Questions for September 8
  1. Explain the 4 problems that Sapiro outlines about analyzing gender differences.
  2. According to Sapiro, why should we study gender differences?
  3. Give an example of how a confound can make data interpretation difficult, or even make the entire research project worthless.
  4. Complete Sapiro's exercises in Box 1-1 on page 24. Explain how this exercise can help you the next time you hear some statistical sound bite on the news.
  5. Explain how difference is not the same as inequality, and how similarly sameness is not the same as equality.
  6. Explain what Title VII is.
  7. Explore reasons why hooks talks about "feminist movement" and not "the feminist movement."
  8. What critiques does hooks offer of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique?
  9. Explain the trouble hooks has with the notion that "women's suffering under sexist tyranny is a common bond among all women."
  10. Why, according to hooks, is liberal individualism so bad for feminist movement?
  11. What is hooks' critique of the myth or stereotype of the "strong, superhuman black woman"?
  12. Explain reasons why §1 of the Kolmar/Bartkowski book offers so many different definitions of feminism. Reconcile this with what hooks has to say on pp 7-11 about the co-optation and usurpation of the feminist movement (i.e. try to figure out our dilemma from class today: how is it possible, with feminism being such a large and varied movement, that some women who call themselves feminist are thought to be anything but by other, "real" feminists?).
  13. How is "womanist" different from "feminist"?
  14. Explain Bunch's model for theory.
  15. Why, according to Lorde, is poetry not a luxury?
  16. Offer reasons why Lugones and Spelman began their article with a prologue in Spanish that is never translated into English?
  17. The Lexicon of the Debates is a preview of what you'll find in the rest of the Kolmar/Bartkowski book. Instead of trying to fully understand the complexities of these debates now (that will come later as we proceed through the book!), be sure that you understand the terms introduced in the Lexicon that are listed in the Terms and Concepts section of this site.
  18. Explain how it can be possible that the personal is the political?
  19. Explain the nature-nurture debate.
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