Anthropology 407/607 Human Sexuality And Gender Dr. Richley H. Crapo Utah State University c. 1994 This is a rather long syllabus, about 65 pages. It basically takes the place of my role as "teacher" by providing students with everything they need to teach themselves. This allows me to focus on my role as discussion facilitator in the classroom. The syllabus contains 12 lessons about various social problems concerning gender. Each includes background material (more or less the lectures I would have given on each topic) for students to read, and an annotated list of 15 to 20 articles on the topic. Students are permitted to choose 4-6 of these to read, according to their own interests, majors, etc. Since each students taylor their own readings, they come to class knowing that they each have something to add to the discussion that noone else has read about. The topics include (1) the nature of patriarchy, (2) sexual abuse, (3) female infanticide and the physical/mental abuse of women, (4) sexuality and personal identity (which includes discussions of intersexes, homophobia, and lesbian feminist theory, (5) gender and personal identity (including supranumary genders and sexual orientation), (6) the cultural construction of women's sexuality, (7) rape, (8) [other forms of] sexual terrorism, (9) prostitution, female sexual slavery, and international sexual tourism, (10) pornography, violence, and the law, (11) sexuality and reproductive rights, and (12) women's rights as human rights. The course international in scope and uses 186 reserve articles from which students may choose their readings. It works really well, and gives undergraduates a chance to experience a course that has more of a graduate-level climate. They become quite active participants, since the topics are ones about which they are likely to have strong feelings. My role is mostly to help them avoid the pitfall of ethnocentrism by eliciting examples from their own culture that parallel the ones they read about from other societies and to help them develop the skill of applying a feminist perspective on the issues. By the time we get to pornography and abortion at the end of the quarter, they are accustomed to using a feminist perspective. So even these topics do not polarize the class. I welcome feedback about the syllabus. Richley Crapo Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology Utah State University rcrapo@hass.usu.edu ******************************************************** HUMAN SEXUALITY AND GENDER Dr. Richley H. Crapo Anthropology 407/607 Main 37B, 750-1080 M W F, 1:30-2:20 hours: M W F 9:30-10:20 Main 43 email: rcrapo@hass.usu.edu COURSE DESCRIPTION: A course designed to increase your awareness of sexuality and gender generally and of feminist perspectives about social problems related to gender and sexuality that cross-cut cultural boundaries. OBJECTIVES: You will become familiar with how a variety of non-Western cultures structure the social roles of men and women and of variations in human values pertaining to human sexuality and gender. By contrasting these with American customs and gender roles, you will develop insights into the general principles that influence the roles of women and men in different cultures. You will learn how data on sexual behavior and gender roles in a variety of cultures can be used to generate theories that are applicable in explaining the gendered customs of industrialized societies such as our own. Finally, you will gain insight into a variety of contemporary social problems in which human sexuality and gender play a role. You will learn to examine these social problems from a feminist perspective that illuminates the effects of power differences and abuses of power on gender relations. BRIEF COURSE OUTLINE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1. Patriarchy: Institutionalized Power and Male Supremicism 5 2. Physical and sexual Abuse of Children . . . . . . . . . . 11 3. Patriarchy, Female Infanticide, and the Physical and Mental Abuse of Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 4. Sexuality and Personal Identity in a Patriarchal, Heterosexist Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5. Gender and Personal Identity: More Than Just Female or Male . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 6. The Cultural Construction of Women's Sexuality . . . . . 30 7. Rape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 8. Sexual Terrorism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 9. Prostitution, Female Sexual Slavery, and International Sexual Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 10. Pornography, Violence, and the Law . . . . . . . . . . . 46 11. Sexuality and Reproductive Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 12. Women's Rights as Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 STUDENT OBLIGATIONS: This is your course. It is not a lecture class. How well things go depend on you. You are expected to read the assigned articles (and others that catch your interest) and come to class prepared to share your opinions. This is a value-oriented course in which you have the right to express your feelings as well as thoughts about the material you study. READINGS AND RATING FORM The text for this course consists of photocopied articles which you will buy along with this syllabus. The syllabus identifies the articles that you should have read thoroughly before each class period. Your will be expected to analyze and express your opinions about these articles in class. As you read each article give your overall opinion about its usefulness in helping you understand the topic of the course for which it was assigned. The rating form is included as page 4 of this syllabus. You will submit it at the end of the quarter to give your instructor information about how much reading you have accomplished. These ratings will also affect which articles are used in the future. On the final day of the course you will also submit a personal reaction paper that states your current views on the topics covered in the course. This paper represents your opportunity to appraise the value the course has had for you and to make suggestions that will be incorporated into future versions of the course. GRADING Each week you are expected to submit three well thought-out questions about one or more of the current readings. These questions should be written for use as possible items for discussion during class. Successful completion of this assignment will guarantee you a minimum grade of "C" for the course. Midterm tests will be given following the third and sixth weeks. These tests will be of the short answer type and will require both recall and interpretation. The final examination will be of the same type and will not be comprehensive. You will also submitt two book reports during the quarter. The grade you receive for these reports will be weighted as equivalent to a fourth examination grade. Contributions to the classroom discussions may be rewarded with improved grades at the discretion of the instructor. BOOK REPORTS: You will write two book reports during the quarter. They should demonstrate that you have read the books and that you are able to make sense of the sex roles of the peoples described in terms of the concepts developed in the course. I will be particularly looking for evidence of what you believe you learned about a feminist perspecitive on gender problems, so explain how your reading of these books improved your understanding of one or more of the topics of the course. You should select your books from the supplementary annotated reading list included at the end of this syllabus, although other appropriate books of your selection will be welcomed if they are first cleared with the instructor. For those of you in the distance education system, the books can be obtained from the USU library through the interlibrary loan program. Consult your local teaching assistant for information about how to order books. GRADUATE STUDENT REQUIREMENTS: Graduate students are expected to read all articles assigned to undergraduate students and articles specifically assigned to graduate students as well as choosing other articles according to their own interests. Graduate students will be expected to play an active role in the classroom discussions and may volunteer to lead discussions on topics of particular interest to them. HONORS STUDENT REQUIREMENTS: In addition to the reading assignments listed by week, honors students will be required to write a position paper--that is a "thought-piece" in which they explore one of the topics covered in the course, how it applies to them, and how their feelings on the topic have changed as a result of their study. This paper should include reference to pertinent outside readings found by the students themselves. POLICY ON PLAGIARISM: Plagiarism is a violation of one's own intellectual integrity and of the rights of other persons to credit for their own intellectual work. It is to be strictly avoided. Failure to credit other writers for their own work will be punished by a grade of "F" for the assignment in which it occurs and, in the event of repeat offenses, a grade of "F" for the course. DROPPING THE COURSE AND INCOMPLETE GRADE POLICY It is the policy of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences that instructors issue incomplete grades only in cases where serious circumstances, such as medical illness, make it impossible for the student to complete the work of the course. Incompletes are not to be issued to help a student avoid a low grade. It is therefore incumbent on you to monitor your own progress and decide whether to remain in the course beyond the final day for dropping course. Be sure to check your quarter bulletin and know when that day is! Anthropology 407/607 Article Evaluation Form Name:_____________ Rate each article that you read, and submit this form at the end of the quarter. (+ = Keep article, - = Drop article) Lesson 1 7. + - 4. + - 9. + - 1. + - 8. + - 5. + - 10. + - 2. + - 9. + - 6. + - 11. + - 3. + - 10. + - 7. + - 12. + - 4. + - 11. + - 8. + - 13. + - 5. + - 12. + - 9. + - 14. + - 6. + - 13. + - 10. + - 15. + - 7. + - 14. + - 11. + - 16. + - 8. + - 15. + - Lesson 8 17. + - 9. + - 16. + - 1. + - 18. + - 10. + - 17. + - 2. + - 19. + - 11. + - 18. + - 3. + - 20. + - 12. + - Lesson 5 4. + - 21. + - 13. + - 1. + - 5. + - 22. + - 14. + - 2. + - 6. + - 23. + - 15. + - 3. + - 7. + - 24. + - 16. + - 4. + - 8. + - 25. + - 17. + - 5. + - 9. + - 26. + - 6. + - 10. + - 27. + - Lesson 2 7. + - 11. + - 28. + - 1. + - 8. + - 12. + - 2. + - 9. + - 13. + - Lesson 11 3. + - 10. + - Lesson 9 1. + - 4. + - 11. + - 1. + - 2. + - 5. + - 12. + - 2. + - 3. + - 6. + - 13. + - 3. + - 4. + - 7. + - 14. + - 4. + - 5. + - 8. + - 15. + - 5. + - 6. + - 9. + - 16. + - 6. + - 7. + - 10. + - 7. + - 8. + - Lesson 6 8. + - 9. + - Lesson 3 1. + - 9. + - 10. + - 1. + - 2. + - 10. + - 11. + - 2. + - 3. + - 11. + - 3. + - 4. + - 12. + - Lesson 12 4. + - 5. + - 13. + - 1. + - 5. + - 6. + - 14. + - 2. + - 6. + - 7. + - 15. + - 3. + - 7. + - 8. + - 16. + - 4. + - 8. + - 9. + - 17. + - 5. + - 9. + - 10. + - 18. + - 6. + - 10. + - 11. + - Lesson 10 7. + - 12. + - 1. + - 8. + - Lesson 4 13. + - 2. + - 9. + - 1. + - 14. + - 3. + - 10. + - 2. + - 15. + - 4. + - 11. + - 3. + - Lesson 7 5. + - 12. + - 4. + - 1. + - 6. + - 13. + - 5. + - 2. + - 7. + - 14. + - 6. + - 3. + - 8. + - 15. + - 1. Patriarchy: Institutionalized Power and Male Supremacism Objectives: You will examine the relationships between social power, male dominance, and limitations in women's access to social rank and influence. Films: "Global Assembly Line" (Documents the economic exploitation of women's labor by international coorporations) "No Longer Silent" (Indian women's struggles against injustice) "A Veiled Revolution" (Interviews with Egyptian women about the return to the "Islamic dress") "Yol" (Portrays violence against women following the release of their husbands from a Turkish prison) Note: For information on how to collect child support, call the Child Support Hotline, 1-800 537-7072 Background Material: In the first week, you will be introduced to the relationship of gender-based differences in social power to social concepts of sexuality concerning jealousy, power, and male dominance. A fundamental concept for this and ensuing topics is idea of patriarchy. The term patriarchy refers to a society in which access to power and prestige is unequally distributed by gender. In a patriarchal society, men have greater access to political power and to prestige outside the domestic setting. The culture and customs of a patriarchal society assume that the male privilege of greater access to public power and prestige is normal to be protected. That is, members of a patriarchal society are socialized into a mind-set that takes male privilege and the institutions that perpetuated for granted, and both men and women in such societies may resist challenges to patriarchal institutions. This patriarchal mind-set can make it extremely difficult for members of a patriarchal society to perceive or acknowledge that some of their customs function in ways that victimize women. Where victimization is perceived, it is common for members of such societies to blame the victims themselves for their own victimization instead of challenging the validity of the institutions and the customs that make the victimization likely. If you correctly understand the concept of patriarchy, you will recognize that to acknowledge the ways in which patriarchal cultures create priveleges for males and marginalize females is not to assert that "men victimize women" but to recognize that certain intitutions and customs benefit men at the expense of women. Perceiving the inequities in patriarchy also does not constitute a denial that men may also be victimized by society and its customs. Most of us live in societies in which the privileges of power and prestige are also unequally divided up in a variety of ways besides gender: For instance, different social classes have unequal access to power, respect, and income. Race, ethnic origins, religion and various other social statuses are also often the basis for inequities in social life. Gender is but one of the many ways in which inequality can be manifest. It is the one which is particularly important for you to learn to recognize in this course. In this assignment, you will examine readings about the relationships between patriarchal institutions and male dominance. You will learn how patriarchal institutions such as men's clubs and purdah function to keep women subordinated to men both economically and politically. An important concept in this week is that the central role of power in male dominance results in abuses such as rape, dowry violence, and economic exploitation in international economics. Ernestine Friedl (1978) considered the question of male dominance in a broad range of preindustrialized societies, including societies with foraging, horticultural, pastoral, and agricultural technologies, and demonstrated that the relative status of women and men was conditioned by the economic roles of men and women. In particular, male control over extra-domestic income, especially income that could be used outside the domestic setting in ceremonial distribution was a key factor in male dominance. Women's contribution to family income might equal or excel that of men, but women were still likely to experience subordination if men monopolized the right to distribute wealth to others outside their own family. The analogous role in contemporary industrialized societies is the unequal access of women to economic positions of authority over the incomes of others (e.g., managerial positions and other occupations that play a role in determining other people's salaries). Heidi Hartmann (1976) has documented the economics of sexism in "Captialism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex," a work that complements that of Friedl by examining the ways in which male control over the labor of women and children was transformed by the rise of economic systems based on widespread exchange and large production units. Hartmann argues that the indirect and impersonal mechanisms of control that emerged with capitalism perpetuated male control over women by enforcing lower wages for women by job segregation, thereby creating pressure for women to marry. This advantages men both economically and domestically, but creates a vicious cycle of subordination for women. Male dominance manifests itself through various institutions. For instance, Thomas Gregor (1982) examined the role of exclusive men's clubs in a nonindustrial society of South America and found that, as with such clubs in contemporary America, it functioned to perpetuate male economic and political power and male domination of women. Religion and family life may also function to perpetuate male dominance. In this lesson, you will have the opportunity to examine the roles of religion and family values in the Middle East and several other cultures of the world that influence the gender roles of women. Numerous studies have documented the ways in which a culture's gender symbolism expresses the social roles of men and women. Gender differences often manifest themselves in the ways that parts of the world around us are associated with the realm of men or of women. For instance, in societies in which women are markedly subordinate to men, untamed nature is often regarded as symbolically female in contrast with the "masculine" realm of culture. This week ou will have the opportunity to learn about some of the differences in how the roles of men and women are symbolized (see Ortner, 1974, and Strathern, 1980). Sanday (1981) has also demonstrated that the symbolism of the supernatural also reflects gender: Egalitarian societies often utilize feminine symbolism in their mythologies, while patriarchal societies typically emphasize masculine deities. The religious institution in patriarchal societies can be a powerful force in maintaining the subordination of women. Phyllis Chesler (1989) gives one example that illustrates this point. The institution of religion is a powerful force in molding people's attitudes and values. So it is often a prominent factor in maintaining gender stratification. The gender ideology of religion includes the gender symbolism of creation mythologies and religious rules regarding men's and women's roles in society. According to Sanday (1981), religious creations story symbolism is related to gender roles in society. Where men's and women's roles are equal in everyday life, female deities are prominent in creation stories, and female sybolism predominates: The female creators usually originate from within something such as water or earth, and working alone or in conjunction with male deities, they bring forth humans from the earth, mold them from clay, transform them from plants or animals, or carve them from wood-images that symbolize birth, creativity, and progress. In contrast, where women's roles are markedly subordinate to those of men, the religious symbolism of creation typically emphasize male gods who come down from the sky, and themes of warfare, aggression, and sexuality. In these societies, humans are usually created out of the god's body, by acts of sexual intercourse or through self-fertilization by the god, or by being born. In male-supremicist societies, characteristics that are associated in the local cultural symbolism with feminine characteristics are used as explanations for the origins of various forms of evil, such as sin, illness, and death. For instance, in the Judeo-Christian origins story, it is Eve who succumbs to the temptation of the serpent and commits the first sin, the cause of death and the curse of pain in childbirth. In Greek mythology, illness, greed, and death were released into the world through Pandora's impulsiveness and uncontrolled curiosity. This use of feminine symbolism is particularly common in male-dominant societies. In these societies, symbols derived from women frequently have negative connotations. For instance, menstrual blood may be regarded as supernaturally dangerous, especially to men. In societies that lack significant gender stratification, feminine symbolism often has a much more positive connotation. For instance, origin stories may rely on metaphors of childbirth, and women's ability to bear children may be a source of symbolism in which feminine essence is the source of life and fertility. Where gender equality is present, women's roles are likely to include those of shaman or priest. For instance, among many of the Indians of northern California, shamans were always women. In patriarchal societies, the shamanistic or priestly roles in the dominant religious organization are often restricted to men. Thus, the exclusive ceremonial men's houses of South America and the New Guinea highlands and comparable ceremonial groups among Aboriginal Australians had political, economic, and religious functions that fostered male supremicism. Women were typically forbidden to participate or even observe the religious rituals practiced by men in these settings. In male dominant societies that excluded female participation in male religious ritualism, women often maintained a seperate system of religious rituals. For instance, in many Moslem countries where men may hold a number of different positions as ritual practitioners within Islam, the dominant ecclesiastical religion, women may participate in a variety of "women's cults" in female shamans enter trances and become possessed by spirits to serve as mediums, diviners, and curers for their clients. Mary Nelson (1989), suggests that social change in the roles of women can be a source of antagonism towards women. For instance, the Inquisition occurred in Europe during a time when women were entering new forms of employment. Hundreds of thousands of women, particularly those who were not following the traditional gender roles of women, were accused of witchcraft and put to death--a practice that came to an end soon after men as well as women became potential targets of witchcraft accusations. In the contemporary secular cultures of the West, the women who move from earlier traditional gender roles are still common likely victims of social antagonism. For instance, in the United States employed women have been blamed in political debates for a supposed decline in family values and an increase in social problems among children. Even psychiatric labelling sometimes has been used to legitimize the victimization of women. In the last century, women who did not conform to mainstream values about gender roles sometimes found themselves defined as mentally ill. More recently, several new gender-related diagnostic categories have been suggested by American mental health practitioners, including one category that portrays battered women as provokers of their own abuse and another that potentially could be used by a man as a legal defense against rape. