SUSTAINABILITY

Chapter Ten. Women, Crime and Criminalization

The National Context: Get Tough on Crime

Women in the Criminal Justice System

Characteristics of Incarcerated Women

Offenses Committed by Women and Patterns of Arrest

Sentence Length and Time Served

Race and Class Disparities

Girls in the Criminal Justice System

Women Political Prisoners

Theories of Women and Crime

Equality with a Vengeance: Is Equal Treatment Fair Treatment?

The Prison Industrial Complex

Inside/Outside Connections

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

59. Shannon Murray, Shannons Story

*60. Marilyn Buck, Women in Prison and Work

61. Rita Takahashi, "U.S. Concentration Camps and Exclusion Policies: Impact on Japanese American Women"

*62. Suad Joseph and Benjamin D'Harlingue, "Media Representations and the Criminalization of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans"

*63. Julia Sudbury, Women of Color, Globalization, and the Politics of Incarceration

*64. Susan B. Tucker and Eric Cadora, Justice Reinvestment

Chapter Eleven. Women and the Military, War, and Peace

The Need for Women in the Military

The Military as Employer

Limitations to Womens Equal Participation

Women in Combat Roles

Officer Training: Storming the Citadel

Sexism and Misogyny

Racism

Sexual Orientation

Military Wives

The Impact of the U.S. Military on Women Overseas

Militarized Prostitution

Mixed-Race Children Fathered by U.S. Troops

Crimes of Violence against Women

Health Effects of Environmental Contamination

Womens Opposition to the Military

Early Peace Organizations in the United States

Feminist Antimilitarist Perspectives

Redefining Security

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

*65. Cynthia Enloe Sneak Attack: The Militarization of U.S. Culture

*66. Kristin Henderson, The Siege Julia Ward Howe, Mothers Day Proclamation1870

*67. Suzuyo Takazato, "Report from Okinawa: Long-Term U.S. Military Presence"

*68. Julia Ward Howe, "Mother's Day Proclamation--1870"

69. Jean Grossholtz, "The Search for Peace and Justice: Notes toward an Autobiography"

70. Women's Pentagon Action, "Unity Statement"

*71. Betty Burkes, "Full Moon: The Imagery of Wholeness and Celebration"

Chapter Twelve Women and the Environment

Theoretical and Activist Perspectives

Environmentalism

Deep Ecology and Bioregionalism

Ecofeminism

Environmental Justice

Connectedness and Sustainability

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

72. Cindy Chan Saelee, My Moms Garden

*73. Sandra Steingraber, Rose Moon (excerpt)

74. Ynestra King, The Ecofeminist Imperative

75. The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, Principles of Environmental Justice

76. Mililani Trask, Native Hawaiian Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Environmental Justice

77. H. Patricia Hynes, Consumption: North American Perspectives

Part 5. ACTIVISM AND CHANGE

Chapter Thirteen. Creating Change: Theory, Vision, and Action

How Does Change Happen?

Using the Head: Theories for Social Change

Using the Heart: Visions for Social Change

Using the Hands: Action for Social Change

Overcoming Blocks to Effective Action

Women and Political Activism

Identity-Based Politics

Feminist Movements

Women in Electoral Politics

Building Alliances for the Twenty First Century

Some Principles for Alliance Building

Overcoming Impediments to Effective Alliances

Creating a Secure and Sustainable World

Questions for Reflection

Finding Out More on the Web

Taking Action

78. Christina Leao, Listening to the Voices of My Spiritual Self

79. Cynthia Cohen, "Common Threads: Life Stories and the Arts in Educating for Social Change" Suzanne Pharr, Multi-Issue Politics OR CINDY COHEN AGAIN?

*80. Vivien Labaton and Dawn Lundy Martin, "Making What Will Become"

*81. Alison Stein Wellner, "A Chain Letter Reaction"

82. Charlotte Bunch, "Whose Security?"

*83. Peggy Antrobus, "The Global Women's Movement: Definitions and Origins"