WMST 2000 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Walter Pater, Aphra Behn, Oroonoko

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Women's Studies
• Course: WMST 2000
• Professor: Martina Meyer

Document Summary

Performative - butler argues that gender is a kind of improvised performance. The constant role-playing of created gender; gender/sex/sexuality is performative produced internalized acted out. Gender is not a voluntary choice but socially prescribed behaviour re-enacted through generations. Film, tv, etc. re-enforces gender ideals by creating images social norms. In nature, both female and male parts are used for reproduction, both are equal. However, what it means to be a woman socially is used or thought of as inferior to males. Critique of patriarchy challenges social/political/religious categories that justify women"s inferiority aiming for social equality instead of man learns his power . Patriarchal ideology exploits sexual difference to create systems of inequality. Social ideas of femininity shape women"s experiences of self. Women as other : existential-phenomenological grounds in feminism. Plato: in order to become equal you must wipe out difference.