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Brown, Paula, and Georgida Buchbinder (Eds.). (1976). Man and Woman in the New Guinea Highlands. Special publication of the American Anthropological Association, no. 8. A look at gender in a culture area of strongly patriarchal societies. 301.41995 M315 Charlton, Sue Ellen, Jana Everett, and Kathleen Staudt (Eds.). (1989). Women, the State, and Development. Albany: State University of New York Press. The relationships between states, socio-economic development, and feminist theory. Includes consideration of the effects of state policies and ideologies on defining gender differences and women's control over their productive and reproductive lives. HQ 1240 .W663 1989 Collier, Jane F. (1988). Marriage and Inequality in Classless Societies. Stanford: Stanford University Press -- On gender relations in foraging societies. GN 489.2 .C65 1988 Dahlberg, Frances, (Ed.). (1981). Woman the Gatherer. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. A collection of articles about women's influence on cultural evolution. GN 479.7 .W64 David, D., and B. Brannon (Eds.). (1976). The Forty-Nine Percent Majority. Redding, MA: Addison-Wesley -- A collection of gender issues for the 1970s. Davies, Miranda (Ed.). (1987). Third World - Second Sex (Vol. 2). London: Zed Books, Ltd -- A collection of feminist issues in Third World countries. HQ 1870.9 .T48 1987 vol. 2 Deere, Carmen Diana, and Magdalena Leon (Eds.). (1987). Rural Women and State Policy: Feminist Perspectives on Latin American Agricultural Development. Boulder, CO: Westview Press -- Examines the effects of development on women in Latin America. HQ 1240.5 .C29 .R87 1987 Errington, Frederick, and Deborah Gewertz. (1987). Cultural Alternatives and a Feminist Anthropology: An Analysis of Culturally Constructed Gender Interests in Papua New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. A reevaluation of women's status in a very patriarchal society. DU 740.42 .E77 1987 Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. (1965). Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. NY: Doubleday. A personal account of the experiences of life in a small Iraqi village as the wife of an anthropologist. DS 70.7 .F4 1965 Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. (1988). A Street in Marakech: A Personal View of Urban Women in Morocco. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. An American woman's account of Moroccan life. Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock, and Basima Quattan Bezirgan. (1977). Middle Eastern Muslim Women Speak. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. A collection of women's views on gender in the Middle East. HQ 1170 .M53 1977 Finlay, Barbara. (1989). The Women of Azua: Work and Family in the Rural Dominican Republic. NY: Praeger -- Women's lives in a contemporary agrarian environment. HD 6073 .A292D654 1989 Friedl, Erika. (1989). The Women of Deh Koh. An ethnography of women's lives in an Iranian mountain village. HQ 1735.2 .F75 1989 Gale, Fay (Ed.). (1970). Women's Role in Aboriginal Society. Australian Aboriginal Studies, no. 36. Canberra: Australian National Institute of Aboriginal Studies. An anthropological study of women's roles in native Australia. Gallin, Rita S., and Anne Ferguson (Eds.). (1990). The Women and International Development Annual, vol. 2. Boulder, CO: Westview Press -- A recent look at gender and development. Goodale, Jane C. (1971). Tiwi Wives: A Study of the Women of Melville Island, North Australia. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. An account of women's lives in a society in which marriage was mandatory for women of all ages. Grant, Judith. (1994) Fundamental Feminism. NY: Routledge. -- Sets for the contemporary debates within feminist theory and politics. HQ1190.G7 1994 Hafkin, Nancy, and Edna Bay (Eds.). (1976). Women in Africa. Stanford: Stanford University Press -- Analyzes the status of women in African societies. Hajib, Nadia. (1988). Womanpower: The Arab Debate on Women at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press -- Stresses the importance of changing economic and political conditions which can lead to the reinterpretation of tradition. Hossain, Rokeya Sakhawat. (1988). Sultana's Dream. NY: Feminist Press. The translation of a story of role reversal by an Indian woman. PR9420.9 .R65 .S86 1988 Matthasson, Carolyn J. (Ed.). (1974). Many Sisters: Women in Cross- Cultural Perspective. NY: Macmillan. A collection of essays by women anthropologists and sociologists about the lives of women from a world- wide sample of both traditional and contemporary societies. 301.412 .M432 1974 Morton, Patricia. (1991). Disfigured Images: The Historical Assault on Afro-American Women. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. A look at the history of stereotypes used in the portrayal of black American women. E 185.86 .M64 1991 Nash, June, and Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly (Eds.). (1983). Women, Men, and the International Division of Labor. Albany, NY: SUNY Press -- Discusses the gendered division of labor in the international industrialized economy. HD 5710.7 .W65 1983 O'Barr, Jean F (Ed.). (1982). Perspectives on Power: Women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Center for International Studies, Occasional Papers Series, Number 13. A collection of interpretations of gender in various world areas. O'Brien, Denise, and Sharon Tiffany. (1984). Rethinking Women's Roles: Perspectives from the Pacific. Berkeley: University of California Press. Women's roles in Polynesia. GN 668 .R45 1984 Poscatello, Ann (Ed.). (1979). Male and Female in Latin America: Essays. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. A series of views on gender in Latin America. ISBN 0-829-5306-4 Powers, Marla N. (1986). Oglala Women: Myth, Ritual, and Reality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. The roles and duties of traditional Lakota women. E 99.03 .P67 1986 (1988 ed. also available) Roberts, Claire, and Iris Berger. (1986). Women and Class in Africa. NY: Africana Publishing -- Examines the status and roles of women in African societies. HQ 1788 .W57 1986 Russell, Diana E. H. (1989). Lives of Courage: Women for a New South Africa. NY: Basic Books -- Twenty-four South African women discuss their struggles against apartheid and sexism. HQ 1236.5 .S6R87 1898 Sacks, Karen. (1979). Sisters and Wives: The Past and Future of Sexual Equality. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Analyzes male-female roles in terms of their differing relationship to the means of production and clarifies women's status in a variety of traditional African societies. GN 479.7 .S2 1979 Sacks, Karen, and Dorothy Remy (Eds.). (1984). My Troubles Are Going to Have Trouble With Me. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press -- The effects of industrialization on women and men. HD 65095 .M9 1984 Sadawi, Nawal el. (1983). Woman at Point Zero. London: Zed Press. Arab women in literature. PJ 7819 .E4 .S22X 1983 Sanday, Peggy R. (1981). Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press -- An anthropological look at the symbolism and practice of gender differences. HQ 1075 .S26 1981 Sangari, Kumkum, and Sudesh Vaid, (Eds.). (1990). Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press -- Analyzes the gender implications of changes in post-colonial India. HQ 1743 .R43 1990 Schlegel, Alice, (Ed.). (1977). Sexual Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View. NY: Columbia University Press -- An anthropological collection of studies that address the issue of gender equality and inequality in a series of nonWestern societies. 301.41 Se92ss Sivard, Ruth Leger. (1985). Women: A World Survey. Washington, D.C.: World Priorities. Presents comparative information of the conditions of women in various aspects of life such as education and income in simple tables. HQ1154 .S547 1985 Steinem, Gloria (Ed.). (1980). Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. NY: HOlt, Rinehart and Winston -- A classic collection of feminist concerns in 1980. HQ 1413 .S675 .A36 1983b (special 1983 edition) Strathern, Marilyn. (1988). The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press -- a feminist examination of gender roles in Melanesia. DU 490 .S79 1988 Strathern, Marilyn. (1972). Women in Between. London: Seminar Press. An anthropological study of the status of women. Warenski, Marilyn. (1978).Patriarchs and Politics: The Plight of Mormon Women. NY: McGraw Hill. An historical study of gender in Mormonism. 261.83412 W229 Warren, Mary Anne. (1984). Australian Women: New Feminist Perspectives. Melbourne: Oxford Univerisity Press. A feminist interpretation of gender in Australia. Reading Assignment: You are expected read a minimum of five of the following articles. 1. Thomas Gregor, "No Girls Allowed," Science 82, vol. 3, no. 10 (December), 1982, pp. 26-31 -- A cross-cultural comparison that shows the role of private men's clubs in excluding women from positions of social influence and power. 2. Ernestine Friedl, "Society and Sex Roles," Human Nature, vol. 1, nol. 4, 1978, pp. 68-75 -- Demonstrates the roles of environmental adaptation and economics in determining the rank of women. 3. Strathern, Marilyn, "No Nature, No Culture: The Hagen Case." In Carol P. MacCormack and Marilyn Strathern (Eds.), Nature, Culture and Gender, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980, pp. 174- 222 -- Evaluates the cultural symbolism of gender among the Hagen of New Guinea. 4. Karen Adams & N. Ware, "Sexism and English Language: The Linguistic Implications of Being a Woman." In Jo Freeman (Ed.) Women: A Feminist Perspective Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1989 (fourth edition), pp. 470-484 -- Examines the role of language in gender stereotyping. 5. Leonard I. Stein, "Male and Female: The Doctor-Nurse Game," Archives of General Psychiatry, June, 1960. Illustrates the interaction of dominant and subordinate roles in a patriarchal system. 6. Peggy Reeves Sanday, "The Environmental Context of Metaphors for Sexual Identities," "The Bases for Male Dominance," and "Why Women?" In Peggy Reeves Sanday, Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Pp. 55-75, 163-183, 184-214 - Contrasts the gender symbolism in the creation stories of patriarchal and egalitarian societies and interprets the relationships between male dominance and cultural symbolism. 7. Heidi Hartmann, "Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 1, no. 3, part 2 (1976), pp. 137-169, reprinted in Elizabeth Abel and Emily Abel (Eds.), The Signs Reader: Women, Gender & Scholarship. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Pp. 193-225 -- A look at how patriarchy evolved with the rise of capitalism. 8. Elizabeth W. Fernea and Robert A Fernea, "A Look Behind the Veil," Human Nature, January 1979, pp. 68-77 -- A discussion of the role of the veil in the lives of women in an Islamic culture. 9. Alan Weisman, "The Other Side of Nogales," La Frontera, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1986, reproduced in City Magazine February 1987, pp. 34- 41 -- Discusses the economic and sexual exploitation of women workers in U.S. assembly plants in Mexico. 10. Maurice Godelier, "The Origins of Male Domination," New Left Review (May-June, 1981), no 127 pp. 3-17 -- Examines the causes of male supremacism. 11. Patricia Draper, "!Kung Women: Contrasts in Sexual Egalitarianism in Foraging and Sedentary Contexts." In Rayna R. Reiter (Ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women, NY: Monthly Review Press, 1975, pp. 77-109 -- Evaluates the role of the introduction of sedentary life among the !Kung in the decrease of women's autonomy and influence. 12. Phyllis Chesler, "The Walls Came Tumbling Down," On the Issues, vol. 11 (1989), pp. 7-11 - A first-hand account of the persecution of Jewish women who held prayer services at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. 13. Sherry Ortner, "Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?" In Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo (Ed.), Women, Culture and Society, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974, pp. 67-87 -- Analyzes the cultural symbolism of gender. 14. Mayling Simpson-Hebert, "Women, Food and Hospitality in Iranian Society," Canberra Anthropology, vol. 10, no. 1 (April 1987), pp. 24-34 -- Examines how the subordination and seclusion of women in Iranian society influences the ettiquette of dinner invitations and their role in the maintenance of family honor. 15. Charles F. Keyes, "Mother or Mistress But Never a Monk: Buddhist Notions of Female Gender in Rural Thailand," American Ethnologist, vol. 11, no. 2 (May), pp. 223-241 -- Examines the roles of women in Buddhist Thailand. 16. Richard B. Lee, "Politics, Sexual and Nonsexual, in an Egalitarian Society." In G. Berreman (Ed.), The !Kung San Social Inequality," NY: Academic Press, pp. 83-102 -- Examines gender inequality in a foraging society. 17. Carol C. Laderman, "Putting Malay Women in Their Place." In Penny Van Esterek (Ed.), Women in Southeast Asia, Occasional Paper No. 9, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, 1984, pp. 79-99 -- Describes the customs that limit women's roles in Malaysia. - * - 2. Physical and Sexual Abuse of Children Objectives: You will learn about the traditional anthropological theories about the universality of the incest taboo and contrast them with contemporary feminist considerations about incest as sexual abuse. You will learn about the social mechanisms that traditionally have supported the taboo against incest in societies in which extended families are economically and politically important institutions and explore the effects of the historic decline in these mechanisms. Resources: Covenant House 1-800-999-9999 Covenant House provides counseling, shelter, and referal services. National Network of Runaway and Youth Services Department P, P.O. Box 8283 Washington, D.C. 20024 202-488-0739 or 1-800-448-4663 NNRYS provides information about the nearest shelter program. National Runaway Switchboard 1-800-621-4000 NRS encourages runaway children to reestablish contact with their families. Film: "To A Safer Place" (An incest survivor revisits scenes of her childhood) Background Material: This week you will read about the various ways of thinking about incest. The first readings deal with the universality of the incest taboo and the classical theories that have been developed to account for this universality. The readings then shift their focus to the more practical issues raised by feminist concerns relating to incest as an abuse of power. You will aided in moving from the traditional relativistic focus of classical social and behavioral science theorizing to a concern for issues of victimization. The focus on incest as victimization based on the abusive use of social power prepares students for analyzing other topics such as rape, homophobia, prostitution, pornography, and reproductive rights as interrelated human issues that are connected by a common thread of issues about unequal access to social power and the relationship of power to the nature of patriarchy and its perpetuation. A variety of theories have been proposed for the existence of an incest taboo in societies throughout the world. These have ranged from early, simplistic instinct theories to more recent ideas about the effects of socialization on sexual attraction and of the impact of incest on life within the family and on the political and economic viability of families. Anthropological theorizing has emphasized the social functions of incest and the incest taboo, rather than on the psychological impact of incest, and have given little attention to issues of the "politics" of incest as an abuse of power within the family. The taboo against incest has been thought of as a cultural universal. With the exception of a handful of societies which have legitimated certain incestuous relationships (such as the incest implicit in the royal marriages of siblings in societies such as ancient Egypt or Hawaii), all societies seem to have forbidden sexual contact between at least parents and children and between siblings. Indeed, most nonindustrialized societies have included a much broader range of kin and even pseudo-kin (such as nursemaids) under the prohibition. Theories about why the incest taboo is so widespread have been proposed using biological, psychological, sociological, economic, and political grounds. The earliest explanations of the incest taboo simply attributed its universality to "instinct," an idea that has generally been discarded since if there were an instinctive avoidance of incest, rules against it would not be necessary (and its the widespread nature of the rules that needs explaining) and incest would be unlikely to occur (but it does). Later biological theories emphasized the possible detrimental genetic effects of incest to human groups, but they have not generally remained popular for two reasons. First, most societies have limited knowledge about the nature of biological heredity, and it is doubtful that the harmful effects of close inbreeding on a species with fertility rates as high as are typical of human societies could cause the extinction of any society that lacked an incest taboo. Therefore, most theorists have looked elsewhere to explain the universality of the prohibition. A psychological approach still advocated is based on Westermark's (1889) notion that "propinquity breeds contempt," that is that children who are reared together are simply not likely to be sexually attracted to one another due to a kind of "boredom factor." Several studies have suggested that young people are more likely to prefer strangers to other potential partners they have grown up with. For instance, unrelated children reared in the communal dormitories of certain Israeli kibbutzim have a demonstrated tendency to marry persons from other communities. Detractors of these studies argue, on the other hand, that this marriage effect is due to circumstance: By the time the children are old enough for mate selection, they have been dispersed due to the universal military obligation. Studies (Wolf, 1966) of quasi-sibling marriage in Taiwan in which the bride-to-be is raised from childhood by the in-law family have shown such marriages to have higher rates of infertility, impotence, and divorce than other Taiwanese marriages. Although there may be some merit to the idea that sexual attraction is greater between strangers than between persons reared together, this approach is more relevant to sibling incest taboos than to parent-child sex prohibitions and also fails to address the fact that incest does occur. The sociological approach emphasizes the role of the taboo in preventing the role confusion that incestuous relationships could have within families if incest were acceptable (Starcke, 1889). If, for instance, a daughter was also a co-wife of her own father, conflict could arise about when it would be appropriate to play a subordinate or more equal role in respect to either the mother or the father. This approach is generally regarded as overly simplistic in failing to recognize that humans generally manage to juggle a lot of potential role conflict without tremendous difficulty. For instance, newly married children hosting their parents in their new homes could experience role conflict over who should play the dominant role in the new setting, the parents in their traditional dominant role or the children as hosts and family heads in their own residence. We manage to live with such conflicts and usually work out customary accomodations that let one person play a dominant role in one setting and another the dominant role in other settings. At best, role conflict does not seem to demand an incest taboo enough to explain its universality. Economic and political implications of the incest taboo maintain a lot of popularity among anthropological theorists (e.g., White, 1948; Harris, 1968). The most common argument runs along the following lines: Prohibiting incest is an indirect means of forcing each new generation to marry outside the natal family. If sex is unavailable between parents and children or between siblings, then marriages between these persons is also impossible. Sexual partners must be found outside the family of origin, and these relationships--when legitimized as marriages--become the basis for economic and political alliances between the in-law families. Families that "marry out" become economically and politically more secure and powerful, since in-laws may be called upon for aid in times of economic need or political strife such as feuds between neighboring families. Families that allow incest tend to be isolates that eventually lose out in competition with families that are more powerful through the marriage alliances that result from the incest taboo. In effect, the incest taboo codifies the rule of "Marry out or die out!," as incestuous families became the exception to the usual rule. This approach sees the incest taboo as a cultural rule that has adaptive value and is supported by recent research that does indicate that incest is more common among marginal and socially isolated families. A feminist approach to incest differs from all the previous ones in being less concerned with intellectual theorizing and more with the practical issues of incest as the sexual abuse of one person by another. The concept of social power in gender roles and generational roles becomes a central focus in feminist discussions of incest. The feminist focus on