WST 103:  AN INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN'S STUDIES
FALL 1995
DUKE UNIVERSITY

Dr. Jean O'Barr, Instructor
Director of Women's Studies
Office: 210 East Duke Building
Phone: 684-5683
Email: wstprog@acpub.duke.edu

Class meeting times: TTH 10:55-12:10 in 139 Social Sciences Bldg.

Graduate Teaching Assistants:   Maddie Adelman (Cultural Anthropology),
Melissa Aubin (Religion), Maria Niswonger (Cell Biology), Lisa Peloquin
(Sociology), Lisa Radinovsky (English), Christina Tourino (Literature).
Appointments with TAs are arranged individually.

Course background:

This is a course about the field of women's studies and how scholars and
students in it analyze women, gender, and feminist theories in the United
States.  To understand how the study of women, and then gender, became a
field of research and teaching known as women's studies, we need to know
how women came to be a category of analysis.  We will examine cultural
studies, history, philosophy, political theory, and social psychology to
study women, gender, the women's movement, feminism, feminist theory and
women's studies.  And we will demonstrate how the category of women and the
field of women's studies has diversified and become increasingly complicated
as it pays attention to the dynamics of race and ethnicity, class,
sexualities, age and ability.  This introductory course encourages you to
rethink and reevaluate much of what you have experienced and learned, to gain
critical vocabulary and analytic skills, to compare what you are thinking
and doing with others who have faced similar challenges and opportunities,
and to formulate a vision for your future by addressing selected personal,
professional, and intellectual goals.

Thus, the learning objectives for WST l03 are:
l. to gain familiarity with the development of women's studies as an
interdisciplinary academic field
2. to understand how women and men have gained consciousness about gender
3. to learn how to discuss women's issues
4. to study how sexism influences self, society, and the creation of knowledge
5. to analyze feminist activism, personally, publicly, and globally


Course Requirements:
You are expected to attend lectures, participate in discussion in lecture
and in small groups, attend selected campus events, write three short essays,
and take the final.

Small group discussions:

Seven times during the semester, the lecture will not be held and you will
attend a small group discussion.  You will be assigned to a discussion
section that will meet at 9:10, 10:55 or 12:40 instead of the Thursday
lecture.  All small group discussions meet in the East Duke Building.
Small group discussions will meet on 9/7, 9/28, 10/5, 10/12, 11/2, 11/16, 12/7.

Grade information:

Grades are calculated as follows: 10% for the first paper, 25% for papers 2
and 3,  20% on class participation, and 20% on the final.  There is no
midterm.  The final is an in-class final during the regularly scheduled time
of final week; the questions on the final will be distributed the last day of
class; one question will be required of everyone, one question will be of
your choice.  The final must be taken at the scheduled time.

The topics for the paper are given out ahead of time and the papers
themselves are due in small group discussion sessions.  The papers do not
require library research.  They do require extensive thought on your part as
you pull together the readings and the class lectures and discussions and
analyze a particular topic.  Papers are not accepted after the due date
without an authorization in writing from your academic dean.  The first
assignment is due in class 4 on September 7 and is entitled "The Quiz";
the second in class 14 on October 12 and is called "Generations"; the third
in class 23 on November l6 and carries the name, "The Airport.".

You are expected to contribute to class by regular attendance, demonstration
of reading, and participation in discussions both in lecture and in the small
group discussion sessions.  You are also responsible for attending at least
2 campus lectures that are announced in class.

Book information:

Five books are required reading for the course. You are to purchase 4 of
them; the 5th will be distributed in class at no charge.  They are available
at the University Textbook Store.  Area bookstores (The Regulator, The
Literate Manatee and The Book Exchange) have been notified and may have new
and/or used copies.  Used copies are hard to come by since most books have been
published recently.  Copies are not on library reserve; a set of books is
available in the Women's Studies office; see Dr. O'Barr about arrangements
for using them.  You will be reading about 100 pages a week in WST 103.  The
books, in order of use, are:

Sheila Ruth, ISSUES IN FEMINISM:THIRD EDITION, Mayfield, l995
An overview of the field of women's studies that includes both essays and
original documents.

Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill, editors, WOMEN OF COLOR IN
U.S. SOCIETY, Temple, l994
An anthology of original essays on African American, Latina, Native American
and Asian American women.