incest as victimization of one person by another brings the concept of power to center stage. Differential access to social power is based both on gender and relative age. In most societies, male roles have greater access to power than do female roles, and older persons have greater power than younger ones. Both parent-child and sibling violations of the incest taboo can be examined as innappropriate uses of social power by one individual to gain sexual access to another that would otherwise be denied. >From this perspective, the purpose of the incest taboo is to protect the rights of the less powerful member of the relationship. This view of the nature of the incest taboo receives support from anthropological research that indicates that the specific form of incest that is most strictly prohibited varies from society to society, depending on which relationship is most likely to be abused. For instance, in strongly patriarchal societies it is typically father-daughter incest that is most strongly sanctioned, while in societies in which a woman's brother is the economic provider and head of household it is usually sibling incest that is most strongly punishable. In an anthropological context, this approach would also note that traditional, non-industrialized societies in which extended families exert great influence over individuals' social roles, the family is a much more effective force in sanctioning violations of the incest taboo than is the nuclear family which developes in response to the economically fragmenting effects of industrialization. This is not to suggest that enforcement of the taboo is perfect in preindustrialized societies, but it may account for some of the apparant increase in incest which has been noted by legal and health care practitioners in the United States in recent decades. A feminist approach to incest is somewhat compatible with the role- conflict view of the incest taboo, although it would focus more particularly on the psychologically traumatic aspect of the role conflict situation than on the sociological aspects of role conflict. The period of childhood socialization is the time during which children acquire the foundations of trust which serve as the basis for their continuing successful interpersonal relationships with other people throughout the rest of their lives. Incest impairs the victim's ability to trust others and form bonds of emotional intimacy. It is therefore a form of victimization. The more powerful individuals in an incestuous relationship will find it inherently difficult to distinguish between their own needs and those of their subordinate victims. Thus, the power holders in such relationships find it easy to rationalize the imposition of their own choices as something other than victimization (such as responses to the victim's alleged seductiveness) or may further victimize the already exploited individual by threats and intimidation to keep the relationship secret. The victim is thereby subjected to debilitating anxiety and/or guilt, having been forced into a subjective sense of responsibility for creating and protecting the familial relationship. Therapists indicate that the traumas that result from incestuous abuse can result in repression of memories of the abuse that may only surface years or even decades later. Reading Assignment: 1. Elizabeth Stork, "The Unspeakable Family Secret," Psychology Today, May 1984, pp. 38-39,42,44-46 -- Discusses the high frequency of incest, its relationship to family structure and its effects on victims. 2. Mary Orson, "Wonderland," Salt Lake City Magazine, Early Spring 1990, pp. 63-65 -- A gripping account of the effects of incest by a survivor. 3. Leslie A. White, "The Definition and Prohibition of Incest." In Leslie A. White, The Science of Culture: A Study of Man and Civilization, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971, pp. 303-329 -- Critiques the traditional attempts to explain the incest taboo and suggests an argument for the adaptive benefits of the taboo based on its social effects. 4. Gail Sheehy, "Are You Ready to Listen?" Parade Magazine, July 29, 1984, pp. 4-6 -- How people respond to their children's disclosure of sexual abuse. 5. Marvin Harris, "The Origin of Incest Taboos." In Marvin Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture, Columbia University Press: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1968, pp. 197-199 -- A brief history of some of the prominent anthropological theories of the origin of the incest taboo. 6. Yehudi Cohen, "The Disappearance of the Incest Taboo," Human Nature, vol. 1, July 1978, pp. 72-78 -- Argues that the practical conditions that have traditionally supported the incest taboo have become progressively weaker. 7. Domeena C. Renshaw, "Incest: Handling the Disclosure," Sexual Medicine Today, February 1983, pp. 6-8, 10-11, reprinted in Ollie Pocs (Ed.), Annual Editions: Readings in Human Sexuality 85/86, Guilford, CT: The Dushkin Publishing Group, 1985, pp. 233-236 -- Briefly discusses the roles of medical, psychiatric, and legal institutions in dealing with incest. 8. Gregory C. Leavitt, "The Disappearance of the Incest Taboo: A Cross- Cultural Test of General Evolutionary Hypotheses," American Anthropologist, vol. 91, no. 1, pp. 116-131, 1989 -- Demonstrates that as societies become technologically and socially more complex and as trade institutions develop, the number of relatives included in the incest taboo declines and punishments become less severe. 9. Sandra Butler, "Incest: Whose Reality, Whose Theory," Aegis: Magazine on Ending Violence Against Women, Summer/Autumn 1980, pp. 48-55 (P.O. Box 21033, Washington, D.C.) -- A dated, but groundbreaking article written when the practice of incest was widely denied in the United States. 10. Sylvia B. Patten, Yvonne K. Gatz, Berlin Jones, and Deborah L. Thomas, "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and the Treatment of Sexual Abuse," Social Work, May 1989, pp. 197-203 -- Examines clinical aspects of trauma in incest survivors and discusses therapy for incest victims. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Arens, W. (1985). The Original Sin. NY: Oxford University Press. An anthropological examination of incest that includes information on societies that did not prohibit incest. HQ 71. A73 1986 Scheper-Hughes, Nancy (Ed.). (1987). Child Survival: Anthropological Perspectives on the Treatment and Maltreatment of Children. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company -- A cross-cultural collection of articles on the anthropology of children. Fox, Robin. (1984). The Red Lamp of Incest: An Inquiry into the Origins of Mind and Society. South Bend, IN: Notre Dame. - * - 3. Patriarchy, Female Infanticide, and the Physical and Mental Abuse of Women Objectives: You will explore the relationships between male dominance and the status of females with a focus on the causes of physical abuse and female infanticide. In the process, you will gain insights into the social dynamics and cultural-ecology of female subordination. Films: "A Small Happiness" (Examines the Chinese preference for sons) "A Cry in the Dark" (Recounts the story of an Australian woman accused of infanticide) "Our God is a Woman" (Describes the Bizhago, a western African society in which men are described as being a "minority") Note: Logan's CAPSA (Citizens Against Physical and Sexual Abuse) operates a shelter and safe environment for women and children who need help, support, or protection. Their crisis telephone number is 753-2500. Background Material: In the third week you will be introduced to the issue of female infanticide and physical and mental abuse as manifestations of patriarchy that are closely related to the problem of sexual abuse. You will explore the relationships between male dominance and the status of females and in the process you will gain insights into the cultural-ecology of female subordination. The physical abuse of women is a major worldwide problem. For instance, Lori Heise reports that "In Bankok, Thailand, a reported 50 percent of married women are beaten regularly by their husbands. In the barrios of Quito, Ecuador, 80 percent of women are said to have been physically abused. And in Nicaragua, 44 percent of men admit to beating their wives or girlfriends. Equally shocking statistics can be found in the industrial world" (1989a, p. B1). According to Teri Randall (1990), in the United States, abuse by a partner or spouse is the single most common cause of injury to women and the most common cause of women's visits to emergency rooms in hospitals. Injuries from abuse by husband or lover are more common than injuries from automobile accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. The annual cost of family violence in the United States include $44 million direct costs, 175,000 days missed from paid work, 21,000 hospitalizations, 99,800 days of hospitalization, 28,700 emergency room visits, and 39,900 doctor visits. A central article for this week is Carole Sheffield's "Sexual Terrorism: The Social Control of Women" (1987), which does an excellent job in demonstrating the interrelatedness of topics which are covered throughout the course. The physical and mental abuse of women in patriarchal societies has taken many forms, including female infanticide, the physical abuse of women in both domestic and nondomestic settings, religious persecution of women, mental hospitalization of women as a means of social control, and a wide variety of other forms that Carole Sheffield (1987) has broadly referred to as "sexual terrorism." Sheffield defines sexual terrorism as any use of violence and fear that helps maintain male control and domination of females. She cites particularly rape, assault, the sexual abuse of children, and sexual harassment as examples of sexual terrorism. Acts of sexual terrorism have several things in common: Crimes of violence of these kinds cut across socioeconomic lines. They are the crimes least likely to be reported, or result in trial or conviction. The victim is often held responsible for the violent acts of sexual terrorism, and the acts themselves are often not taken seriously. The abusive use of power inherent in these acts is masked by the common perception that they are really about sex. Adrienne Rich (1980, pp. 240-241) has summarized the characteristics of male power in terms of eight categories that complements Sheffield's shorter list: Male power includes the power of men (1) deny women their own sexuality, (2) to force male sexuality upon them, (3) to command or exploit women's labor and its products, (4) to control or expropriate women's children. (5) to confine women physically or prevent their movement, (6) to use women as objects in male transactions, (7) to cramp their creativeness, and (8) to withhold society's knowledge and cultural attainments from women. Female infanticide, the killing of female infants, has occurred widely in human societies, especially under conditions in which male offspring are highly valued (cf. Miller, 1987). Marvin Harris (1974) has argued that female infanticide was the primary means of population control in human societies prior to the development of effective means of contraception. So widespread was female infanticide in the Middle Ages, for instance, that infant deaths due to suffocation during night-time nursing (when parents "fell asleep" and roled over onto the infants) were rationalized as "accidental" even though statistics make it clear that it was daughters rather than sons who were the overwhelming victims of such "accidents." Even the Church made it clear that although they were regrettable, such deaths were not to be viewed as "sins," since they were merely byproducts of the natural activity of taking the infant into the parental bed to suckle it. Gideon M. Kressel (1981) analyzed the killing of sisters and daughters in Arab Muslim society to defend the honor of the patrilineal family. Family honor is extremely important in many Islamic countries, and often deeply depends on the sexual purity of the female members of the family. Female sexual purity is so important that in many Islamic countries it is insured by the practice of purdah, or seclusion. Purdah is a requirment that women remain isolated from public view. Common features of purdah are the restriction of women to the inner parts of the home when guests are present and the rule of being veiled the woman is outside the home. Violation of the rules of purdah are severely punished in some countries that follow the custom. Where the murder of sisters or daughters is practice to restore family honor, it occurs when the girl or woman has been publicly accused of consorting with a male. The act need not have included sexual intercourse. For instance, Kressel cites the example of a thirteen year old who was drowned after she had been berated by her brother when he caught her holding hands with a boy. In these murders the attacker is usually a brother, but is also frequently the father. The victim is most often in her teens, but may be a married woman. The homicide occurs after a public attack on the family's honor that the family is unable to address by other means. Means of dealing with the situation without resort to homicide include arranging a marriage between the couple, but such means are not always followed. For instance, if the boy were of a lower-ranked lineage, the marriage might not be acceptable to the girl's father, since it would lower the esteem of his lineage. Kressel believes such acts are a means for patrilineal kin groups to reassert their honor by demonstrating their loyalty to the social values of the society in which they are competing for social standing. So these homicides are not thought of as murders, but as acts that enhance the families prestige and demonstrate the religious commitment of the attacker to societal values. Various articles in this section suggest possible causes of male supremacist domination of women. For instance, Marvin Harris (1974) points out that the superior rank of males is particularly extreme when the male role in warfare is compatible with their day-to-day domination of local community life. Thus, in societies in which warfare is between neighboring communities of the same society, the aggressive role of males as warriors is intertwined with their daily social roles as members of their local communities and families. In such societies, women are expected to play extremely subordinated roles and are often treated as mere objects of barter between warriors. On the other hand, when warfare (or economic activities such as long-distance trade) remove men from their local communities for prolonged periods, the day-to-day economic and political life of local communities is in the hands of women, and inheritance is typically from mother to child. In such societies, women often have exceptionally high rank. Men's aggressive warrior roles in such societies convey upon men no special privileges when they return home, since property is owned and inherited by women. Mary Nelson (1989), on the other hand, suggests that social change in the roles of women was itself a source of antagonism in an article about the Inquisition, which occurred during a period when women were entering new forms of employment. During this period, hundreds of thousands of women, particularly those who were not following the traditional gender roles of women, were accused of witchcraft and put to death--a practice that came to an end soon after men as well as women became potential targets of witchcraft accusations. In the contemporary secular cultures of the West, the traditional role of religion in legitimizing the victimization of women has been somewhat supplanted by the scientific institutions of medicine, psychology, and psychiatry, but women who deviate from their traditional gender roles are still the most likely victims. You will explore the role of psychiatric labelling to legitimize the victimization of women in readings about the feminist implications of recently suggested revisions in American Psychiatric Association diagnostic categories that could lend themselves to legal defenses against rape or the portrayal of battered women as provokers of their own abuse. Reading Assignment: 1. Marvin Harris, "The Savage Male." In Marvin Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and and Witches: The Riddles of Culture, NY: Random House, 1974, pp. 83-107 -- Argues that warfare and male control over the tools of war explain the rise of male supremacism in preindustrialized societies. 2. Marvin Harris, "The Origin of Male Supremacism and the Oedipus Complex." Chp. 6 of Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures, NY: Random House, 1977, pp. 55-66 -- An extension of his discussion of male supremacism. 3. Carole Sheffield, "Sexual Terrorism: The Social control of Women." In Beth B. Hess and Myra Marks Ferree (Eds.), Analyzing Gender: A Handbook of Social Science Research, 1987, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 171-189, reprinted in Jo Freeman (Ed.) Women: A Feminist Perspective, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1989 (fourth edition), pp. 3-19 -- A groundbreaking analysis of rape, wife battery, incest, pornography, harassment, and other forms of sexual violence. 4. Anon., "A Step Backwards for Women? Controversial Diagnoses Proposed for DSM-III-R," News for Women in Psychiatry vol. 4 (1986), no. 2, pp. 1-3 -- Memo to the Board of Trustees, American Psychiatric Association from the Committee on Women in Psychology, American Psychological Association regarding the proposed revisions to the DSM-III. 5. Diana E. H. Russell and Nicole Van de Ven, "Forced Incarceration in Mental Hospitals and Marriage." In Diana E. H. Russell and Nicole Van de Ven (Eds.), Crimes Against Women: Proceedings of the International Tribunal, Millbrae, CA: Les Femmes, 1976, pp. 140-143 -- The personal testimony of one woman who was subjected to enforced hospitalization when she left an oppressive marriage in Ireland, a country that does not permit divorce. 6. Gideon M. Kressel, "Sororicide/Filiacide: Homicide for Family Honour," Current Anthropology, vol. 22, no. 2 (April 1981), pp. 141-158 -- Analyzes the killing of sisters and daughters in Arab Muslim society to defend the honor of the patrilineal family. 7. "Appendix A: Proposed Diagnostic Categories Needing Further Study" From Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-III-R, Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 1987 -- Proposed psychiatric categories ("Self- Defeating Personality Disorder," and "Late Luteal Phase Dysphoric Disorder") that define women's victimization as mental disorders that women may have, thereby implicitly holding them responsible for their own victimization. 8. Barbara D. Miller, "Female Infanticide and Child Neglect in Rural North India." In Nancy Scheper-Hughes (Ed.), Child Survival: Anthropological Perspectives on the Treatment and Maltreatment of Children, Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1987. Pp. 95-112 -- Documents the extent of female infanticide. 9. Jill Matthews, excerpts from Good and Mad Women: The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth Century Australia, London: Unwin, pp. 3-29, 202-206 -- Discusses mental hospitalization as a tool for the subordination of women. 10. Mary Nelson, "Why Witches Were Women." In Jo Freeman, Women: A Feminist Perspective (fourth edition), Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1989, pp. 335-350 -- Argues that social changes in the roles of women were at the base of women's oppression as witches in Medieval Europe. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Matthews, Jill. (1985). Good and Mad Women: The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth Century Australia. London: Unwin Hyman -- Examines the various uses of institutionalized social power to enforce gender roles. Tifft, Larry. (1993). Battering of Women: The Failure of Intervention and the Case for Prevention. Boulder, CO: Westview Press -- Examines the empirical data on battery and intervention. HV 6626.2 .T54 1993 - * - 4. Sexuality and Personal Identity in a Patriarchal, Heterosexist Context Objectives: You will gain insight into the relationships between patriarchy, heterosexuality as symbolic subordination of women and as an expression of male dependency on women, and the relationship between the patriarchal subordination of women and the stigmatization of all nonheterosexual identities, including homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, and assexuality. Resources: Amnesty International Members for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, P.O. Box 8293, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-8293. Amnesty International policy now includes homosexual prisoners of conscience within the scope of their human rights concerns. Films: "Sexual Orientation: Reading Between the Labels" (Designed to help build respect between individuals of different sexual orientations) "A Real-Life Tootsie" (A brief portrayal of transvestism) "Hermaphrodites" (An examination by the Geraldo Show) "I am Not a Man, I am Not a Woman" (An examination of hermaphroditism by the Sally Jessie Raphael Show) "What Sex Am I?" (Examines a wide range of cases of transvestism and transexualism) Background Material: The topic in week four shifts to issues of sexual identity, sexual orientation, and heterosexism is a natural one. During this week, you will gain insight into the relationships between patriarchy, heterosexuality as symbolic subordination of women and as an expression of male dependency on women, male and female homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality. In an attempt to break down tendencies to rely on stereotyped dichotomies, you will be exposed to the idea that sexual orientation is a highly variable phenomenon. They become acquainted with the existence of hermaphroditism within the biological continuum from male to female, and learn about the variety of gender roles represented by various forms of transvestism and transsexualism. Thereafter, you will explore readings about the sexual politics of interpersonal behavior, and homophobia and heterosexism as mechanisms for perpetuating the machismo of male roles in American society. We are all given to dichotomizing, a habit that causes our understanding of reality to oversimplify its complexities. This is even true when it comes to thinking about sexual differences. The actual world of biology includes more than just male and female. In hermaphroditism, for instance, biological characteristics of both sexes may be present in varying degree in a single individual or anatomical characteristics may be so intermediate between the usual male and female attributes as to make the sex of a newborn uncertain. Hermaphrodites are typically reared not as hermaphrodies, but either as boys or girls, yet their biological self- concept may not correspond to the gender in which they were reared, and some hermaphrodites conceive of themselves as neither male nor female. Similar lack of congruity between sexual self-concept and biological sex can be seen in transexuals, who experience a subjective distinction between their personal identity and their anatomy (cf. Doctor, 1988). If biology is less clear-cut than our usual dichotomies suggest, society's division of gender into only two chategories, men and women, is even more of an oversimplification. For instance, in primary transvestism individuals experience an incongruity between their biological sex and their socially assigned gender. In American society, primary transvestites are typically heterosexual males whose gender identity is that of a women. Doctor (1988) further identifies a variety of other forms of transvestism in American society. Gay and lesbian roles also challenge the traditional heterosexist insistence on the appropriateness of only two standard sets of gender roles, as does the experience of asexual persons, whose very existence tends to be denied in a society in which chastity is denigrated both socially (see Greer, 1984) and medically (see Zussman, 1983). Adrienne Rich (1980) argued that the compulsory heterosexuality of the patriarchal society perpetuates male dominance by denying validity to lesbian identity. In a complementary view, Lehne (1976) and Weinberg (1982), who coined the word "homophobia," suggest that the emotional prejudice against gay men functions to motivate males to conform to the patriarchal ideals of male aggressiveness and social dominance over women. You are encouraged to consider the benefits of societal acceptance of individual differences and the freedom to be individually unique and to contrast these with the effects of the current societal mandate of conformity to the heterosexist, patriarchal dichotomies of two sexes and two genders. Reading Assignment: 1. Fausto-Sterling, Anne, "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough," The Sciences, March/April 1993, pp. 20-24 -- Describes the varieties of sexual differences, including various forms of hermaphrodites or intersexes. 2. George Weinberg, "Homophobia," Forum (November, 1982), reprinted in Ollie Pocs (Ed.), Annual Editions: Readings in Human Sexuality 85/86, Guilford, CT: The Dushkin Publishing Group, 1985, pp. 198-200 -- A discussion of the irrationality of prejudice against homosexuals by the person who coined the term "homophobia." 3. Gregory K. Lehne, "Homophobia Among Men." In D. David and B. Brannon (Eds.), The Forty-Nine Percent Majority. Redding, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1976, pp. 66-88 -- Shows how homophobia functions to support the traditional male gender role. 4. Mary Ellen Atwood and Jean Williams, "Human Sexuality: An Important Aspect of Self-Image," Young Children (January 1983), pp. 56-61 -- A brief statement about the centrality of sexuality to personal identity. 5. Gregory M. Herek, "Hate Crimes Against Lesbians and Gay Men: Issues for Research and Policy," American Psychologist, vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 948-954 -- Documents the extent of antigay hate crimes, words or actions that are intended to harm or intimidate individuals because they are gay or lesbian. 6. Adrienne Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 5, no. 4 (Summer 1980), pp. 631-660 -- How compulsory heterosexuality perpetuates male dominance and renders lesbian experience as deviant. 7. Patricia J. Falk, "Lesbian Mothers: Psychosocial Assumptions in Family Law," American Psychologist, vol. 44., no. 6, pp. 941-947 -- Reviews the existing research literature on children reared by lesbian mothers that consistently indicate that the children of lesbian mothers do not differ from children reared by heterosexual counterparts in mental and emotional health, molestation, gender role development, or sexual orientation. 8. Germaine Greer, "The Uses of Chastity and Other Paths to Sexual Pleasures," Ms. (April 1984), pp. 53-56,96 -- On the need for women to control their own sexual destinies. 9. Nancy Heneley and Jo Freeman, "The Sexual Politics of Interpersonal Behavior." In Jo Freeman (Ed.) Women: A Feminist Perspective Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1989 (fourth edition), pp. 457-469 -- How gender roles keep women "in their place." 10. Richard F. Doctor, "The Spectrum of Cross Dressing." Chp. 2 in Richard F. Doctor, Transvestites and Transsexuals: Toward a Theory of Cross-Gender Behavior, New York: Plenum Press, 1988, pp. 9-38 -- Outlines the variations in transvestism and transsexuality. 11. Joyce Penfield, "Surnaming: The Strugle for Personal Identity." In Joyce Penfield (Ed.), Women and Language in Transition, NY: SUNY Press, 1987, pp. 117-129 -- Discusses the role of patronyms in women's identity. 12. David F. Greenberg, and Marcia H. Bystryn. (1982). "Christian Intolerance of Homosexuality," American Journal of Sociology, vol. 88, pp. 515-546 -- Outlines the history of intolerance for homosexuality. 13. Dwight B. Billings and Thomas Urban, "The Socio-Medical Construction of Transsexualism: An Interpretation and Critique," Social Problems vol. 29, no. 3 (February 1982), pp. 266-282 -- Argues that the transsexual role is a creation of medical practice that reaffirms the traditional male/female gender role dichotomy through capitalist logics of reification and commodification. 14. Diana Russell and Nicole Van de Ven, "Compulsory Heterosexuality: Persecution of Lesbians." In Diana E. H. Russell and Nicole Van de Ven (Eds.), Crimes Against Women: Proceedings of the International Tribunal, Millbrae, CA: Les Femmes, 1976, pp. 40-57 -- The role of the persecution of lesbians in promoting heterosexuality through the testimony of women from various countries. 15. Gary B. Melton, "Public Policy and Private Prejudice: Psychology and Law on Gay Rights," American Psychologist, vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 933-940 -- Discusses the setback for gay rights in the divided Supreme Court decision in Bowers v. Hardwick and points out areas of rights that were not affected by this decision. 16. Margrit Eichler, The Double Standard: A Feminist Critique of Feminist Social Science, "Sex Change Operations--The Last Bulwark of the Double Standard," "Eunuchs and Intersexes," and "The Last Bulwark of the double Standard" (the concluding sections of "The Double Standard Internalized: The Inadequacy of the Sex Identity Approach.") NY: St. Martin's Press, 1979, pp. 72-75, 83-86 and 86-89 -- Examines the arbitrariness of sex and gender dichotomies and discusses sex change operations as a medical means of supporting the traditional gender role dichotomy. 17. Ann Ferguson, Jaquelyn N. Zita, and Kathryn Pyne Addelson, "On Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence: Defining the Issues," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 7, no. 1 (Autumn 1981), pp. 158-199 -- A consideration of the concept of lesbianism and of heterosexual ideology as coercive force. 18. Richard F. Doctor, "A Review of the Literature on Transvestism and Transsexualism." Chp. 3 in Richard F. Doctor, Transvestites and Transsexuals: Toward a Theory of Cross-Gender Behavior, NY: Plenum Press, 1988, pp. 39-71 -- Examines the research literature on transvestism and transsexuality. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Blackwood, Evelyn, (Ed.). (1986). The Many Faces of Homosexuality: Anthropological Approaches to Homosexual Behavior. NY: Harrington Park Press -- An exceptional collection of anthropological essays on homosexuality in its various cultural contexts. Reproduces volume 11, no. 3/4 (Summer 1985) issue of Journal of Homosexuality. GN 484.35 .A57 1986 Bolin, Anne. (1988). In Search of Eve: Transsexual Rites of Passage. NY: Bergin & Garvey. Examines the experience of transsexuals in America. HQ 77.9 B65 Boswell, John. (1980). Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A seminal work on the historical changes in social and theological attitudes toward homosexuality. HQ 76.3 .E8B67 Bullough, Vern. (1989). Sexual Variance in Society and History. NY: John Wiley and Sons -- An historical examination of nonmainstream sexuality. (1976 edition: HQ 12 .B84 1976) Doctor, Richard F. (1988). Transvestites and Transsexuals: Toward a Theory of Cross-Gender Behavior. NY: Plenum Press. Summarizes the existing research on transvestism and transsexuality. HQ 77 .D63 1988 Greenberg, David F. (1988). The Construction of Homosexuality. Berkeley: University of California Press. An anthropological examination of the role of society in defining homosexual gender roles. HQ 76.25 .G74 1988 Herdt, Gilbert. (1987). Guardians of the Flutes: Idioms of Masculinity. NY: McGraw-Hill. Gender concepts in New Guinea. DU 740.42 .H44 1987 Herdt, Gilbert. (1982). Rituals of Manhood. Berkeley: University of California Press. Documents the role of homosexuality in the socialization of men in Highland New Guinea. GN 671 .N5R55 1982 Horner, Thomas M. (1978). Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press -- An unorthodox, but intriguing theological discourse on homosexuality in the Bible. BS 680 .H67 .H67 1978 Vida, Virginia (Ed.) (1978). Our Right to Love. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall -- Articles on lesbian life and lesbian rights. - * - 5. Gender and Personal Identity: More Than Just Female or Male Objectives: You will learn that gender and sexual identity is much more than merely a dichotomy between male and female. Film: "Some Women of Marakech" (The symbolic roles of wives and dancers in Morocco) "Choosing Children" (A multiethnic, multiracial film about different situations in which lesbians have children) "Sandy and Madeleine's Family" (The daily life of a lesbian couple and their children, including a court battle for custody rights) Background Material: Week five helps you learn that gender is a culturally defined concept. Since the dichotomy of male and female as biological distinctions valid for all human individuals was undermined in week four, it is an easy step to help you recognize that the cultural dichotomy of men and women as the only adult genders may not be as natural as they had assumed. In this lesson, you will become acquainted with societies in which three or four distinct genders are formally recognized, each with distinct, socially acceptable roles. Excerpts from Ifi Amadiame's Male Daughters, Female Husbands illustrate the economic implications of males who adopt the social identity of women and females who adopt the male gender to perpetuate families that lack a daughter or a son. Viewing such gender changes in terms of pragmatic benefits such as making it possible for the property to remain in the family when it is must be inherited by a child of the appropriate gender, helps to undermine the biases related to American society cultural insistence on viewing gender primarily in terms of sexuality. It is then easier to move to comparisons between the religiously defined Jogatis and Hijras of India, hermaphrodites and males who have adopted the roles of a third gender and who symbolize their role change by adopting feminine attire, with the berdache genders available to both males and females in many native North American societies, genders with which transvestism and sacred responsibilities were also often associated. In covering the berdache, I stress the diversity among North American societies in how sexuality was integrated into the berdache roles. For instance, the Navajo berdache was expected to enter biologically defined heterosexual marriages, Tewa berdaches were expected to be bisexual in behavior, and most Plains berdaches married a same-sexed partner. This will further help you to "desexualize" your perception of alternative genders, so that you can more readily consider gay and lesbian roles in broader terms than sexual orientation. Homosexuality in American culture can then be approached in the same vein as have the acceptable gender alternatives of other cultures. Many of the world's traditional societies have formally recognized the legitimate existence of third and fourth genders. The most common pattern is one that was common in native North America where many societies permitted males and females to adopt a gender based on roles usually assigned to members of the other biological sex (cf. Jacobs, 1968; Callender and Kochems, 1983; Blackwood, 1984; Whitehead, 1981: Greenberg, 1988, pp. 40-66). This status, commonly called the berdache in anthropological literature, was typically regarded as a somewhat sacred position. Berdaches were often shamans (magico-religious curers) or otherwise regarded as imbued with supernatural power or luck. Children were sometimes reared in the berdache gender by parents who lacked a child of one sex, especially in societies where the work assigned that sex was economically important for their families. Similar cross-gender or gender- mixed, third genders have been noted in other societies (cf. Amadiame, 1987; Nanda, 1988). Male and female berdaches may be expected to marry homosexually or heterosexually (in respect to their defined biological sex) or to be bisexual, depending upon the particular culture of their specific society. Societies in which berdache-like genders have been reported are typically ones in which the roles of women and men are quite different especially in their economic activities, but in which the economic contribution of women is regarded as important. Women in these societies are often regarded as having equality or near equality with men. Families tend toward the nuclear rather than extended pattern, and ancestry is typically traced either through both parents equally or through the mother- line only. Anthropologists have noted a smaller but significant number of societies in which male-homosexuality is mandatory for a significant portion--sometimes all--of the male population for a period of time during their lives (cf. Greenberg, 1988, pp. 26-40; Herdt, 1984). These societies commonly formalize the age-graded homosexuality into formal homosexual marriages between men of significantly different ages. In such marriages, known to anthropologists as intergenerational marriages or male mentorships, the younger partner often adopts a cross-sex gender role as "wife" to the older husband. The marriage relationship thereby perpetuates the culture's ideal of gender inequality as it is also manifest in the society's heterosexual marriages. These marriages are especially common in military or religious settings and function to create an emotionally bonded mentor-apprentice relationship in which the "husband" is expected to train the "wife"-apprentice in the military skill or sacred religious lore of men. The religious symbolism of these societies is often filled with images of the dangerousness of women and the superiority of men. Intergenerational marriages may be regarded as superior to heterosexual ones, but they are temporary: the younger partner eventually graduates to become a "husband" to a newly initiated younger male "wife" and the older partner exits the system and participates only in heterosexual marriages thereafter. In some of societies in which male mentorships are practiced, the older partner may be simultaneously married in a seperate heterosexual marriage. In others, the older partner does not marry heterosexually until his mentorship marriage comes to an end. These societies are almost always patrilineal and are often fiercely male supremacist. Heterosexual marriages are ideally polygynous--ironically because the labor of women is the major source of the income of their families, so that men's wealth is directly proportional to the number of their wives. However, polygyny in these societies, though economically valued, is reserved for a very small percentage of high status, older men who may have a very large number of wives. Their wealth, and therefore their political power, is inherited. Upward mobility for men in this system is frequently based on their successes in the economic activities of men (such as in intergroup trade or in competitive hosting of festivities between groups) or in their careers as warriors which may even be a means of entry into heterosexual marriage through the capture of enemy women who are then "distributed" as wives to the most valiant men. The berdache-like relationships of traditional societies provides an interesting backdrop against which to reconsider the nature of gay and lesbian statuses in industrialized societies. The similarities and differences between modern "homosexual" and traditional berdache personal and social identity may be reflections of similarities and differences between industrialized societies and the nonindustrialized societies in which the berdache was common. Both kinds of societies have an economic division of labor by gender, nuclear families, and kinship and inheritance customs (i.e., ancestry is typically traced through both parents). The major differences are (1) the historic stigmatization of "homosexual" roles in industrialized societies, (2) the greater association of transvestism (a common part of the gender-mixing of the berdache status) with heterosexual males in industrialized societies, (3) the lower economic importance placed on women's labor in industrialized societies, and (4) the somewhat lower social equality of women in industrialized societies. Indeed, the stigmatization of homosexuality in industrialized societies may be directly related to the low economic and social standing of women (as suggested by Bunch, 1975, 1978--and Rich, Lehne, and Weinberg, as cited previously), and the contrasting positions of cross-gender dressing may be a symbolic byproduct of the same socioeconomic contrasts. An approach that emphasizes gender role alternatives as adaptations to economic and political conditions rather than as "deviant" and idiosyncratic behavior that simply manifests sexual preferences sets the stage for the realization that gay and lesbian roles are best seen as valid gender identities in their own right and that rigid dichotomozation of genders is a means of perpetuating the domination of females by males and patriarchal institutions. This approach gives added reinforcement to Weinberg's concept that homophobia functions to pressure males into conformity with patriarchal ideals of machismo and competitive striving for social dominance in their relationships with others and to Adrienne Rich's concept of compulsory heterosexuality as a mechanism for the perpetuation of the patriarchal subordination of women. These compatible viewpoints are supplemented in the readings for this week by Charlotte Bunch's articles, "Lesbian-Feminist Theory" and "Not for Lesbians Only." Reading Assignment: 1. Charlotte Bunch, "Not for Lesbians Only," Quest: A Feminist Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 2 (Theories of Revolution), Fall 1975, pp. 50-56, reprinted in Evelyn Shapiro and Barry Shapiro (Eds.) The Women Say, The Men Say, NY: Dell, 1979, pp. 245-248 -- A look at the lesbian-feminist/straight- feminist split that argues that heterosexuality inherently disadvantages women. 2. Charlotte Bunch, "Lesbian-Feminist Theory." In Virginia Vida (Ed.), Our Right to Love, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978, pp. 180-182 -- A powerful look at the centrality of heterosexism, the institutional and ideological domination of heterosexuality, to male supremacy. 3. William F. Price and Richley H. Crapo, "The Berdache: Gender-Mixing Among North American Indians." In Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Introductory Psychology, 1992, West Publishing. (in press) -- A simple summary of the berdache as a culturally defined gender. 4. Richley H. Crapo, "Sexual Majorities, Sexual Minorities," unpublished paper presented at USU Great Issues Forum, 2 December 1986. 5. Unni Wikan, "Man Becomes Woman: Transsexualism in Oman as a Key to Gender Roles, Man, vol. 12, no. 2 (August, 1977), pp. 304-319. Describes the roles of the Omani xanith, a transvestite male prostitute whose gender identity mixes characteristics of men and women. 6. David F. Greenberg, "Homosexual Relations in Kinship Structured Societies." In David F. Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, pp. 25-77 -- Summarizes the characteristics of transgenerational, transgenderal, and egalitarian forms of homosexual relationships. 7. Richley H. Crapo, "Sexual Orientation as a Human Right," paper presented at the Great Basin Human Rights Conference, Ogden, UT, 21 May 1992. 8. Ifi Amadiame, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society, "Wealth and Gender," "Land and 'Male Daughters'," and "The Problem: Reinterpretation of the Institution of 'Female Husbands'." Zed (Inland Book Co, CT), 1987, pp. 30-33 and 126-133 -- A brief account of the economic role of pathic statuses in Igbo society. 9. Ira Reiss, "The Societal Linkages of Homosexuality." In Journey into Sexuality: An Exploratory Voyage, Ira Reiss, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986, pp. 146-171 -- A cross-cultural, comparative study of the correlation between male homosexual behavior and various societal traits. 10. Denise O'Brien, "Female Husbands in Southern Bantu Societies," in Alice Schlegel (Ed.) Sexual Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View, 1977, NY: Columbia University Press. Pp. 109-121. 301.41 Se 92ss -- Describes the economic role of gender mixing among the Bantu. 11. Charles Callender and Lee M. Kochems, "The North American Berdache," Current Anthropology vol. 24, no. 4 (August-October 1983), pp. 443- 470 -- A technical appraisal of North American male and female pathic gender statuses. 