Carol Tavris, THE MISMEASURE OF WOMAN: WHY WOMEN ARE NOT THE BETTER SEX,
THE INFERIOR SEX OR THE OPPOSITE SEX, Touchstone Books, 1992
A social psychologist analyzes what happens to women's ideas of self when
the culture uses men as the normative standard.

Jean O'Barr and Mary Wyer, editors, ENGAGING FEMINISM: STUDENTS SPEAK UP AND
SPEAK OUT, Virginia, 1992
Personal narratives by Duke students as they have encountered feminist
scholarship.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK: IT WILL BE GIVEN TO YOU, WITHOUT CHARGE, IN CLASS:
Jean O'Barr, editor, PERSPECTIVES ON POWER; WOMEN IN AFRICA, ASIA, AND LATIN
AMERICA, Duke University Center for International Studies, l982
A set of essays inspired by the beginning of the UN Decade for Women in l975,
analyzing women's political power in third world countries.

CLASS SCHEDULE  (Reading to be completed for the assigned class)

I. Introduction

Class 1, Tuesday, August 29: no reading

Class 2, Thursday, September 31: see "Century of Struggle: Sexuality and
Social Justice"; read Ruth l-l9 and O'Barr and Wyer xi-l5

Class 3, Tuesday, September 5: read Ruth 20-50 and O'Barr and Wyer, l6-41

Class 4, Thursday, September 7, no lecture, no reading; attend small group
discussion # 1; assignment # l due

IF YOU HAVE ENTERED THIS CLASS LATE, BE SURE THAT YOU ARE CAUGHT UP
WITH THE READINGS AND ASSIGNMENT BY CLASS 5.

II. Thinking our way into consciousness

Class 5, Tuesday, September 12: "The dynamics of patriarchy", read Ruth 5l-82
and Zinn and Dill xi-40

Class 6, Thursday, September 14: see "The Life and Times of Rosie the
Riveter",no reading

Class 7, Tuesday, September 19: "The images of patriarchy", read Ruth 83-126
and Zinn and Dill 43-93

Class 8, Thursday, September 21: Discussion on reading handed out on Tuesday

Class 9, Tuesday, September 26: "Feminist responses to sexist stereotypes",
read Ruth l27-l7l and Zinn and Dill 95-146 and O'Barr and Wyer, 42-55

Class 10, Thursday, September 28: no lecture, no reading; attend small group
discussion #2

Class 11, Tuesday, October 3: "Male Standards, Female Experiences" and see
"Hillary's Class", read as much of Tavris as you can

Class 12, Thursday, October 5: no lecture, finish Tavris; attend small group
discussion #3

Class 13, Tuesday, October 10: "Female subordination: theories and
explanations", read Ruth l72-208 and O'Barr and Wyer 56-86

Class 14, Thursday, October 12: no lecture, no reading, attend small group
discussion #4; assignment #2 due

FALL BREAK (no class 10/17)

III.  Sexism realized: women's lives in patriarchy

Class 15, Thursday, October 19: "Women's personal lives: the effects of
sexism on self and relationships", read Ruth 209-307 and O'Barr and Wyer
87-110

Class 16, Tuesday, October 24: see "The Wilmar 8", no reading

Class 17, Thursday, October 26: Discussion on the reading handed out on Tuesday

Class 18, Tuesday, October 31: "Discrimination: the effects of asymmetry on
social institutions and their effects on us", read Ruth 308-442 and Zinn and
Dill 149-261

Class 19, Thursday, November 2: no lecture, no reading; attend small group
discussion #5

Class 20, Tuesday, November 7: "Women move", read Ruth 443-536 and Zinn and
Dill 265-318 and O'Barr and Wyer 111-160

Class 21, Thursday, November 9: Discussion on the reading handed out on Tuesday

Class 22, Tuesday, November 14: "Feminists Futures", no reading

Class 23, Thursday, November 16, no lecture, no reading, attend small group
discussion #6; assignment #3 due

THANKSGIVING BREAK (no class 11/23)

IV.  North American women in a global perspective

Class 24, Tuesday, November 28: "Global Issues",  read all of O'Barr

Class 25, Thursday, November 30: see "Speaking of Nairobi", no reading

Class 26, Tuesday, December 5: Discussion on material handed out on thursday

Class 27, Thursday, December 7: no lecture, no reading, attend small group
discussion #7; receive final examination questions