12. Evelyn Blackwood, "Sexuality and Gender in Certain Native American Tribes: The Case of Cross-Gender Females," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 10, no. 1 (Autumn 1984), pp. 27-42 -- A discussion of the female berdache gender status. 13. Harriet Whitehead, "The Bow and the Burden Strap: A New Look at Institutionalized Homosexuality in Native North America." In Sherry B. Ortner and Harriet Whitehead (Eds.) Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality, London: Cambridge University Press, 1981, pp. 80-11 -- An evaluation of the diversity of gender concepts and their implications for sexuality. 14. Thomas M. Horner, "David and Jonathan." In Jonathan Loved David: Homosexuality in Biblical Times, 1978, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. Pp. 26-39 -- Argues for the presence of a theme of homosexual love in the story of David and Jonathan. 15. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, "Berdache: A Brief Review of the Literature," Colorado Anthropologist vol. 1, no. 1 (1986), pp. 25-31 -- A definition of the berdache gender role and its relationship to American cultural concepts. 16. Richley H. Crapo, "Factors in the Cross-Cultural Patterning of Homosexuality," Journal of Cross-Cultural Research (to appear 1995). Summarizes the social and economic factors that are associated with institutionalized third and fourth genders and age-graded, mandatory homosexual behavior. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Amadiume, Ifi. (1987). Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society. London: ZED. Gender in a Nigerian society. HQ 1815.5 .A42x 1987 Nanda, Serena. (1990). Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company -- An excellent account of a third gender in India. HQ 449 .N36 1990 Raymond, Janice G. (1979). The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Boston: Beacon Press. Discusses the phenomenon of transsexuality. 301.415 R216 and RC 560 .CR38 Roscoe, Will. (1991). The Zuni Man-Woman. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. The life history of We'wha, the most well-known Zuni berdache. E99 .Z9 .R78 1991 - * - 6. The Cultural Construction of Women's Sexuality Objectives: You will learn about the historical changes and continuities in Western cultural values concerning human sexuality and come to recognize that courtship and marriage customs are integrated into a larger network of cultural facts. Films: "Still Killing Us Softly" (An examination of the portrayal of women in U.S. advertizing) "Argument About A Marriage" (Charges of adultery aired in public among the South African !Kung people) Background Material: In week six, you will address the topic of human sexuality from an international perspective. You will read materials about cross-cultural research on sexual customs and the social functions of different sexual attitudes and customs. You will also learn about the historical changes and continuities in Western cultural values concerning human sexuality and come to recognize that the traditional courtship and marriage customs of American society are also integrated into a larger network of cultural facts. How male and female sexuality is culturally constructed often reflects gender-based differences in social power that are perpetuated by heterosexism. Suzanne Frayser (1985) examined the sociocultural dimensions of sexuality from a cross-cultural and demonstrated that societies throughout the world "provide guidelines to channel a person's choice of sexual partner" (p. 197). Societies may be equally restrictive of male and female sexuality or more lenient in rules concerning male sexuality, but sexual freedom for women where strictness prevails for men is quite uncommon. Mary Anne Warren (1986) pointed out that sexual behavior is no different from other human behavior in that "a society's overall patterns of sexual behavior and the sexual predilections of individuals are shaped by social, legal, economic and ideological forces." She documented the changes in sexual roles and attitudes about sexuality in our society during the past century and points out forcefully that although heterosexual intercourse has been assumed to be the sole natural expression of sexuality, heterosexuality too must be seen as a culturally constructed institution. So thoroughly is this view of sexuality ingrained in American ideology, that other forms of sexuality, including asexuality, continue to be regarded as deviant even in medical literature (cf. Zussman, 1983). Barker-Banfield (1983) analyzed Victorian ideals of male and female sexuality and found that nineteenth century Victorian attitudes reawakened the medieval idea that humans possessed a limited supply of sexual fluid, which should not be wasted on nonprocreative sex or sex for pleasure. This ideology, Barker-Banfield argues, was reborn because it was well-suited to the economic conditions that accompanied industrialization, and its fundamental function was to allow men to control women, who were portrayed as evil "sperm absorbers." Mary Daly (1978a) examined the extremes to which monogamous heterosexual marriage as the sole "natural" state for women can go in her examination of the practice of the sutee in patriarchal Hindu society prior to its banning in 1829. In the sutee, the woman's status was defined so intensely in terms of her relationship with a husband, that custom required her self-sacrifice on her husband's funeral pyre. After the sutee was banned, Hindu widows were still victimized by the life of poverty into which they were thrust by the death of their husbands. Religious alternatives to heterosexual marriage have existed in a variety of patriarchal societies--e.g., nuns of Roman Catholic tradition, Buddhist female ascetics (cf. Keyes, 1984), or female religious devotees in Hinduism (cf. Kinsley, 1981). Secular alternatives to heterosexual marriage have been less acknowledged until recently, but Adrienne Rich's (1980) notion of the "lesbian-continuum" with its emphasis on the nonerotic element in many "woman-identified women" relationships and Germaine Greer's (1984) plea for the respectability of chastity without repression represent recent attempts to broaden our culture's--or at least feminists-- perspectives on secular alternatives to heterosexism for women. Gay and straight male advocacy for nonheterosexist models remains even less developed. Judith Laws and Pepper Swartz (1977) examined the "sexual scripts" that constrain and guide sexuality in the United States and found that an economic transaction model of sexual exchanges, one in which female sexuality is viewed as a commodity, is a very effective way of characterizing American courtship and marriage. In their view, the liberalization of sexual standards of the twentieth century is akin to "price wars" in the marketplace in that the value of virginity has been undercut as the pattern of sexual exchange shifted from a "seller's" to a "buyer's" market in which the woman has experienced increasing pressure to "engage in sex at times, in ways, or with partners unsatisfactory to her, under threat of the man taking his business elsewhere" (p. 104). Thus, the liberalization of sexual scripts in America has not undermined the patriarchal system of earlier times, it has merely shifted the outer forms of a system that still defines women's options as heterosexuality, monogamy, and marriage. Reading Assignment: 1. Judith A. Diiorio, "Sex, Glorious Sex: The Social Construction of Masculine Sexuality in a Youth Group." In Laurel Richardson and Verta Taylor (Eds.), Feminist Frontiers II: Rethinking Sex, Gender, and Society, NY: Random House, 1989, pp. 261-269 -- Documents the ways in which young men socialize one another into perceiving women as objects of objects of sexual gratification and a source of their own sense of well-being as males. 2. Emily Prager, "Roommates, But Not Lovers," Ms vol. 7, no. 10 (April), pp. 16-19 -- Illustrates how people outside a relationship persist in interpreting it in sexual terms. 3. Mark Zussman, "Unconsummated Marriages," Forum, (February 1983), reprinted in Ollie Pocs (Ed.), Annual Editions: Readings in Human Sexuality 85/86, Guilford, CT: The Dushkin Publishing Group, 1985, pp. 183-185 -- A portrayal of assexual marriage as a medical problem. 4. Suzanne G. Frayser, "The Sexual Cycle." In Suzanne G. Frayser, Varieties of Sexual Experience: An Anthropological Perspective on Human Sexuality, New Haven, CT: HRAF Press, 1985, pp. 197-219 -- A cross- cultural survey of human customs pertaining to sexuality. 5. Judith Long Laws and Pepper Swartz, "Sexual Transactions." Chp. 4 in Judith Long Laws and Pepper Swartz, Sexual Scripts: The Social Constructions of Female Sexuality. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America -- Male-female role interaction examined sociologically. 6. Suzanne G. Frayser, "The Reproductive Cycle." In Suzanne G. Frayser, Varieties of Sexual Experience: An Anthropological Perspective on Human Sexuality, New Haven, CT: HRAF Press, 1985, pp. 245-267 -- A cross- cultural survey of human sexual customs pertaining to marriage. 7. Yehudi A. Cohen, "Ends and Means in Political Control: State Organization and the Punishment of Adultery, Incest, and Violation of Celibacy," American Anthropologist, vol. 71, pp. 658-687 (1969) -- A cross-cultural research on the effects of the evolution of political systems on governmental control of sexuality. 8. David Kinsley, "Devotion as an Alternative to Marriage in the Lives of Some Hindu Women Devotees." In Jayant Lele (Ed.), Tradition and Modernity in Bhakti Movements, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981, pp. 83-93 -- A look at religious renunciation of the world as an alternative to marriage in a Hindu devotional movement. 9. Patricia Murphy Robinson, "The Historical Repression of Women's Sexuality." In ***, pp. 251-265. 10. G. J. Barker-Banfield, "The Spermatic Economy: A Nineteenth-Century View of Sexuality." In Thomas L. Altherr, Pleasure or Procreation?: Sexual Attitudes in American History, Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing, 1983, pp. 47-70 -- An overview of Victorian ideas and attitudes toward human sexuality. 11. Mary Daly, "Indian Suttee: The Ultimate Consummation of Marriage." Chp. 3 in Mary Daly, Gyn-Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Reminism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978, pp. 113-133 -- The role of ritual wife burning at the death of the husband in patriarchal eighteenth century Hindu India. 12. Patricia K. Miller, Martha R. Fowlkes, "Social and Behavioral Construction of Female Sexuality," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol 5, no. 4 (Summer 1980), pp. 783-800 -- Reviews theories of female sexuality. 13. Vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, "Sex Need Not Be Sin: Some Alternative Views." In Vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, Sin, Sickness, and Sanity: A History of Sexual Attitudes. NY: New American Library, 1977. Pp. 41-54 -- Examines sexuality in the cultures of China, India, and Islam. 14. Mary Anne Warren, "The Social Construction of Sexuality." In Norma Grieve and Ailsa Burns (Eds.), Australian Women: New Feminist Perspectives, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 142-154 -- Analyzes the role of patriarchy in defining women's sexuality. 15. D. L. Davis and R. G. Whitten, "The Cross-Cultural Study of Human Sexuality." In Annual Editions in Anthropology, 1987, vol. 16, pp. 69-98 -- Summarizes the anthropological literature on human sexuality. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Alloula, Malek. (1986). The Colonial Harem. (Myrna and Wlad Godzich, trans.) Minneapolis: Univerity of Minnesota Press -- Analysis of picture postcards of Algerian women produced by the French in Algeria from 1900 through 1930. HQ 1791.5. A7613 1986 Altherr, Thomas L. (1983). Pleasure or Procreation?: Sexual Attitudes in American History. Malabar, FL: Robert E. Krieger Publishing. Examines the history of changing American attitudes about sexuality and gender roles. Blodgett, Harriet. (1988). Centuries of Female Days: Englishwomen's Private Diaries. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. An analysis of diaries published between the late 16th century and World War II. PR 908 .B56 (LOST) Berndt, Ronald M. (1976). Love Songs of Arnhem Land. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A look at traditional Aboriginal erotic activity and belief. Bouhdiba, Abdelwahab. (1985). Sexuality in Islam. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. London: Routledge & Kegen Paul. Religious aspects of Islamic sexual customs in Arab countries. BD 190.5 .S4B6813 Bullough, Vern, and Bonnie Bullough. (1977). Sin, Sickness, and Sanity: A History of Sexual Attitudes. NY: New American Library -- Surveys the history of sexual attitudes about sexuality and concepts concerning sexual morality. HQ 12 .B843 1977 Burbank, Victoria Katherine. (1988). Aboriginal Adolescence: Maidenhood in an Australian Community. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Female adolescence, sex, and marriage in the Australian Aboriginal community of Mangrove. GN 663 .B88 1988 Caplan, Pat, ed. (1987). The Cultural Construction of Sexuality. London: Tavistock. An examination of the dynamics of gender conceptualization. Carlton, Charles. (1990). Royal Mistresses. London: Routledge. Focuses on the influence of the mistresses of British monarchs on the monarchs and on British society at large. DA 308 .C37 Chernin, Kim. (1981). The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness. NY: Harper and Row -- A feminist investigation of concepts of beauty and effects such as anorexia. RM 222.2 .C47 1981 Croutier, Alev L. (1989). Harem: The World Behind the Veil. NY: Abbeville Press. The history and sociology of the harem by a Turkish author who relates her own family's experience. HQ 1170 .C84 1989 Dalby, Liza. (1985). Geisha. New York: Random House. An elegant portrayal of the role of the geisha as conservator of Japanese culture. GV1472.3 .J3D32 Fisher, Elizabeth. (1979). Woman's Creation: Sexual Evolution and the Shaping of Society. New York: McGraw-Hill. A theoretical discourse on women's role in biological evolution. 301.412 .F532 Foucault, Michael. (1978). The History of Sexuality, Volume I. NY: Viking Press. A scholarly look at the history of European sexual customs. HQ 12 .F6813 1978 vol. 1 Frayser. Suzanne G. (1985). Varieties of Sexual Experience: An Anthropological Perspective on Human Sexuality. New Haven, CT: HRAF Press. A cross-cultural survey of human customs pertaining to sexuality. GN 484.3 .F73 Ginsburg, Faye, and Anna Tsing (Eds.). (1990). Uncertain Terms: Negotiating Gender in American Culture. Boston: Beacon Press -- A postmodernist examination of the construction of gender in America. HQ 1426 .U48 1990 Good, Kenneth. (1991). Into the Heart: One Man's Pursuit of Love. NY: Simon & Schuster. The story of an anthropologist's life among the Yanomamo of Venezuela and Brazil and of his marriage to a Yanomamo woman. F 2520.1 .Y3G66 1991 Gregerson, Edgar. (1983). Sexual Practices: The Story of Human Sexuality. NY: Franklin Watts. A descriptive account of sexual customs in preindustrialized societies. HQ 12 .G73 1983 Jacobson, Doranne, and Susan S. Wadley. (1977). Women in India: Two Perspectives. New Delhi: South Asia Books. Two essays on the roles of women and the concepts of womenhood in India. HQ 1743 .W66 Jaggar, Alison M., and Susan R. Bordo, (Eds.) (1989). Gender/Body/ Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press -- An interdisciplinary collection of essays concerning ways in which the body is used as a source of cultural symbolism. BD 450 .G4455 1989 Laws, Judith Long, and Pepper Swartz. (1977). Sexual Scripts: The Social Construction of Female Sexuality. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America. A sociological examination of the definitions of various roles for women. 301.417633 L441 Margolis, Maxine. (1984). Mothers and Such: Views of American Women and Why They Changed. Berkeley: University of California Press -- A look at change in American gender roles. HQ 1410 .M36 1984 Mead, Margaret. (1973). Coming of Age in Samoa. NY: William Morrow & Co. Mead's classic examination of adolescence among Samoan women. NY: William Morrow & Co. A comparative study of gender in New Guinea. DU 813 .M4 1928 and DU 813 .M4 1949 Mernissi, Fatima. (1987). Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. An examination of Muslim conceptualizations of womanhood. HQ 1170 .M46 1987 Ortner, Sherry, and A. Whitehead, (Eds.). (1981). Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press -- A socio-cultural account of the origins of gender stereotypes. GN 479.65 .S49 1981 Ottenheimer, Martin. (1985). Marriage in Domoni: Husbands & Wives in an Indian Ocean Community. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. An ethnography of marriage. Parikh, Indira J., and Pulin K. Garg. (1980). Indian Women: An Inner Dialogue. Newbury Park, CA: Sage -- Examines the processes of being and becoming a woman in India and the influences of folklore, myths, and role models. HQ 1743 .P36 1989 Reiss, Ira L. (1986). Journey into Sexuality: An Exploratory Voyage. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. A cross-cultural research study of various aspects of human sexuality. HQ 21 .R425 1986 Sabbah, Fatnah A. (1984). Women in the Muslim Unconscious. NY: Pergamon. An interpretation of Muslim concepts of women. Sadawi, Nawal el. (1972). Women and Sex. Beirut. A controversial analysis of female sexuality, Arabic concepts of chastity and their shortcomings. Sadawi, Nawal el. (1980). The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World. London: Zed Press. A feminist look at gender in Arab society. HQ 1784 .S18 Vance, C., (Ed.). (1984). Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. An examination of the cultural meanings of female sexuality. Schaeffer, Kay. (1988). Women and the Bush: Forces of Desire in the Australian Cultural Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press -- A deconstructionist interpretation of Australian discourse that interprets national identity as "man's" relationship to a landscape identified as female. PR 9065.6 .W6 .S34 1988 Stockard, Janice E. (1989). Daughters of the Canton Delta: Marriage Patterns and Economic Strategies in China, 1860-1930. Stanton, CA: Stanford University Press -- Describes the traditional marriage system of China's Canton Delta, delayed transfer marriage, in which brides were required to separate from their husbands and return to their parents' homes for three years. HQ 684 .A37 1989 - * - 7. Rape Objectives: You will gain insight into the power and status issues concerning rape. Film: "Against Her Will" (A close look at acquaintance rape on university and college campuses) "You Are the Game: Sexual Harassment on Campus" (Reveals the role of power in the interpersonal interaction of sexual harassment" Note: The USU Police offer a campus escort service. Call 750-1939 for an escort between any two places on campus. Background Material: Rape and genital mutilation, the topics of week seven, are approached explicitly as manifestations of male supremacist ideologies. Reading assignments help you achieve insight into the power and status issues concerning rape, the complexities of definitions of rape, and varieties of rape such as date rape and the abusive sexual domination of the unempowered. The week includes specific material on individual and social strategies for thwarting rape. Rape is a violent crime in which a person, usually a woman, is forced to have sex against her will. As a coercive act, its motivation is closely linked to the socialization of males in a way that links masculinity with aggressive striving for dominance over others and that identifies women's sexuality as the reward for successful men. It is this sense in which rape is seen by feminists as an act of violence rather than of sex, since the sexual context in which it occurs is just one of many situations in which male aggression may victimize others. In the act of rape, women are objectified as nothing more than sexual objects through which the rapist gratifies his sense of success in the use of power to subordinate a human victim. Thus, the essence of rape is not sexual. Rather, it is a violent act that coercively redifines another as something less than human, mere object for use (see Skipper and McWhorter, 1981). Dianne Herman (1989) contends that rape is a logical result of a culture in which the masculine role is defined as one of dominance, the feminine role as one of subordination, and sex as a "dirty, low, and violent act" (p. 39), as it typically is in literature and the visual media. She noted, for instance, that in one-fifth of sexual acts depicted in nonpornographic literature of the early 1970's involved a rape. Almost all rape scenes culminated in the victim's orgasm. Susan Griffin (1971) has pointed out that American culture has conflicting attitudes about rape. On the one hand it is illegal, but on the other it is regarded as an understandable act. The male sex drive is thought of as difficult for men to control, and women who are victimized by rapists are often seen as having somehow invited the act. Women are portrayed as wishing to be dominated, so although they are expected to be the gatekeepers of sexual morality, they are not taken seriously when they try to refuse sexual advances. Ironically, a culture that defines true masculinity as successful, aggressive, sexual dominance of women also defines the ideal, chivalrous man as a protector of women, a concept not unlike that of the "protection" of small businesses by organized crime. Griffin has phrased this relationship succinctly: "In the system of chivalry, men protect women against men" (p. 30). Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that rape is most likely to be committed by "men who believe in a double standard of morality for men and women, who in fact believe most fervently in the ultimate value of virginity" (p. 30). Rape is the most common and least often reported of violent crimes in the United States. It is estimated that at least 90,000 violent rapes occur each year, and some estimates would place the figure closer to 300,000. Most rapes are committed by someone known to the victim. For instance, about one in four college coeds are victims of acquaintance rape or rape attempts. Karen Barrett (1982) has discussed some of the ambiguities and difficulties surrounding the topic of date rape on college and university campuses: Male aggression is often taken for granted by both men and women. Men often refuse to acknowledge that "No!" really means "No!" when the speaker is a woman. The conviction rate is low because prior acquaintance somehow minimizes the likelihood that sexual intercourse will be perceived as rape or as serious a matter as is rape by a stranger. College aggressors are often seen as youthful victims of their own sexual impulses and adolescent confusion. Some research has been done about effective strategies for stopping rape. Pauline Bart and Patricia O'Brien (1984) analyzed interviews with 94 women who had been attacked by rapists. They found that the women who successfully avoided rape used more kinds of strategies and different strategies than those who were raped. Successful avoidance strategies were fleeing or trying to flee, yelling, using physical force, or taking advantage of someone or something that intruded on the scene. Women who were raped often used no strategies or relied on affective verbal strategies such as pleading. Cognitive strategies such as reasoning with the rapist did not differentiate those who were raped from those who avoided rape. The most common successful strategy combined screaming/ yelling and physical resistance. Among women who were raped, those who had used physical strategies in the attempt to avoid rape experienced less depression afterwards than raped women who had not physically resisted. Physical resistence did increase the chances of rough treatment by the attacker, but nonresistence did not guarantee humane treatment and did increase the chances of being raped. Survivors of rape must still deal with the stigma which is sometimes imposed on them by others and the guilt which they may impose on themselves. It is important for society to recognize that it is the perpetrator, not the victim, who must bear the responsibility for his act of violence. The secondary victimization that occurs when a survivor of rape is stigmatized is itself a part of the institutionalized system of patriarchal dominance which focuses attention on the victim instead of the perpetrator, by blaming her for her own victimization. Thus, the patriarchal approach to rape offers only further subordination as the means for avoiding rape: The woman is told that she would not have been victimized had she dressed differently, had she not been in an unacceptable location or at an inappropriate time, or if she had been in the company of a man instead of alone. The woman who internalizes such patriarchal messages may victimize herself with guilt and self-reproach after being raped. Reading Assignment: 1. Karen Barrett, "Date Rape - A Campus Epidemic?" Ms, vol. XI, no. 3 (September 1982), pp. 48,50-51,130 -- An important first look at the problem of date rape. 2. James K. Skipper and William L. McWhorter, "A Rapist Gets Caught in the Act.: In James K. Skipper and William L. McWhorter, Deviance: Voices from the Margin. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1981, pp. 399-401 -- An interview of a rapist. 3. Dianne F. Herman, "The Rape Culture." In Jo Freeman, Women: A Feminist Perspective, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield (fourth edition, 1989), pp. 20-44 -- Describes characteristics of American culture that relate to rape. 4. Robert A. LeVine, "Gusii sex offenses: A study in social control," American Anthropologist (1959), vol. 61, no. 6, pp. 965-990 -- An ethnological analysis of rape. 5. Cathy Winkler, "Rape as Social Murder" Anthropology Today, 1991, vol. 7, No. 3 (June, 1991), pp. 12-14. A personal account and interpretation of the meaning of rape by a rape survivor. 6. Claire Martin, "A Story of Rape: Violence Against Women," Network: A Progressive Publication for Utah Women (August, 1992), pp. 12-17 - A dramatic discussion of rape with comparisons of the rates for Salt Lake City and other major American cities. 7. Pauline B. Bart and Patricia H. O'Brien, "Stopping Rape: Effective Avoidance Strategies, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 10, no. 1 (1984), pp. 83-101 -- Practical measures for dealing with the problem of rape. 8. Susan Griffin, "Rape: The All American Crime," Ramparts vol. 10, September 1971, pp. 26-35 -- The functional roles of rape in patriarchy. 9. Larry Baron and Murray A. Straus. (1989). Four Theories of Rape in American Society. Chp. 3, "Rape in American States and Regions," pp. 40-57. New Haven: Yale University Press -- Statistical analyses of U.S. rape data that tests several theories about the social causes of rape. 10. Larry Baron and Murray A. Straus. (1989). Four Theories of Rape in American Society. Chp. 8, "Toward an Integrated Theory of Rape," pp. 173- 195. New Haven: Yale University Press -- A summation of American data on rape with an analysis of its causes. 11. Anonymous, The Problem of Rape on Campus. Washington DC: Washington DC Project on the Status and Education of Women, Association of American Colleges, 1978 - Defines the scope of the problem of rape on college and university campuses and suggests responses. Note: The USU Police Department offers a campus escort service. You may call 750-1939 for an escort to walk you to any destination on campus. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Baron, Larry, and Murray A. Straus. (1989). Four Theories of Rape in American Society. New Haven: Yale University Press -- a sociological research study that tests different views about the social causes of rape in the United States. Roberts, Cathy. (1989). Women and Rape. NY: New York University Press -- A study of thirty women rape survivors and how they coped. HV 6569 .G7 .R57 1989 Vogelman, Lloyd. (1990). The Sexual Face of Violence: Rapists on Rape. Johannesburg, South Africa: Ravan Press. Summarizes research with rapists in a racially segregated and gender stratified society. HV 6569 .S7 .V64 1990 - * - 8. Sexual Terrorism Objectives: You will learn how the victimization of women can be institutionalized in ways that perpetuate male dominance. Films: "Fear that Binds Us" (A look at Ghana, where women are economic, political and social power rivalling that of men) "My Daughter Will Not Be Excized!" (Covers the difficulties of changing tradition) Background Material: Rape is not the only form of violence against women that plays a role in perpetuating gender inequality. Throughout the world various forms of socially approved "sexual terrorism" exists that symbolically redefines women as commodities within patriarchal societies. Genital mutilation, Chinese footbinding, and dowry homicides exemplify the concept of sexual terrorism. Mary Daly (1978b) considers these several forms of institutionalized violence against women to be examples of what she terms the "Sado-Ritual Syndrome," a pattern of customs of violence that has seven typical characteristics: (1) an obsession with concepts of purity (such as safeguarding the sexual purity of women), (2) the use of concepts such as "tradition," being "under orders," or "sacred responsibility," to erase personal responsibility for the atrocities, (3) a natural tendency to "catch on" and spread because the customs appeal to an imagination that is conditioned by male dominance, (4) the use of women as scapegoats and token torturers (e.g., the Medieval persecution of women as witches and the coercion of women into administering the violence), (5) ceremonializing the customs with compulsive orderliness, obsessive repetition, and fixation on minute details which detract attention from the atrocities, (6) a tendency for the otherwise unacceptable behavior to become normative as a consequence of conditioning through ritual so that the custom may endure even after it is officially abolished, and (7) the use of "objective" scholarship as a means of legitimizing the atrocities by replacing activism with ritualized "scientific" discourse. Daly (1978c) has portrayed the genital mutilation of females in African Islamic cultures as an example of the Sado-Ritual Syndrome in which the sexual "purity" of women was maintained by various forms of genital surgery that involved pain and loss of sexual pleasure as a means of insuring virginity in unmarried females and fidelity in wives. By making women who had not undergone genital mutilations undesirable as spouses, the patriarchal cultures in which genital mutilation is practiced coerced mothers into being apparent agents in the system, since they were forced to chose between advocating the custom for their own daughters or having their daughters stigmatized and unmarriagable. Daly (1978d) also has cited Chinese footbinding, which was practiced for hundreds of years, as an example of the Sado-Ritual Syndrome. This custom involved an obsessive fetishism among men for tiny, mutilated feet in women and perpetuated the subordination of women by literally crippling them in the name of beauty. A final example of patriarchal violence against women, dowry-related wife burnings, has been documented by Mitra Das (1989). The rise in dowry homicides in India is a problem that has grown out of economic changes resulting from industrialization. Das found that the shift to an industrially based monetary economy has particularly affected lower caste families for whom large dowries have become increasingly important, and that this change has resulted in a growing problem in violence and homicide directed against brides by their in-laws due to hostility over what they perceive to be inadequate dowries paid by the brides' families. Dowry deaths, often caused by setting fire to a kerosene-doused woman, were described as "kitchen accidents." Such deaths allowed the family to acquire another dowry when the husband remarried. Reading Assignment: 1. Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem, "The International Crime of Genital Mutilation," Ms, vol. 8, no. 9 (March 1980), pp. 65-67, 98, reproduced in Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, pp. 292-300 -- Discusses African versions of female genital operations and makes comparisons with American gynecological surgery. 2. Nawal el Saadawi, "The Question No One Would Answer," Ms, vol. 8, no. 9 (March 1980), pp. 68-69 -- A heartrending personal account by an Egyptian physician who was forcibly cliterodectomized at age six. 3. James A. Meo, "The Geography of Genital Mutilations," The Truth Seeker vol. 1, no. 3 (1989), pp. 9-13 -- Outlines the prevalence of male and female circumcision throughout the world. 4. Marilyn Fayre Miloe, "Infant Circumcision: What I Wish I Had Known," The Truth Seeker vol. 1, no. 3 (1989), p. 3 -- A personal reaction to male circumcision in America. 5. James L. Snyder, "The Problem of Circumcision in America," The Truth Seeker vol. 1, no. 3 (1989), pp. 39-42 -- Evaluates the lack of medical basis for male circumcision and describes problems that can result from circumcision. 6. Mary Daly, "Chinese Footbinding: On Footnoting the Three-Inch 'Lotus Hooks'." Chapter 4 in Mary Daly, Gyn-Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, Boston: Beacon Press, 1978, pp. 134-152 -- Describes the role of footbinding, a thousand year old tradition, on the patriarchal subordination of Chinese women. 7. Mary Daly, "African Genital Mutilation: The Unspeakable Atrocities." Chapter 5 in Mary Daly, Gyn-Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978, pp. 153-177 -- Describes the patriarchal nature of female circumcision in Islamic culture. 8. Rose D. Hayes, "Female Genital Mutilation, Fertility Control, Women's Role, and the Patrilineage of Modern Sudan," American Ethnologist vol. 2, no. 4 (1975), pp. 613-617 -- Explains the effects of female circumcision. 9. Njambi Mathu, "Women: Female Circumcision." In Copenhagen Conference, no. 5, 1980. InterPress Service, c/o International Women's Tribune Centre, 305 E. 46 St., 6th floor, NY, NY 10017) -- A discussion of female genital mutilation. 10. Savan Anglique, AAWORD, "A Statement on Genital Mutilation." In Miranda Davies (Ed.), Third World - Second Sex (volume 1), London: Zed Books, Ltd., pp. 217-291 (reprinted with an additional two-paragraph foreward, originally appeared as "Genital Mutilation: A Statement by the Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD), Resources for Feminist Research vol. 9, no. 1 (March 1980), pp. 8-9) -- Raises the issue of balancing efforts to eliminate female genital mutilation as an abuse of women against ethnocentrism and insensitivity to cultural differences. 11. George Denniston, "First, Do No Harm!" The Truth Seeker vol. 1, no. 3 (1989), pp. 35-38 -- Decries the medical practice of circumcision in America as a custom more motivated by economics than medical need. 12. Mitra Das, "Case Histories of Dowry Violence Victims," "Case Histories of Violence Survivors and Escapees," and "Case Histories of Dowry Violence Victims and Community Responses--The Police and the Law." In Mitra Das, Dowry Violence Against Women in India, unpublished Masters Thesis, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 1989, pp. 141-148, 149-160, and 161-191 -- Documents the problem of wife burning by in-laws in India. 13. Yasmin Tambiah, "Sri Lanka: Violence and Exploitation." In Margaret Schuler (Ed.), Empowerment and the Law: Strategies of Third World Women, Washington, Overseas Education Fund, 1986, pp. 145-154 (Read prefatory remarks, pp. 141-144, also) -- Discusses the various forms of violence against women in the Third World. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Asma, El Dareer. (1986). Women, Why Do You Weep?: Circumcision and Its Consequences. London: Zed Press. Discusses female circumcision in Africa. Daly, Mary. (1978). Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press. A passionatly argued examination of violence against women by patriarchal customs concerned with the control of women and their sexual purity. 301.412 D178g Jeffery, Patricia. (1986). Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah. London: Zed Books -- A look at the seclusion of women in India. HQ 1170 .J43 1979 Koso-Thomas, Olayinka. (1987). The Circumcision of Women: A Strategy for Eradication. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press -- A picture of female circumcision with emphasis on Sierra Leone. GN 484 .K47 1987 Smith, M.D. (Ed. and trans.). (1964) Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa. NY: Praeger. A remarkable personal account of a Nigerian woman who had always lived in purdah. DT 515 .B115 1964 - * - 9. Prostitution, Female Sexual Slavery, and International Sexual Tourism Objectives: You will learn about the international economy of prostitution and its historical connections to militarism and corporate life. Films: "Slaves of the Mob" (International sexual slavery in Japan) "Street Wise" (Runaways and teenage prostitution in Seattle) Background Material: This week you will learn about the international economy of prostitution and its historical connections to militarism and corporate life. You are encouraged to think about prostition in the context of abuses against women by having them explore (1) child-prostitution as one outcome of victims' flight from sexual abuse at home, (2) the role of fraud and kidnapping in the recruiting of children and women into prostitution, (3) pimping as the exploitation of prostitutes, and (4) international sexual slavery. Readings also include material on social efforts to eliminate the abuses of international sexual slavery and pimping. You should learn to distinguish clearly between efforts to legally control the exploitation of prostitutes from the currently common practice of legal victimization of prostitutes themselves. Werner (1984), in a study of paid sex specialists among the Mekranoti, a horticultural society in southern Brazil, found that the women were stigmatized, just as they are in our own society. He also determined that the income which they obtained through prostitution was counterbalanced by other economic losses that resulted from their stigmatized status. He concluded that Mekranoti prostitutes entered prostitution because they lacked other alternatives. This picture of coercive circumstances leading to prostitution parallels research about prostitution in North America. According to Weinberg (1985), research on adolescent female prostitution in the United States indicates that teenage prostitution is often a byproduct of escape from sexual abuse and incest. About two-thirds of adolescent prostitutes come from nonintact nuclear families, and as many as 90 percent have been victims of sexual abuse, including incest and abuse by nonrelatives. The relationships were, in many cases, physically coercive. Typically, teenage prostitutes were sexually abused by more than one person. Two-thirds were victims of physical abuse. Many had run away from home, and most were not living at home when they entered prostitution. Lack of other sources of income was a common factor in the decision to prostitute. Prostitutes' lives were characterized by violence. More than half claimed to have been beaten: About two-thirds were physically abused by their pimps, more than half were beaten regularly. Customers were another source of physical abuse. Prostitutes also experienced high rates of rape outside the context of prostitution, since they often worked and lived in high crime areas. The coercive nature of prostitution includes the outright kidnapping and enslavement of women in prostitution, a male dominated business of international proportions. Kathleen Barry (1979, 1984) documented the international trade in women as sexual slaves in Zanzibar, and outlined the patterns of traffic in women that had been documented by INTERPOL since 1965. The trade in women involved the "exporting" of women from various South American countries to Puerto Rico, European Mediterranean countries, and the Middle East. Some women recruited in Europe were sent to other European countries and to certain African countries such as the Ivory Coast and Senegal. The East Asian market relied heavily on Thailand and the Philippines for prostitutes. The information gathered by INTERPOL was allowed only limited circulation to delegates to INTERPOL conferences and to some UN officials and delegates and was not permitted to be made public through the media, since INTERPOL did not wish to compromise its working relationship with countries that had been willing to share information-- even though making the information public could have helped prevent the practices. International sexual slavery remains a thriving source of income for underworld organizations. For instance, unemployed women are recruited in poverty areas in Thailand with promises of well-paying jobs in Japan. On entry into Japan, they are taken into custody by members of the Yakuza, the Japanese organized crime syndicate. They are then sent to nightclubs and brothels where they serve, under constant guard, as sexual entertainers and prostitutes. Women kidnapped in Thailand have been sent to countries such as Bangladesh, where they are kept as prostitutes. Ironically, when the houses in which they work are raided by the police, these women are then sent to prison, where they are confined by the government. Lacking money to pay for lawyers, they remain imprisoned for prolonged perioids (cf. Shahana, 1986). Sexual slavery has also expanded into an international tourist business. For instance, sexual tours to countries such as Korea are a common feature of holidays for businessmen from Japan and various European countries (cf. Matsui, 1984). Charlotte Bunch (1987) has suggested a variety of strategies for opposing female sexual slavery. These include (1) efforts to end legal discrimination against women in employment, education, and other areas of public life, (2) decriminalization of the activities of prostitutes themselves, while strengthening laws against the enslavement of women by pimps, (3) the providing of refuge centers and supportive services that aid women in escaping prostitution, and (4) promoting the investigation of international sexual slavery and the education of the public about this abuse of women. Reading Assignment: 1. Renee Bridel, "Traffic of Children." In Kathleen Barry, Charlotte Bunch, and Shirley Castley (Eds.), International Feminism: Networking Against Female Sexual Slavery, NY: International Women's Tribune Centre, Inc., 1984, pp. 89-93 -- A brief discussion of the problem of international merchandising of children into forced prostitution. 2. Yayori Matsui, "Why I Oppose Kisaeng Tours." In Kathleen Barry, Charlotte Bunch, and Shirley Castley (Eds.), International Feminism: Networking Against Female Sexual Slavery, NY: International Women's Tribune Centre, pp. 64-72, 1984 -- A poignant appraisal of the sexual exploitation of Korean women by international sexual tourism. 3. Lin Lap (trans.). "Brochure for dutch Sex Tours to Thailand." In Kathleen Barry, Charlotte Bunch, and Shirley Castley (Eds.), International Feminism: Networking Against Female Sexual Slavery, NY: International Women's Tribune Centre, 1984, pp. 64-72 -- Illustrates the explicitly sexual nature of sexual tourism. 4. Kathleen Barry, "Advertisement for Colombian Women Sold in the U.S." In Kathleen Barry, Charlotte Bunch, and Shirley Castley (Eds.), International Feminism: Networking Against Female Sexual Slavery, NY: International Womens Tribune Centre, Inc., 1984, pp. 125- 126 -- An illustration of how "above-ground" female sexual slavery is. 5. JoAnn L. Miller. (1991). "Prostitution in Contemporary American Society," chp. 4 (pp. 45-57) in Elizabeth Gruaerholz and Mary A. Koralewski (Eds.) Sexual Coercion: A Sourcebook on Its Nature, Causes, and Prevention. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books -- A description of American prostitution. 6. Dilruba Shahana, "Trafficking in Girls and Women in Bangladesh," Canadian Woman Studies, vol. 7 (1986), no. 1-2, pp. 114-116 -- Discusses the problems of the kidnapping and forced prostitution of children in Bangladesh. 7 Priscilla Alexander, "Prostitution: A Difficult Issue for Feminists." In Frderique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander (Eds.), Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry, Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1987. Pp. 184-214 -- Outlines the various feminist issues surrounding prostitution. 8. Kathleen Barry, "The Opening Paper: The International Politics of Female Sexual Slavery." In Kathleen Barry, Charlotte Bunch, and Shirley Castley (Eds.), International Feminism: Networking Against Female Sexual Slavery, NY: International Women's Tribune Centre, Inc., 1984, pp. 21-31 -- Examines the difficulties in achieving governmental cooperation in eradicating female sexual slavery. 9. Karen, "The Right to Protection from Rape." In Frdrique Delecoste and Priscilla Alexander (Eds.), Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry, Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1987, pp. 145-146 - A first-person account of rape and police reaction to the rape of a prostitute. 10. Dennis Werner, "Paid Sex Specialists Among the Mekranoti," Journal of Anthropological Research vol. 40, no. 3 (Fall 1984), pp. 394-405 -- Analysis of prostitution and prostitute status in a preindustrialized society. 11. Susanne Thorbek, "Prostitution." In Susanne Thorbek, Voices From the City: Women of Bangkok. NJ: Zed Books Ltd., 1987, pp. 79-86 and 112-113 -- Describe typical experiences of several Bangkok prostitutes. 12. D. Kelly Weisberg, "Adolescent Female Prostitution: A Review of Research Findings." Chp. 4 in Children of the Night: A Study of Adolescent Prostitution, Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1985, pp. 85-151 -- An assessment of the research on adolescent female prostitution. 12. Kathleen Barry, "The Traffic in Sexual Slaves." In Kathleen Barry, Female Sexual Slavery, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979, pp. 45-72 (Also read pp. 163-164.) -- A dated, but historically important, account of female sexual slavery. 13. Asha Ramesh and Philomena H. P., "The Devadasi Problem." In Kathleen Barry, Charlotte Bunch, and Shirley Castley (Eds.), International Feminism: Networking Against Female Sexual Slavery, NY: International Women's Tribune Centre, Inc., 1984, pp. 82- 87 -- Discusses the historical temple- prostitution complex and its contemporary manifestation in India. 14. Gayle Rubin, "Traffic in Women: Notes Toward a Political Economy of Sex." In Rayna R. Reiter (Ed.), Toward an Anthropology of Women, NY: Monthly Review Press, 1975, pp. 157-210 -- Documents the roles of women in traditional societies as objects of economic exchange. 15. Charlotte Bunch, "Strategies For Organizing Against Female Sexual Slavery." In Charlotte Bunch, Passionate Politics, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1987, pp. 306-320 -- Suggests some practical approaches for efforts against female sexual slavery. society. 16. Siriporn Skrobanek, "Strategies Against Prostitution in Thailand." In Miranda Davies (Ed.), Third World - Second Sex (Vol. 2), London: Zed Books Ltd., 1987, pp. 211-217 -- Recounts the history of efforts in Thailand to combat prostitution. 17. Noeleen Heyzer, "The Trade in Female Sexuality." In Noeleen Heyzer, Working Women in South-East Asia: Development, Subordination, and Emancipation. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1986, pp. 52-67 -- Describes the economic and social background of prostitution in South-East Asian countries and the historic connection between military "R & R" (rest and recreation) and the prostitution industry. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Barry, Kathleen. (1981). Female Sexual Slavery. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall -- A groundbreaking expose about female sexual slavery and the failure of world governments to address the problem. HQ 281 .B325 (1979 edition: 301.4154 .B279) Barry, Kathleen, Charlotte Bunch, and Shirley Castley (Eds.). (1984). International Feminism: Networking Against Female Sexual Slavery. NY: International Women's Tribune Centre, Inc. -- A collection of articles indicating current concerns and problems regarding prostitution and sexual slavery throughout the world. Delacoste, Fredrique, and Priscilla Alexander (Eds.). (1987). Sex Work: Writings from the Sex Industry. Pitssburgh: Cleis Press -- A collection of articles by and about prostitutes. Enloe, Cynthia. (1990). Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Examines the roles of women in international politics and economics. HQ 1236 .E55 1990 Weisberg, D. Kelly. (1985). Children of the Night: A Study of Adolescent Prostitution. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company -- a sociological study of the characteristics and causes of male and female adolescent prostitution. HQ 144 .W44 1985 Yamazaki, Tomoko. (1985). The Story of Yamada Waka: From Prostitute to Feminist Pioneer. Tokyo: Kodansha International. The life of a remarkable woman who immigrated to the United States at the turn of the century. HQ 1763 Y3913 1985 - * - 10. Pornography, Violence, and the Law Objectives: You will consider the legal issues surrounding pornography and sexual behavior from the perspective of the rights of the individual and the question of victimization Film: "Rate It X" (Interviews with men, including pornographers and advertizing executives, about their attitudes toward women. Background Material: This week you will explore pornography and the legislative control of sexuality. You will consider the legal issues surrounding pornography and sexual behavior from the perspective of the rights of the individual and the question of victimization. It is important during this section for you to become familiar with the distinction between erotica as an aesthetic issue and pornography as the exploitive abuse of women and children. Erotica is a portrayal of human relationships that enhances a desire for intimacy, communication, closeness, and/or nonexploitive sexual arousal. In a broad sense, it encompasses all those things which enhance sexuality as an expression of the human self, undivorced from emotion-- things that vary from circumstances that set a mood for intimacy (e.g., soft lights, comfortable dress, or the right music) to artistic portrayals of sexual intimacy. Since erotica is made up of symbols that express the human desire for intimacy and sexuality, it has "dialects" just as any system of symbols has. Thus, what has erotic appeal to people of one geographical, cultural, economic, religious, or ethnic background may seem silly, inappropriate, or vulgar to those of other backgrounds. As in art, tastes in erotica vary, but whatever its form, erotica is incompatible with brutality. That is the line that seperates erotica from pornography. In contrast with erotica, pornography is the exploitive abuse of women and children in the guise of erotica. The exploitation occurs on two fronts: the coercion and abuse that can occur in the production of pornography and the role of pornography in perpetuating images of women as objects of male domination and abuse. It is the issue of victimization, both direct and indirect, that makes pornography a feminist issue (cf. Lederer, 1980). The pornography industry can involve the direct exploitation of people as a part of the production of its product. Linda Marchiano (Lovelace and McGrady, 1980), for instance, has described how she was forced at gunpoint to perform many of the scenes in the film Deep Throat. Thus, pornography may include not only the portrayal of acts such as rape, but may actually document such acts. Similarly, the production of pornography can involve the sexual abuse of children (cf. Linedecker, 1981). The issue of indirect victimization is more difficult to address, but no less important to an understanding of the ways in which pornography can brutalize both women and men. Pornography portrays women and children as objects of male domination, and men's relationships with other men as the aggressive competition for dominance. Femininity is portrayed as submissiveness and masculinity as conquest. Sexuality is depersonalized and redefined as a form of masculine power expressed through genital agratification. Insofar as human beings are influenced by the role models provided by pornography, they are dehumanized by that influence. The indirect victimization embodied in pornography as a role model for its viewers is especially blatant in its portrayal of women as bodies and body parts rather than as people and in its suggestion, through the portrayal of rape and other forms of sexual terrorism, that women are mere commodities and objects to be exploited. Stoltenberg (1985, p. 6) expressed this facet of pornography succinctly: "Male-supremacist sexuality is important to pornography, and pornography is important to male supremacy. Pornography institutionalizes the sexuality that both embodies and enacts male supremacy." It embodies and enacts the ideology of male dominance, because it "...makes the reality that people believe is true, keeps it that way, keeps people from knowing any other possibility, keeps certain people powerful by keeping certain people down" (p. 6). Stoltenberg argues that pornography eroticizes male supremacy: "It makes dominance and subordination feel like sex; it makes force and violence feel like sex; it makes hate and terrorism feel like sex; it makes inequality feel like sex. Pornography keeps sexism sexy. It keeps sexism necessary for some people to have sexual feelings" (p. 6). It is the indirect aspects of pornography's brutalized portrayal of sexuality that are at the center of most controversy about pornography and how to deal with it effectively. This is so on two counts: First, pornography varies in its blatancy, and opinions will necessarily vary, as in all things symbolic, about precisely where pornography ends and erotica begins. Second, research to date about the effects of pornography is somewhat ambiguous. This is partly because the variables of violence and erotica typically have not been separated in studies of pornography. It is also partly because it is unclear whether pornography is best seen as a cause or an effect. Padgett, Brislin-Sltz, and Neal (1989) reviewed the literature of research on pornography and found that the linking of violence with sexuality had a number of antisocial effects, such as increased aggression and negative attitudes toward women and greater acceptance of myths about rape. Their own study of nonviolent erotica showed no effects on attitudes toward women or women's issues in college students but did find that actual patrons of "adult" movie theaters expressed more favorable attitudes toward women than did male or female college students. Malamuth and Donnerstein (1984) and Donnerstein, Berkowitz and Linz (1986) did find that the viewing of films that contained aggression against women, including films that combined aggression and sexuality, increased subjects' acceptance of interpersonal violence and of rape myths, but found that the portrayal of violence alone had a greater effect than did the portrayal of sexuality alone on subjects' aggression toward women. Linz, Donnerstein and Penrod (1987) reviewed the research on the effects of the depiction violence, violence against women, violent sexuality, and the degradation of women and found that exposure to some forms of degrading portrayals of women, nonsexual volence against women, and aggressive pornography did change subjects' attitudes about women and about rape. Reading Assignment: Note: articles from Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics are filed together under title Changing Men 1. Alice Walker, "When Women Confront Porn at Home," Ms, vol. VIII, no. 8 (February 1980), pp. 67, 69-70, 75-76) -- A literary treatment of the portrayal of women in pornography. 2. Larry Baron and Murray A. Straus. (1989). "Pornography." Chp. 5 in Four Theories of Rape in American Society. Chp. 5, "Pornography," pp. 95-124. New Haven: Yale University Press -- Examines the relationship between pornography and rape. 3. Fred Small, "Pornography and Censorship," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 7-8, 43-45 -- Opposes censorship while arguing against pornography and in favor of legal enforcement against victimization within the pornography industry. 4. David Steinberg, "Fantasy Enhance", Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), p. 8 -- Suggests that even pornography that is nonviolent and nondegrading in content may harm viewers' self- esteem by communicating that they must be someone other than who they are to be desirable. 5. Diana E. H. Russell, "Pornography and the Women's Liberation Movement." In Laura Lederer (Ed.), Take Back the Night. NY: William Morrow, 1980, pp. 301-306. -- Emphasizes that regardless of our stance on censorship, it is an error not to recognize the problem, express our feelings about it, and understand its causes and potential remedies. 6. John Stoltenberg, "Pornography and Freedom,: Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 5-6, -- Argues that the male-supremacist sexuality and femaphobia that characterizes both heterosexual and gay male pornography "institutionalizes the sexuality that enacts male supremacy." 7. Charles E. Cottle, Patricia Searles, Ronald J. Berger, & Beth Ann Pierce, "Conflicting Ideologies and the Politics of Pornography," Gender & Society, vol 3, no. 3 (September), pp. 303-333 -- Outlines the various political positions on pornography. 8. Michael Kimmel, "Preface: From the Editor," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), p. 4 -- Briefly sets the stage on the issues covered by other articles. 9. Diana E.H. Russell, "Pornography and Violence: What Does the New Research Say?" In Laura Lederer (Ed.), Take Back the Night. NY: William Morrow, 1980, pp. 272-278 -- Summarizes research on pornography and violence. 10. Van F. White, "Pornography and Pride," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 17-18 -- A member of the Minneapolis City Council and co-sponsor of the Minneapolis civil-rights pornography ordinance discusses in concrete terms some of the ways in which pornography degrades both women and men. 11. Minneapolis City Council, "Model Anti-Pornography Law," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 23 -- Defines pornography as "a systematic practice of exploitation and subordination based on sex that differentially harms women" and establishes nine specific criteria for recognizing pornography. 12. David Steinberg, "Feminist Porno-erotica," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), p. 43 -- Suggests that harmful pornography can best be opposed, not by driving it underground, but by reaffirming the importance of sexual material that "celebrates the best of our erotic natures." 13. Vernon R. Padgett, Jo Ann Brislin-Slitz, and James A. Neal, "Pornography, Erotica, and Attitudes Toward Women: The Effects of Repeated Exposure," The Journal of Sex Research vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 479-491 -- Reports a study of the effects of nonviolent pornography on attitudes toward women. 14. Elizabeth Rice Allgeier, "Violent Erotica and the Victimization of Women," SIECUS REPORT 11(5/6, May/June), 1983, reprinted in Ollie Pocs (Ed.), Annual Editions: Readings in Human Sexuality 85/86, Guilford, CT: The Dushkin Publishing Group, 1985, pp. 214-216 -- Discusses studies of the effects of violent pornography on violence toward women. 15. Hilary Johnson, "The New Research is Compelling" in Robert T. Francouer (Ed.), Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Human Sexuality, Robert T. Francoeur (Ed.), Guilford, CT: The Dushkin Publishing Group, 1987, pp. 235-245 (originally appeared as "Violence Against Women-- Is Porn to Blame?" Vogue September 1985, pp. 678-679, 750-752) -- Discusses research about the harmful effects of pornography. 16. Beverly LaBelle, "Snuff--The Ultimate in Woman-Hating." In Laura Lederer (Ed.), Take Back the Night. NY: William Morrow, 1980, pp. 272-278 -- Describes "Snuff", a film advertized as containing an actual murder and feminist reaction to it. 17. Michael Levy, "Miss San Francisco Pageant Protest," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), p. 11 -- Reports an action by the Direct Action Task Group of the California Anti-sexist Men's Political Caucus. 18. Citizens for Media Responsibility Without Law, "Sex is Not Obscene" Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 24-25 -- Calls for civil disobedience against objectification of and violence against women both in the entertainment media and in advertising. 19. Daniel Linz, Edward Donnerstein, and Steven Penrod, "Sexual Violence in the Mass Media." In Phillip Shaver and Clyde Hendrick (Eds.), Sex and Gender, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1987. Pp. 95- 123 -- An overview of research on the effects of the portrayal of violence against women, degradation of women, and sexual violence. 20. Carole S. Vance, "Fear of Porn--What's Really Behind It?" Vogue, September 1985, pp. 679, 680, 752, reprinted as "Ordinances Restricting Pornography Could Damage Women," in Robert T. Francouer (Ed.), Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Human Sexuality, Robert T. Francoeur (Ed.), Guilford, CT: The Dushkin Publishing Group, 1987, pp. 233-245 -- Disputes the application of laboratory research in artificial settings to real life conditions. 21. Dexter Guerrieri, "Pornography and Silent Men," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 9-10 -- Contends that by confusing nudity, sex, and power pornography teaches a subliminal message of mysogyny in which mutual love-making is supplanted by dominance. 22. Kate Ellis, "No Sexuality Without Representation: A Feminist View," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 13 -- A victim of violent sexual assault opposes censorship as a misguided emphasis on fantasy instead of real violence. 23. Chris Clark, "Pornography Without Power?" Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 15-16 -- A gay male supports Steinem's contention that "any definition of pronography in a male-dominated society...probably would punish the wrong people," for instance by defining gay erotica as more "pornographic" than heterosexual erotica. 24. Therese Stanton, "Fighting for Our Existence," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 21-22, reprinted from the New York Native -- Argues that the Minneapolis anti- pornography law gave women a real opportunity for legal effectiveness against victimization of women, children, and other minorities by the eight billion dollar a year pornography industry. 25. Feminist Anticensorship Taskforce (FACT), "Feminism and Censorship: Strange Bedfellows?" Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), p. 12 -- Argues that although censorship has often been done in the name of women, it has consistently been to their detriment. 26. Jim Koplin and Gordon T. K. Cox, "Men Organizing Against Pornogrphy," Changing Men: Issues in Gender, Sex and Politics no. 15 (Fall 1985), pp. 19-20 -- Members of the Pornography Resource Center discuss action by the Men Against Pornography Task Force. 27. Catharine A. MacKinnon, "Turning Rape Into Pornography: Postmodern Genocide," Ms., vol. 4, no. 1 (July/August 1993), pp. 24-30 -- Examines the uses of videotaped rapes and torture of women as a tactic of war in Bosnia-Herzogovina and Croatia. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Donnerstein, Edward, Daniel Linz, and Steven Penrod. (1987). The Question of Pornography: Research Findings and Policy Implications. NY: The Free Press -- Examines the research on the effects of pornography, with emphasis on the differences in the effects of portrayals of violence, violence and sexuality, and erotica without violence. HQ 471 . D66 1987 Dworkin, Andrea, and Catharine A. MacKinnon. (1988). Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality. Minneapolis: Organizing Against Pornography -- Examines the civil rights issues surrounding pornography and discusses approaches to legal control of pornography. Lederer, Laura (Ed.). (1980). Take Back the Night. NY: William Morrow -- A classic collection of empassioned feminist articles against pornography. 471 .T27.19806 1980 Linedecker, Clifford L. (1981). Children in Chains. NY: Everest House Publisher -- Provides factual information about the use of children in the production of pornography. HQ 144 .L56 1981 Lovelace, Linda, and Mike McGrady. (1980). Ordeal. Secacus, NJ: Citadel Press -- Autobiography of actress Linda Lovelace in which she tells how she was coerced and raped during filming. Malamuth, Neil M., and Edward Donnerstein. (1984). Pornography and Sexual Aggression. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, Inc. -- Summarizes and analyses the research on the effects of pornography and discusses legal aimplications of research on pornography. HQ 471 .P646 1984 McKinney, Kathleen, and Nick Maroules (Eds.). (1991). Sexual Coercion: A Sourcebook on Its Nature, Causes, and Prevention. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books -- A major contribution to the study of sexual harassment and rape. HV 6558 .S491 1991 - * - 11. Sexuality and Reproductive Rights Objectives: You will gain insights into the history and politics of abortion in the United States as an issue concerning the status and rights of women. Film: "Abortion for Life" (A pro-choice film by the Fund for the Feminist Majority) "Abortion Denied" (Documents the harmful effects of parental notification laws for abortions by minors) "When Abortion Was Illegal: Untold Stories" (Women who had illegal abortions tell their own story and doctors and health-care workers describe attempts to save women from the effects of botched abortions) Background Material: The topic of women's rights to autonomy in their choices concerning sexuality and reproduction are then addressed. Abortion is examined as a reproductive right of women, and the abuses of governments in either mandating or denying access to abortion are presented. Strangely, the most intimate of human rights, the right to control one's own reproductive life, has often been controlled and limited in various ways throughout history and in most human societies. Authority over women's reproductive lives is often vested in the families into which they are born or married, in their communities and governments, and in their religious leaders more than in themselves. For instance, Mosher (1983) has documented the strong governmental role in limiting family size in the People's Republic of China that has led in some instances to coercive pressure against women who have previously born children to undergo unwanted abortions, sometimes as late as in the seventh month of pregnancy. In other countries, women's access to contraceptive information and abortion has been denied by governmental action. Abortion has become a major reproductive rights issue in the United States. Most people are unaware that opposition to abortion is a fairly recent phenomenon. Judeo-Christian scriptures, for instance, are mute on the issue, there being no word for abortion in classical Hebrew. In the early United States, it was commonly believed that the fetus did not achieve human status until "quickening," the time around 16 to 18 weeks after conception when a pregnant woman first feels the movement of the fetus within her. Common religious ideology among Christian religions held quickening to be the time of ensoulment, when the human spirit entered the developing fetus. Thus, abortion prior to this time was not regarded as the taking of a human life. The pregnant woman, of course, was the only person who could say whether quickening had occurred, so prosecution of abortion was impractical. Jewish theology had always regarded the woman's life and health to outweigh the value of the potential human that was within her, and the dominant Jewish theological position on "personhood" was that humanity was acquired, as with Adam, with the first "breath of life." When states began to pass laws against abortion in the 1860's, the major force behind this change was the American Medical Association which was founded at this time. They lobbied for legislation to support the professionalization of medicine. Among the legislation which they sought were laws requiring the licensure of medical practitioners, the outlawing of midwifery (mostly women), and the end of abortions other than those which were performed under the advice and control of licensed medical doctors (mostly men). Two major arguments were raised against abortion: Medical doctors emphasized the dangers of abortion to women, since at that time women were safer carrying a pregnancy to full-term than they were having an abortion (a condition that changed only when antibiotics became widely available in the middle of the twentieth century). Victorian crusaders against illicit sex also lent their support against abortion, which they saw as making nonmarital sex easier. During this period many states passed laws against any form of nonprocreative sex, including for instance, oral sex, masturbation, and sodomy. Thus, legislation against abortion can be viewed as part of a broader effort to control nonprocreative sex and to move reproductive decisions from the hands of women to men. Of course, abortions did not come to an end when they were outlawed. Women continued to exercise control over their reproductive lives within the constraints that government had imposed. Abortions were carried out by nonqualified practitioners in unsterile conditions or by pregnant women for themselves. Deaths from abortion therefore increased tremendously, to thousands each year, until abortion became once again legal in 1973 after which the number of deaths dropped to near zero. In 1973 the Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade declared that a woman's right to an abortion prior to fetal viability the point in fetal development at about 24 weeks of pregnancy (two-thirds of the way through pregnancy) when the fetus' lungs are capable of sustaining life outside the womb, to be legally protected by constitutionally derived rights of privacy. Abortions by licensed physicians were to be unrestricted during the first trimester of pregnancy, clinics could be regulated in their abortion procedures during the second trimester, and abortions could be limited to circumstances involving the life or health of the woman in the third trimester. Although advances in medical technology since 1973 have increased the survival rates of premature infants born after 24 weeks, there has been little improvement in the survival of premature infants born before this time. Since Roe v. Wade, political activism against abortion rights has increased. Between the middle of 1988 and the end of 1989, about 26,000 "Operation Rescue" demonstrators had been arrested during attempts to blockade and shut down medical facilities which included abortions among their services. As of April, 1990, 137 abortion clinics have been fire bombed. Several state legislatures have considered or passed legislation limiting abortion rights. For instance in early 1990, the Idaho legislature passed a "trigger law" that would have gone into effect if Roe v. Wade were to be invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court. It outlawed all abortions except for pregnancies that involved rape, incest, threat to the life of the pregnant woman, or profound fetal deformity. Rapes had to be reported within 48 hours of the incident to make an abortion acceptable. The law required mandatory prison sentences and fines for the women, doctors, and support staff involved in illegal abortions. The law was so restrictive in a variety of ways that Richard Wilkins, a Brigham Young University law professor and anti-abortion activist, advised Idaho's governor that the law was clearly unconstitutional and would therefore strengthen Roe v. Wade if it were to be tested in the courts. Following Governor Andrus' veto, Wilkins was harrassed as a traitor to the "pro-life" movement and even received a death threat from activists in Idaho. The legislature of Louisiana also passed two restrictive abortion bills in 1990, both of which were vetoed. The second law was so restrictive that it forbade all abortions except those performed to save a woman's life. Doctors who perform abortions would be subject to a 10 year jail sentence and a fine of up to $100,000. In 1987 about 15,000 abortions were carried in Louisiana, one of which was reportedly to end a pregnancy that had resulted from rape. Governor Buddy Roemer, a traditionally anti-abortion politician, vetoed the bill on the grounds that it made no exception in cases of rape or incest, saying "Women cannot and should not be forced to bear the consequences of these traumatic, illegal acts." The bill's author, Representative Woody Jenkins characterized the veto very differently: "He's for killing 15,000 unborn children a year in Louisiana just to make sure that one child conceived in rape is also killed." In 1989 President George Bush vetoed a major bill that expanded Medicaid funding for abortions for poor victims of rape or incest in cases in which the crimes had been promptly reported. Under the reporting standards in the bill, it is estimated that the funding would have been available to only about 100 rape/incest victims per year (representing an expense of about $25,000 per year). Nevertheless, the President found this to be objectionable enough to veto the $156 billion dollar Medicaid funding bill (Doerr and Prescott, 1990, p. x). The judicial system has also been involved in limiting abortion rights. For instance, the Roe v. Wade ruling was limited in 1989 by a 5 to 4 decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. This decision narrowly upheld a Missouri law that limited women's access to abortion by defining "human life" as beginning at conception and requiring expensive medical tests for fetal viability for any woman who was 19 or more weeks pregnant. Polls by New York Times/CBS News, Mason-Dixon Research, Media General/AP, USA Today/Gannett and other organizations immediately following the Webster decision consistently found that the majority of Americans opposed the ruling, and nationwide polls since then have indicated a trend of increasing support for women's abortion rights since the Webster decision. A Gallup Poll reported in April, 1990, indicated that 32 percent of Americans favor the legality of abortions under any circumstances (up from 23 percent in 1981), 12 percent favor the total outlawing of all abortions under any circumstances (down from 21 percent in 1981), and 55 percent favored the legality of abortions under certain circumstances (up slightly from 52 percent in 1981). Today, about 1.6 million legal abortions occur in the United States each year. Between 90.5 and 93 percent of these are performed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. A total of 99.2 percent are performed before 20 weeks, and only about 100 (less than 0.01 percent) are performed after 24 weeks. It is estimated that about 46 percent of U.S. women will have an abortion. The frequency of abortions has not increased significantly since Roe v. Wade. About one in three American women experienced abortion in the early 1800's compared with a ratio of only one in four today, and it has been estimated that there were between half a million and 1.2 million illegal abortions each year in the United States in the late 1960's. Amazingly, research by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations, 1989) indicates that about half of the women who have abortions were using contraception during the month in which they became pregnant. This suggests that both improvements in the effectiveness of contraception and in contraception education would be effective ways of reducing the number of abortions in this country. Yet, anti-abortion activists tend also to oppose contraception research and education. Similarly, 'pro-life' legislators have been half as likely as 'pro-choice' legislators to vote in favor of child-care legislation (Prescott, 1990). Due to anti-contraception lobbying by such groups, the number of pharmaceutical firms doing research on contraception in the United States has dropped from 7 in 1973 to 1 in 1990. This seeming contradiction in the tactics of anti-choice activists suggests that more is at issue than simply abortion. Nock and Kingston (1990, pp. 206-213) argue that the anti-abortion campaign is a symbolic attack on equality for women. They point out, for instance, that the opposition to women's rights to make decisions about abortion coupled with opposition to the availability of effective birth control and birth control information, if successful, would make motherhood inevitable for most women and thereby place severe limitations on the ability of women to play an equal role with men in society at large. The underlying difference, then, between anti-choice and pro-choice individuals is their beliefs and attitudes about gender roles and the equality of men and women. "Pro-life" activists hold men and women to be basically different, and view motherhood as the natural role of women. This differs from the egalitarian attitudes of those who support women's rights to control their own reproductive lives. Reading Assignment: 1. Katha Pollitt, "A New Assault on Feminism: Fetal Rights" The Nation, (26 March 1990), pp. 409-418 -- Discusses the effects of the concept of "fetal rights" on women and demonstrates that anti-abortion efforts are actually about controlling women. 2. Karl Sagan and Ann Druyan, "Is It Possible To Be Pro-Life and Pro- Choice?," Parade (April 22, 1990), pp. 4-8 -- An attempt to present a balanced look at both sides of the issue. 3. Gloria Steinem, "Steinem: Reproductive Freedom a Basic Right," Planned Parenthood Review, vol. 2, no. 4 (Winter 1982), pp. 5-6 -- A call for reproductive freedom as a basic human right. 4. Sue Paxman (Ed.). Exponent II, vol. 15, no. 4 (Abortion?). An issue devoted entirely to the voices of Mormon women who describe their own experiences with abortion. 5. Nadean Bishop, "Abortion: The Controversial Choice." In Jo Freeman (Ed.), Women: A Feminist Perspective (Fourth Edition, 1989). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company. Pp. 45-56 -- Discusses the legal status of abortion, who gets abortions, and the potential effects of attacks on Roe v. Wade. 6. Karen Breslau, "Overplanned Parenthood: Ceausescu's Cruel Law," Newsweek, January 22, 1990, p. 35 -- Reports the extremes of governmental control of women's reproductive lives in Romania, where reproduction was mandated, women were regularly tested for pregnancy by the "menstrual police," and childless women were assessed a "celibacy tax." 7. Ann Scott Tyson, "Chinese 'People Mongers' Prey on Women and Children," Christian Science Monitor, March 29, 1990, pp. 14-15 -- Describes the kidnapping and marketing of male children that has developed in response to China's restrictive reproduction policies. 8. Sulamith Potter. "Birth Planning in Rural China: A Cultural Account." In Nancy Scheper-Hughes (Ed.), Child Survival: Anthropological Perspectives on the Treatment and Maltreatment of Children, Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1987, pp. 33-58 -- Discusses the effects of government efforts at population control on women's reproductive rights. 9. Ellen Goodman, "Semantics Can't Tell Us Who Should Decide Abortion," Boston: The Boston Globe Newspaper Company, 1990 10. Steven L. Nock and Paul W. Kingston, "The Political Institution: The Politics of Abortion." Chp. status 12 in Steven L. Nock and Paul W. Kingston, The Sociology of Public Issues. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1990. Pp. 194-213 -- Reviews the history of the abortion issue in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and interprets the conflicts over abortion rights as a symbolic battle about equality of rights for women. 11. Stephen Mosher, "Birth Control: A Grim Game of Numbers." Chp. 9 in Stephen Mosher, Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese, NY: Free Press (Macmillan), 1983, pp. 224-261 -- Looks at efforts in the People's Republic of China as an assault against women's reproductive rights. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Doerr, Edd, and James W. Prescott. (1990). Abortion Rights and Fetal 'Personhood'. Long Beach, CA: Centerline Press -- A pro-choice resource book by Americans for Religious Liberty. HQ 767 .A26 1989 Ginsburg, Faye. (1989). Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community. Berkeley: University of California Press -- An ethnography of abortion activists in Fargo, North Dakota. HQ 767.5 .V5G56 (1989) Jones, Elise, J.D. Forrest, S.K. Henshaw, Jane Silverman, and Aida Torres. (1989). Pregnancy, Contraception, and Family Planning Services in Industrialized Countries. New Haven and London: Yale University Press -- Examines the causes of the high rate of unintended pregnancy in the U.S. through comparisons with about 20 other similarly developed countries. HQ 766 .P679 1989 Van Esterik, Penny. (1989). Beyond the Breast-Bottle Controversy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press -- Places the Nestle boycott and activist campaigns against the infant formula manufacturers in their context of the problems of urban poverty and the medicalization of infant feeding in developing countries. RJ 216 .V36 1989 Sargent, Carolyn Fishel. (1989). Maternity, Medicine and Power: Reproductive Decisions in Urban Benin. Berkeley: University of California Press -- Examines medical practices of Bariba women in Parakou, the People's Republic of Benin, and describes the influence of government policy on women's loss of decision-making responsibilities for medical choice, including obstetrical care. RG 966 .B45S37 1989 - * - 12. Women's Rights as Human Rights Objectives: You will learn to think of women's rights as human rights and will gain insights into the international scope of human rights abuses than affect women. Films: "China's Only Child" (Government efforts for population control) "La Operacion" (About 30 percent of Puerto Rican women have been sterilized without their informed consent) Background Material: In this lesson you will first become familiar with the issue of women's rights as human rights from an international perspective. Women suffer the denial of political rights in a variety of ways, some of which are similar from political abuses suffered by men, and some of which are different. Both women and men are involved in cases of arrest and detention without trial in a variety of countries and may experience torture as political prisoners. Politically motivated violence against women frequently involves rape as an aspect of political torture (cf. Adams, 1989; Ashworth, 1986; Anon, 1987, 1989). Calman (1987) has discussed the fact that political rights violations against women have frequently been treated as a "woman's issue" rather than as a human rights issue. This contrast has been exemplified by Mejer (1985) who has documented the difficulties of women in obtaining refugee status when they have fled violent and coercive situations. Reading Assignment: 1. Anon., "International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights World Charter and World Whores' Congress Statement." In Frederique Delacoste and Priscilla Alexander (Eds.), Sex Work: Writings by Women in the Sex Industry, Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1987. Pp. 305-321 -- Outlines the human rights issues of prostitution. 2. Leslie J. Calman, "Are Women's Rights Human Rights?" Women in International Development Working Paper # 146 (September, 1987), East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University -- Argues that women's rights should properly be considered to be human rights issues. 3. Adams, "Women's Tales of Torture," Feminist Ethics vol. 3, no. 1 (Winter), 1989, pp. 88-89 -- Documents the political use of torture as a human rights violation in women's prisons. 4. Marijke Mejer, "Oppression of Women and Refugee Status," International Seminar on Refugee Women, 22-24 May 1985, Amsterdam, Dutch Refugee Association, 1985, pp. 30-38 -- Argues for accepting the harmful effects of sexist oppression of women as grounds for granting refugee status. 5. Anon., "Torture and Mistreatment of Prisoners," in A Stern, Steady Crackdown: Legal Process and Human Rights in South Korea, Asia Watch, May 1987, pp. 87-107 -- Documents the torture of female political prisoners. 6. Anon., "Testimony and Rights." In Diana E.H. Russell & Nicole Van der Ven (Eds.) Crimes Against Women: Proceedings of the International Tribunal, Millbrae, CA: Les Femmes, 1976 -- Miscellaneous short statements about women's rights violations on topics such as forced motherhood, forced nonmotherhood, and prostitution. 7. Anon., "Women in China Are Sold for Wives," The Herald Journal, 2 February 1992 -- Describes the sale and torture of kidnapped women in rural China. 8. Margaret Schuler, "Women and the Law." In Rita S. Gallin, Marilyn Aronoff, & Ann Ferguson (Eds.), The Women and International Development Annual: Volume 1. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Pp. 155-187 -- Surveys legal issues and strategies concerning women's rights abuses as diverse as denial of the right to divorce, reproductive rights, and volence and exploitation. 9. Lori Heise, "Crimes of Gender," World Watch, vol 2, no. 2 (March/April 1989), pp. 12-21 -- International issues regarding the abuse of women's rights. 10. Yasmin Tambiah, "Sri Lanka: Violence and Exploitation. In Margaret Schuler (Ed.) Empowerment and the Law: Strategies of Third World Women. Washington, D.C.: Overseas Education Fund. Pp. 145-154 -- Describes human rights violations, including genital mutilation, violence, and coerced prostitution, against women in Sri Lanka. 11. Simim Ahmady, "Crimes Against Women in Iran." In Miranda Davies (Ed.), Third World - Second Sex (volume 2), London: Zed Books, Ltd., 1987, pp. 190-195 -- Summarizes a selection of newspaper accounts against violence against women and discusses the effects of patriarchal control of women's sexuality as a basis for "crimes of honour" committed against women in defense of familial honor against scandal. 12. Ximena Bunster, "The Torture of Women Political Prisoners: A Case Study of Female Sexual Slavery." In Kathleen Barry, Charlotte Bunch, and Shirley Castley (Eds.), International Feminism: Networking Against Female Sexual Slavery, NY: International Women's Tribune Centre, Inc., 1984, pp. 251-265 -- Describes the use of rape and other forms of sexual terrorism against women as a means of stat-sanctioned political torture. 13. Georgina Ashworth, Of Violence and Violation: Women and Human Rights. (Change Thinkbook, no. II). London: Change, 1986 -- A further consideration of violence against women as a human rights issue. 14. Lori Heise, "Crimes of Gender," World Watch (March/April, 1989), pp. 12-21 -- Examines political crimes against women throughout the world. 15. Anon., "Human Rights Violations Against Women in Turkey,: Interact (A Human Rights Bulleton About Women Prisoners of Conscience (Spring, 1989), Pp. 3-10 -- Looks at women political prisoners in Turkey. ANNOTATED SUPPLEMENTARY READING LIST Fumiko, Kaneko. (1991). The Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman. NY: M.E. Sharp. The autobiography of a Japanese woman who was convicted of attempting to assassinate the Emperor. CT 1828 .K32 .A3 1991 Ghalem, Ali. (1986). A Wife for My Son. London: Zed Press. A novel that describes the isolated life of the wife of a Palestinian immigrant worker in Paris. Gilad, Lisa. (1989). Ginger and Salt: Yemeni Jewish Women in an Israeli Town. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. An ethnographic account of immigrant lives in a diverse new town in Israel. HQ 1728.5 .G55 1989 Russell, Diana E.H., and Nicole Van de Ven (Eds.). (1976). Crimes Against Women: Proceedings of the International Tribunal. Millbrae, CA: Les Femmes. Discusses human rights violations against women throughout the world. HV 6250.4 .W65I57 Schuler, Margaret (Ed.). (1986). Empowerment and the Law: Strategies of Third World Women. Washington: Overseas Education Fund -- A collection of important articles on legal issues surrounding gender in the Third World. K 644 .E46 1986 Smedley, Agnes. (1976). Portraits of Chinese Women in Revolution. NY: Feminist Press. A personal narrative account of women of various backgrounds. HQ 1737 .S56 1976 Xueshao, Chen. (1991). Surviving the Storm: A Memoir. NY: M.E. Sharp. Life in post-1949 China, from the land reform, through the anti-rightest movement, to the Cultural Revolution. PL 2840 .H784 .Z47713 1991